So...here I am. I've just had lunch in Old Amersham and have arrived at Lowndes Park in the centre of Chesham. The only reason I have come here is because I have quite vivid memories of learning to ride my first bicycle here. The feeling of propelling yourself in a straight line without the aid of stabilisers for the first time is something you don't forget that easily! I can remember arriving here at Water Meadow car park in one of my parents first cars which was an Austin A40 along with my bike and a bag full of bread to feed the ducks. Up until then we had been used to travelling in a sidecar attached to my dad's Norton 500*.
An Austin A40...ours was a bit bigger than this obviously.
This isn't a photo of our 'actual' bike and sidecar but it's very similar to the one we had. Can you imagine two adults and two children travelling down to Devon to visit my grandmother on this?...we did it several times. We caught fire once but that's another story...*I am corrected by my mother who tells me that although my dad did indeed have a Norton 500, the bike he had when I was born was a BSA 500 and this was the bike which had a sidecar attached to it. So, for the record, here's a BSA A7 500cc bike...hopefully not too far off the one we had in 1961!
This is my dad on his Norton 500, year unknown but I guess at some point in the early 50's.
What a great looking bike! Strangely enough, I found myself parked next to a BSA C15 250cc just the other day here in Bath. The C15 was the first ever motorcycle I had which I bought in about 1979. It was blue like the one below but I decided to paint it black. I loved that bike but it did break down a lot.
My current bike, the Honda VFR 750 parked next to the BSA C15 in Bath.
1 comment:
Bizarre - my parents also had a Norton 500 single (ES2) to which was added a sidecar when my brother was born. When I arrived Dad got a grey Austin A30 van (see Wallace & Gromits) eventually upgrading to a blue Austin A30 with a white (not racing) stripe down the side.
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