1952 ~ 2002: The End of an Era?
By David A Hardy

BIKING ABROAD
For our summer holiday in 1960 Ian and I went on my T21 on the ferry from Dover to Ostend, both insured to drive it so that we could swap, driver or pillion, heading for St. Anton in Austria via Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland. The weather wasn’t great some of the time, but it was a wonderful experience. On the boat I remember hearing ‘Apache’ by the Shadows for the first time, which blew our minds!

Something interesting happened on the ride down to Dover, which we made at night so that we could arrive at the ferry early next morning. We came to a fork in the road, I braked as I wasn’t sure which to take ~ and we continued straight on, fortunately only onto a grass triangle. For some reason the handlebars hadn’t turned, though they seemed fine once we had stopped. This was rather worrying, as if it were to happen on a hairpin road high in the Tyrol, it would not be good! So we got to Dover and found a motor cycle shop, and waited for it to open at 9.00am. They agreed to take a look, and half an hour later told us the news: I had recently had those twin horns fitted, on either side of the frame at the front. When the shock-absorbing front forks had sunk to a certain level as I braked, the front mudguard had been trapped between the horns, so the wheel wouldn’t turn. They moved the horns to either side of the crash-bars, where they could do no harm, and off we went to the ferry.

I had now started making waves at Cadbury’s to get myself moved into a more artistic job. I had already been put on the ‘Letter Opening’ staff ~ a prestigious and trusted position for which I was paid extra, but which meant I had to start work an hour earlier. As I walked down from the car park in my gear I sometimes used to see a pretty young girl with dark curly hair also arriving, and she would seem to look my way and (I thought) smile. Shortly I got the news that I was to work in the Design Office, which is where the actual chocolate boxes, wrappers etc. were designed and painted, catalogues compiled, and such ~ as opposed to the Studio, which was concerned mainly with advertising.

On my first day there I found a girl working quietly at a desk at the back of the office, doing lettering. Yes, that girl. As it happened, I was working on a book which required lettering for its diagrams, so I asked Christine if she would be interested in supplying this. She was, and this meant I had to offer her a lift home on my bike; it turned out that riding pillion was just what she wanted! Needless to say, we started going out together. We went up to the Lake District (it rained) with Roger and his then girlfriend Eunice on our bikes, where Chris and I got engaged, and we even went on honeymoon, down to Torquay, on the T21. (It was a little unfortunate that halfway these some oily residue in the silencers caught fire. I wondered why motorists were flashing me, then glanced behind ~ to see a white fog obscuring the road! Fortunately it seemed fine once we let them cool down.)

The only serious accident I had on the T21 was one day when Roger and I got back to Cadbury’s early after lunch, and friends and fellow workers gathered around as usual. One, David Elkin, asked if we could go for a quick spin. We went up Bournville Lane, left into Linden Road, left again through Cotteridge, and then left down the Pershore Road through Stirchley. There was a car waiting to turn out of Maryvale Road, and it let Roger past on his Red Hunter. Only a few yards behind, I naturally expected him to wait for me too. But he didn’t. He came out, I swerved to avoid him, but one of my panniers caught his bumper and we slid across the road on our side. I only had minor injuries, the bike needed some repair; but poor Dave’s leg was fractured and he spent weeks in hospital. Still it could have been worse: if a lorry had been coming the other way, I probably wouldn’t be here to write this. . . The Police prosecuted the motorist and we had to give evidence in court, but of course motor cyclists are always suspect, and he only got a light fine, as I recall.

Chris and I continued going to work on the T21 until 1964, when our daughter Karen came along. Of course, this meant that the bike had to be swapped ~ for a second-hand Morris Minor. I advertised and sold it, not without some regrets, and handed it over to a young man, with his father, outside Bournville Church. After a few weeks I did buy a James 150, which was basically the same engine etc. as my first Francis Barnett, just to go to work on, but never got on with it as it now felt so small and tinny, and I only kept it for a few weeks. (And anyway my friend Tony Naylor, in the Design Office, took the p*** out of me for it ~ see cartoon above!) In 1965, after being asked to work on 2001: A Space Odyssey (but never doing so ~ another story) I left a Staff Grade position at Cadbury’s to go freelance. We sold our bungalow at Hollywood, and after a brief spell in a caravan at Wootton Wawen we moved to a cottage at Haddiscoe in Norfolk, nine miles from Great Yarmouth, having been for several holidays on the Norfolk Broads. I hardly saw a motorbike then until I met fellow rock fan David Wallace (we used to go to see Pink Floyd, Focus or Hawkwind in Norwich), who had a Triumph 650 Bonneville, and he let me borrow it one afternoon to ride on the A143 into Beccles. That must have been around 1971.