Frog and the flagpole

CHAPTER 2

Frog and the flagpole

Early 80s

Flat #1

So it started off just like any other biker party.

Party’s of this nature would normally happen on the weekend, there were never any real preparations made for any party, all you had to do was just turn up with your own drink, which was expected and everyone knew this, the practice of bring your own drinks in whatever shape they were, was to help stop any stupid arguments later in the evening when everyone was full of alcohol, when rational thinking and common sense no longer exists and had left the building, it seemed to work to a point, there were always issues when you have a large number of people rammed into a small area, I remember at one party John Pig threw Wobble down the stairs out of a party, the only odd thing about that incident was that it was Wobbles party.

Once you arrived at the flat, you would park your bike around the back of wobbles and fat mikes flat and then join the fun at the party.

The rear of their flat was a closed off area with only one entrance for vehicles, and you would have to leave by the same way you came in, which made it safe to keep an eye on the bikes, the parking place was only accessed by a very narrow lane that ran along the right hand side of the flat and in-between the shop opposite, bikes or any vehicle that came up this lane made a hell of a noise.

The sound of the exhaust would rebound off the walls of the building and make the exhaust note ten times as loud, the lane was just about wide enough to allow one car to pass with very little room for the mirrors on both sides of the vehicle.

The entrance to the flat was directly onto this lane, you needed to be very careful when you were leaving the flat, has it was quite possible to get run over as you entered the lane especially if a car was using the lane as you left the building.

The sound of a bike or whatever vehicle that came up the lane would always alert someone that something was coming around the back which was where B.U.S ( Bridgend used spares ) was located, which is where PJ and Mike Keen worked for a while, stripping crashed bikes down for parts, the parts would be sold on to customers looking for cheaper parts then the more expensive brand name products, they also fixed bikes that were booked in for repair from Leslie Griffith's Motors which was a little way across the bypass from B.U.S. on Eweeny road.

Both businesses were run by Hayden Rees, a very well-known and respected person in the local bike circles.

PAN’S as Leslie Griffith's Motors was known locally, was the main Honda dealer for the Bridgend area.

The party goers bikes were all quite safe behind the flat, nobody would dare go near them, most of the people in the adjoining flats were either like-minded people or bikers themselves or friends who would be going to the party.

( Photo 1 ) . The flat has it looks today in 2018, the bay window above the shop is where all the party’s were held. the shop below the flat, was back in the day a post office run by two old ladies, the entrance lane to the back of the flats was on the right-hand side of the building.

The flat was situated at the south end of Bridgend town above the post office, which is now known as the Olympic Kebab House, lucky for us it was still a post office at the time, if it was a kebab house back then, we all would have had the prefix FAT in front of out nicknames.

The flat was on the first floor in Nolton street directly opposite the bike shop called TWO WHEEL SERVICES which was the main Suzuki dealer for the area.

No-one lived in the post office, it was run by two old ladies in the day time, who went home at closing time, so no problems there, not that we would have taken any notice of any complaints in any case.

There were two more flats on the upper floors of the building and one more on the ground floor behind the post office/ kebab shop which was occupied by various people over the years which included Joss Batey and at a separate time by John Hopkins, both friends and fellow bikers, the flat directly above the post office was where Wobble and Fat Mike lived and then there was another flat above them on the top floor which had numerous tenants and these would have been some of the like-minded people I mentioned earlier, not that they had much choice in what was going on in the flats below, but they always had an invite to any parties.

The party would have been arranged earlier maybe a week or so previously, the information about the party was only passed on by word of mouth which was the normal way of communicating, phones were very rarely used back then, everyone knew to go, most people knew where Wobble and Mike lived and what flat they lived in.

Everyone knew to go to the flat first, because the partying did not start in the flat, the pubs in Bridgend town was where the beginning of the night started and the flat was were we all ended up.

Anyone who intended going to the party would drop off whatever drink, helmets and gear they were carrying before going down town to meet up with everyone else in one of the pubs.

