|
|
One lovely summers day I needed lots of milk for my shredded wheat, and yes we had run out !
so I hopped on the Green Bean and ripped up town to the supermarket. I bought four, pint bottles of creamy milk, nice and cold from the cooler. I carried the bottles between my fingers back to the Green Bean, where I placed them on the ground. I pulled the zip of my blue leather jacket up half way, then placed two bottles in each side of my jacket and zipped up further. With the Bean on its side stand, I turned the key and pushed the little button on the handlebar to start the Giant, but to my surprise it failed to fire up. Now you can start one of these puny pods using your hand to push the kick start lever. So no need to use the centre stand and do the leaping in the air act, just flip out the kick start lever whilst holding the throttle gently and push down with one's foot.
Now there was this old man sat in his car waiting for his wife and he looked across
at this pile of Jap crap he had fought against in his prime and sniggered as it failed to fire on the electric start, you'd brake your leg if you didn't get it right on his war time despatch dinosaur. First push of the kick start failed! what embarrassment, I avoided eye contact and jumped on the kicker, whey hey up I went into the air as it very unexpectedly kicked back. Leaning on its side stand away from me, I went over the bike somersaulting through the air, landing the other side sat in front of the war hero bottles still in tact, I rose to my feet dusting myself down, looked at the old soldier and said, "all right mate, I'm a stunt man! I do this every day". I turned walked around the 'Pea', cocked my leg over flicked up the side stand and hey presto it popped the power first time, twelve shredded stunt wheat, here we come !
Above the real 'Green Bean'
Blue Bean
Black Beast
Grim Reaper II
|
Colin Busby Forward
|
|
When we were teenagers we drove to Chippenham in my pale green Ford Anglia with 'radiator blind', George Fitch's 'Zephyr Six' powered Thames Van and Bruce Piers Sunbeam Rapier car, all in all about 10 of us were going to see Clockwork Orange in
'Studio One', on the Marshfield Road in Chippenham.
We pulled into the small lay-by in front of Studio One, George first, side door flying back spilling out the rabble with great noise startling the queue. Next I swung in, crashing into the back of George's van, lamp glass falling to the floor. As we got out shouting "we're stunt men", Bruce was kangarooing his pride and joy into the rear of mine spilling his crew of stunt men onto the pavement. Dusting down and gathering our selves together we climbed back aboard our machines and dumped them in the car park to the rear of the cinema.
Running up the stairs diving and rolling over the floor towards the ticket kiosk, into the dark of the cinema to our seats still doing forward rolls and diving over the seats shouting "we're stunt men", closely followed by the usher lady with her torch telling us to behave ourselves or we'd be thrown out.
Trip to London
|
One night as Robert William Gaisford and I were about to leave Martin
Tudgay's house in Marshfield, we jokingly said to Martin, "lets go to London" and he said, "yes good idea" and shouted up stairs to his sister Marion, "were off to London". She answered, "hang on I'm coming too".
|
|
|
Robert and I were just realising they were serious and thought, well why not. So at about half past eleven we set off deciding to stop off at my house on the way so we could change from my 'split screen' 4 door Morris Minor, to my dad's three gear 'flat head' green Ford Popular, as it was thought to be more likely to make it there and back. Up the M4 we went and somewhere past Reading on a climbing right hand curve whilst travelling flat out at about 50 MPH we were passed by a Marcos 3 litre moving at about 130 MPH. We arrived in London and found the place was one continuous sequence of traffic lights. We drove around for several hours passing all the major sites. Buckingham Palace being the most memorable, I don't know why. On the way back Robert was getting very close to Marion in the back and I was getting jealous of this, and also very tired from the long day and long drive. So I suggested he took over the driving and that he did. During are continuous joking and mucking about I put my foot through from the back between the front seats and managed to switch the ignition off. The key is in the centre of the dash and when Robert switched it back on there was a huge bang. This was due to the engine still tuning over and passing unburned petrol into the exhaust. We now had an exceptionally loud car with a split in the silencer following the explosion. When we decelerated off the motorway at Junction 17 we discovered a delightful new noise the car made when taking your foot off the throttle. Here I took over as driver and we drove all around Malmesbury racing up to every junction backing off the throttle to induce the incredulous back fire from the split exhaust at about six in the morning, hooligans!
David Forward
MG 1300
Austin A30
More Hooligans
RG 1966
|
|
