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The club members

 
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sidecarkeith



Joined: 06 Jan 2007
Posts: 336
Location: yorkshire uk

PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 9:30 am    Post subject: The club members Reply with quote

Introduction to the Tomato Dip

Tommy (snowball) Snowden,

With piercing blue eyes that showed a cheeky side to he was tall and slim. He was nicknamed snowball when at infant school he once throw a snowball the width of a football pitch and hit a teacher, who couldn’t believe he’d done it.
Tommy’s rode a BSA Lightening 650, the bike looked like it had just come out of the showroom every time you saw it.
He was the one we followed and the one who got us into trouble with his natural cheek, but a better best mate you could never have.
I once (!) broke down on the BSA A10 coming back from Blackpool he stayed with me all night trying to get it started, thank goodness for twin cylinders we eventually managed to limp home on one pot.
One night I came home and my flat was flooded he stayed to clean up with me, not to his girlfriends amusement she thought she’d got him to herself.

Louis (pronounced Louey),

Louis was a nerd but with a heart of gold, if he’d have lived he’d have loved the computer age, anything electrical he could do. Like Tommy both died within months of each other from Cancer.
Now Louis didn’t have a lot of luck with bikes mainly because it bought rubbish then instead of asking us to do the mechanical side. He’d get all the wiring fixed then start on the engine fatal mistake!

His machine at this point was a sidecar which he rode on L plates, He’d taken his test three times and three times his bikes had failed on the test. (Some while later I did lend him mine for his final test to which he passed) at this point his sidecar was basically a big Enfield with some tubing attached to a third wheel, so it wasn’t long before he asked me if I could do anything. I’d moved on to making coffins (no, no bodies in them), so I started on an over sized version, I’d split the lid and the foot end lifted on hinges. After a couple of days it was ready for fitting, once on Louis sped off happy.
A week later Louis arrived at the Tomato Dip café, with a coffin painted black as he pulled up lights came on inside the coffin and the lid lifted up, told he was good with electrics.
Now Louis sidecar was European frame bike on wrong side for these roads, told you he was a nerd with bikes.

Kevin (Kev) Mackay

Kev had the look of the actor Timothy Spalding about him which seemed to bring the mothering side out of the girls. He had the other sidecar Ariel square four, which on it’s day was fast, trouble was it didn’t have too many “of it’s days”! This was the one the tools where kept in, his on the left side. Kev was the fixer you want tickets to anywhere, borrow a specialist tool or just sit in Barry Sheene’s pit he could fix it.
His Father was a freelance mechanical technician who’d been around the racing scene in his younger days, many the time you’d go down to his garage and see minis being tuned up next to a Rolls Royce being serviced.
Kev was another with the gift for the girls I once saw him make dates with 12 lasses in the same night in the same roller arena.






One night we got pulled over by two police men having checked our details, one policeman stood in the middle of the road to let us out.
Kev pulled right up next to him and said something (no idea what), then Louis (sidecar on wrong side) though he’d scare the cop by raising the lid when he got close. Whatever Kev had said the cop stepped forward looking at the back of Kev, poor Louis he went straight over the policeman’s feet with the sidecar wheel whilst the lid raised lights came on and now music blasted form the coffin, I remember clearly to this day, Monster Mash, Booby Picket and the Crypt kicker 5.needless to say we tried our hardest to keep straight faces as we passed.

Lee Holland

Lee was the straight guy wore his heart on his sleeve, his flying jacket sleeve that was, he rode the Triumph Daytona 500. He and Ray knocked about together, it seems a shame to just say he was a regular guy. But really he was nothing fancy about him but without him the place seemed empty, still around. His Teddy boy blonde hair as long gone and his slim waist gone too, but he’s still a close friend.

Lynne (Holly) Holland

Lee’s twin sister, she rode a CB 250 with no special bits, I had a thing for her, we’d hang out together at parties her best mate Linda went out with Lee. Alas it was never to be, when some years later I met her and found out she’d had a crush on me for years. What a pity we were both married by then.
She was a regular on our rides and kept with us even through the twisty bits.
Sad to say her claim to fame was one night at a party she bent over to pick some records off the floor and Tommy put his pint glass on her bum, I and Louis followed suit, they stayed on. After that we teased her to use her bum as a spirit level.