The flat was quite safe to leave whatever you had with you on the landing outside the flat door, if no-one was in when you called.

If nobody was there, a scribbled note would be pinned to the door with the name of whatever pub we were going to start the night.

We would meet up at one of the many pubs in Bridgend town, all of which were in walking distance from the flat maybe the YORK pub in the center of town to begin with, the flat was literary surrounded by pubs, within a two minute walk, you had the choice of five, the Couch and Horses, the Five Bells, the Old Castle, the Welcome to Town, the Kings Head, most of these pubs would be visited at the end of the evening before everyone piled into the flat.

The York pub at the time was a busy place and would be full of lots of people throughout the night, sadly now like a lot of the pubs in Bridgend and across the country have called last orders for the last time.

First a pint or two in the York then head quietly up to the Victoria pub in Adare street which was only a hundred yards or so from the York and then head toward the Welcome to Town or the Angel then to the Old Castle pub and maybe The Kings Head all three except the angel were in Nolton street and maybe a couple of the other pubs along the way, always in the direction of the flat, everyone would do this at whatever pace they wanted, no rush we had all night.

( Photo 2 ) . The York pub has it looks in 2018, to be honest it didn't look much better back in the day when it was open.

Just like most parties the drinking would stop when the drink ran out, and there was always space for somewhere on the floor if anyone wanted to stay, which was the usual case .

Back in the day it would have been standard practice for the 5 and drive approach to drinking and driving nobody took the law very seriously, it was always someone else problem.

The music we would listen to was all contemporary of the time, Black Sabbath, lead zeppelin, bad company, Hendrix and of course lynnard skynard with a touch of Argent that kind of stuff, at the end of the night in the early hours it would normally slow down a bit with Fleetwood Mac, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd and other songs that are regarded now as 70 rock classics throw into the mix and so on throughout the night, the music would not stop until everyone went their separate ways the next day.

We used cassette tapes mainly instead of LP records.

The cassette tapes we used were played at all the parties that we organized.

We thought at the time, what a jump in technology no one had to be swapping records over every 25 minutes or so, this practice of swapping or turning over the record to play the B side could get very messy as the night progressed with the drink flowing and stuff being smoked, it would end up with broken and scratch records which ended up in arguments which cassettes tape’s put a stop too, there were some issues with cassette tapes, they did have a tendency for the tape become mangle in the player which was a bit of a pain.

Ok so we were doing what everyone does at parties, just chatting about bikes and having a laugh and drinking and smoking to much and then the talk got on to the subject of bike rallies, it was mentioned by someone that the last rally we went on there were a lot of British and English flags being displayed over the camp site by the other bikers that were there, so not to be out done we said we have the best flag in the world who could argue with that statement, when you have a flag with a large fuck off red dragon on it, so it was decided at that point that we need a large Welsh flag, and we wanted it now, tonight.

So a group of us went on a mission there and then to get a flag even though it was nearly 2 O’clock in the morning, and we all have had a drink, which may have fueled the idea in the first place.

So off we went BRIAN, FROG which is me of course, WOBBLE, LAWSON and maybe VORN, we took 3 bikes my Rickman Honda 750, Brian’s GXS 750 and Wobbles Honda 550, thinking about it now in the cold light of day and 30 odd years later what a irresponsible thing we were about to do, we had been drinking for hours and now fueled up with drink and maybe some other mind altering substances we had decided to go for a ride .

We left the party in full swing, the hi/fi was turned up to its highest level even at that time in the morning, we had to step over bodies on the floor has we headed out of the door of the flat, we had to walk over them because there were so many people there it was impossible to walk around them, under normal circumstances at a party of this nature, if you found a comfortable spot in the room you would stay there or there was every likelihood you would have been standing up all night, there were people on the landing outside the flat and on the stairs that lead up into the flat, the place had filled up throughout the night has the pubs closed.

So we headed out to Bridgend industrial estate which was only about a mile or so away outside the town center, this we thought would be the best place to find a large Welsh flag flying in front of one of the many companies on the trading estate.