Ronnie (Tiger) Johnson

Ronnie was an absolute stunner, in this PC world I suppose you’d say she was from mixed ethnic cultures. Her Dad (a great laugh) was West Indian and taught me how to play calypso oil drums, much to his neighbours annoyance.
Clem her Dad ran the night shift at the café, sometime with his wife May, Ronnie’s Mum (yes I’d have given her one even if she was old enough to be my Mum too) was a Chinese beauty he’d met on service in Singapore. Clem’s claim to fame was a couple of years later he joined a band called the Equals, who had some chart success and a member called Eddy Grant. How Ronnie got into bikes I’ll never know but she had a Tiger Cub, but with a family like that why ask. Lynn and Linda were her protectors, fights often broke out over her don’t get me wrong she could handle herself. But people were less tolerant of mixed marriage children in those days and harsher with their criticisms of her background. The local modettes were the main protagonists and tease her something rotten, and a fight would irrupt.
Ronnie worked at the Dairy and got to know us in the café one evening she turned up for a ride and she stayed, a lovely girl but weird. Well what would expect from such a free thinking set of parents.








Finally Kenny (uncle to me) Preace

Kenny was older he was my brother Bobby best mate from childhood and helped me through out my teenage years, Kenny was the joker the prankster. Built like the proverbial Sh*t house wall, he was a rock, him and Bobby my Brother joined the Para’s together in the sixties.
Sadly Bobby died whilst in the Para’s and Kenny had changed when he came out, he rode his Bonnie as if he didn’t care whether he live do died, a couple of years later Kenny was found dead at home Suicide.
This isn’t a fitting description of him he was so much more and there was so much more about him than these few lines, I did after all call him Uncle.

But I’m here to cheer you up not turn this into an epitaph.

The day we went to Scarborough and Ronnie’s throttle stuck coming down the hill to the beach, across the main rode onto the sand where the front wheel dug in and she went over the top into the sea. We parked up and raced down the sand to find Ronnie uninjured but soaking wet, my she’d have won any Miss Wet T Shirt competition, Hmmmmmmmmmmmm!
Louis by then had a Tiger 140 solo the Meriden Triumph so returning back to the bikes having retrieved Ronnie’s from the sand, I was told to get the fish ’n chips. I got on Louis bike, Louis all 6’4” straddled the rear. Slapping his hands on my shoulders I set off rear wheel screeching, unfortunately Louis hadn’t sat down. So when I set off Louis stood for a second until the indicators had passed and hit the backs of his knees, leaving like a cowboy with an invisible horse.
We all settled down next to the harbour wall Lynn, Linda and Ronnie on the bench chattering away about girls stuff, above on the wall was Kenny eating an ice cream, and I sat on a lobster pot. Lynn had a hang on the shoulder tops on which was the fashion then. Next thing we knew the peace was shattered by Lynn’s banshee screams and running around the like someone possessed, whilst Kenny just sat there with his cone in hand but no ice cream in it.
Just outside York the heavens opened up, Louis had no gloves so I lent him my spare pair of summer gloves Kwaka green, we were cold and wet most of us in t/shirt and jeans. By the time we got to Tadcaster most wanted a hedge to jump behind, the rain stopped we stopped jump behind the nearest hedge and began doing what nature intended. Only then did we realise we were in someone very large posh garden (something to do with the owner screaming at us as she ran up her drive), alas all seriousness was lost when Louis appeared screaming even louder his hands had turned bright green from the dye (I did say they were summer gloves)!!
Oh the café was abound with laughter that night when we retold our tales to anyone and everyone who would listen, great days, innocent days too.

Keith

Today those that survived live very successful lives, Lee has a high up job in organising Leeds Utds youth soccer squads, and yes he did and still is married to Linda. Kev is a manager in the County Surveyor’s office, and Ray, he runs a department at our local brewery.
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4t



Joined: 31 Jan 2005
Posts: 61
Location: dracut,mass.

PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 4:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ahh! A good lunch time read Big Grin
Thank's!! Makes you think back of the good old day's Cool When men were men Twisted Evil

Cheers!

4t
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