The roads were devoid of traffic Bridgend was very quite this time in the early hours, even on a Saturday night.

we would see an occasional pedestrian staggering off home filled up with drink after drinking his fill from a pub lock-in, Bridgend town had gone to sleep for the night, it was so quite our exhaust notes vibrated around the streets bouncing back at us as we passed the cars parked up on the narrow roads, there was no other sound.

I remember the weather was dry, but overcast with grey clouds blanketing the sky, if it was not raining it was a bonus in Wales and regarded as a nice night.

So our first stop was behind the police headquarters on Cowbridge road were they keep civilian vehicles for many different reason.

They had flagpoles, so the police were our first choice.

What better than to nick one of theirs, it would make the flag even sweeter to have knowing we nicked it of the police.

The actual police HQ compound had a strong 8-foot metal fence around its perimeter.

So we had no luck getting in there, the place was built like a fortress.

We checked the area, but there was nothing of interest in there for us flag wise, we were just about to pull off and search for another opportunity further into the trading estate when Brian spotted a chrome spotlight in the lightly protected area that was next to the high fence.

The spotlight was fitted on top of a pole directly to one side behind the drivers cab on a opened back lorry.

Brian decided he wanted it and went about removing the said object which he did with no great effort as it was only held on by one rusty bolt and in no time at all, Brian had a new spot lamp.

it was only attached by a single bolt, he used the tool kit he had on the bike to remove the lamp, he then hid the round chrome lamp in his panniers and covered it under his waterproof leggings.

Shiny objects, people can’t resist them.

We moved off shapely and quietly not to draw attention to ourselves, we cruised around the Waterton industrial estate in search of a suitable flag, we were determined to obtain something for our efforts before the night was out.

We were looking up at every flag pole we came across as we rode along, many of the poles had nothing to offer but British flags which we didn’t want, only a Welsh dragon would do on this night.

Other flagpoles had company flags which we had no interest in and some poles had nothing at all.

There was no traffic just us roaming the wide roads, everything was dead quite, there was no security at any of the places we visited.

We traveled around checking every place we could find that had the potential of having a flag.

We found nothing in the estate, so checking the time, it had gone well past 2 o’clock, well closer to 3 am really.

There was plenty of partying time left, but we had found nothing, which was disappointing considering all the effort we put into obtaining one.

So we decided to call it a night and head back to the flat and just chill for the rest of the night at the party.

We pulled out on to the main A48 Cowbridge road moving off into the direction of the flat.

As we rode past the garage on the same road just before the big black railway bridge there it was, our holy grail, it was there sitting on top of a very tall flagpole, here was the object of our mission, a very large welsh flag.

( Photo 3 ) . A Welsh flag, not the actual flag but one just like it, I took this photo on Aberavon beach in 2017, there is no way I could climb that pole nowa days.

We all spotted the flag and flagpole at the same time as we rode passed on the road, we all got very excited over the fact that our mission was nearly complete, and we had not wasted our partying time for nothing, so a little further up the road past the garage, we turned around in the middle of the road and then pulled up in the garage forecourt area.

We all stopped and took a good look over to where the flag was across the road and tried to sus-out the best way to get the flag down without being seen by anyone in the garage, and not to draw attention to ourselves.

We could see why the flag had stayed up there for so long and no-one else had borrowed it before.

This was one very tall flagpole, taller than all the others that we had seen earlier, it was quite wide at its base, but tapered dramatically as it got further to the top, at the very top of the pole it looked extremely thin and did not look strong enough to hold the weight of a biker, even a small one, well from where we were observing it, it looked impossible to get at.

It looked like we would have a problem getting the flag, but has someone said at the time, ” the pole must be pretty strong, for that is one big fuck-off flag hanging off that pole, the flagpole must be strong enough to hold the flag, think about it, if the flag was wet with all the rain we get in here or when it is windy the flag pole had to been designed to takes that kind of punishment from the weather “.

Someone else said “ so it should hold one of us with no problem without the pole falling over or snapping ”, so we convinced ourselves that it was possible and worth the risk.

The flag mission was still on.

The pole was on the opposite side of the road to the garage.

The only problem with the garage that it was manned 24/7 and lite up like a Christmas tree and the flagpole was in full view of anyone stopping at the garage.

The road that ran past the garage was poorly lighted by the streetlights which tended to emphasize the brightness of the garage.

The garage was a like a beacon of light in a dark world, the brightness shone right across the road illuminating two thirds of the flagpole from the base to a little further passed the half-way point on the pole, which made everything a little more difficult, if we could get some one up to the top in the shadow we would have chance of not getting caught.

( Photo 4 ) . Photo of the garage, it has not changed a lot over the years, the basic layout of the forecourt and the shop as not changed a great deal.

On the side of the road where the flagpole was situated there were no buildings at the time of this story, just a hedge and an open field beyond, not that it didn’t really help much, but at lest there would have not been anyone watching us from that side of the road.

The main road we were on was much busier then the other side roads we had just ridden on.

The vehicles that drove past were manly made up of the local taxi firm Radio Cabs, at this time of the night taxis were picking up and taking clubbers home from Drones nightclub on Tremains road and maybe Crossways which was just off the Island Farm road and other late night spots.

So we rode the bikes across the road, and then we pulled over and parked up along the curb a little way up from the flag pole maybe 15 foot away, trying not to make it to obvious with what we were doing.

The night clubs must have been emptying because the traffic had increased, there seemed to be a constant flow of taxis which didn’t help us one bit, when we thought the road was clear of traffic another taxi would come along and light up the whole section of road and worse than that the passengers must have been instructing the drivers to stop in the petrol station across the road for fags or whatever they wanted at 3 O’clock in the morning.

Time was getting on, the cars were becoming less and less on the road, so we finally got our chance.

A break in the traffic came which we took advantage of, Lawson was the first to climb up to get the flag, we boosted his climb by lifting him up as far as we could, he shimmed his way up the pole and grabbed the bottom of the flag and pulled down on it hard a few times, the flag did not move.

Lawson then shouted down to us.

“ The fucking thing is tied tight with some rope, I cant move it “ .

He wrapped the flag around his hand and pulled with all his strength.

The flag did not move, he gave up trying to undo the knot, he said “ fuck it, I'm coming down “ and then he slid down the pole without the flag, he lost his grip on the pole halfway down and continued his decent far to quickly burning his hands as he tried to hold on to the pole in a vain attempt to slow his decent.

This give us all a laugh, he looked at his hands palm up, all red with friction burns and looking very sore.

We all found it funny, well except Lawson, he was not happy, he kept blowing on his hands trying to cool them down.

( Photo 5 ) . The flagpole was on the left of this photo, next to where the hedge is now, the houses on the right in the distance and buildings on the left next to where the flag pole was situated were not there at the time.

And then it was my turn to go up the pole, I was the smallest of all the people there, so I elected myself to make the second attempt, we were not going back to the party without a flag.

I said ” ok, does anyone have a knife on them “, for one reason or another we all carried knifes of some sort, they always came in handy, Brian said “ hang on I have a Swiss army knife on me, that will do the job, it is sharp enough for that rope ”.

So armed with the knife, Wobble and Brian boosted me up the bottom half of the pole, me being so light they must have thrown me up 10 foot of it, I gripped the sides of the pole tightly not trying to make the same mistake that Lawson had and slide back down the flagpole at a uncontrolled rate of knots.

I began to climb very slowly up the flagpole, moving a foot or so at a time, always getting a little closer to the top I must have looked like a little monkey inching my way up.

Once I got close to the top, I found Lawson was right the robe was so tightly wound around the pole it would not budge at all, so I held on with only my legs, I wrapped them tightly around the pole hanging on with one hand and then searching for the knife with my other free hand.

I had put Brian’s knife into the top pocket of my denim cut off, I slide it out carefully trying not to drop it.

I held the knife in one hand and then with my teeth, I pulled the blade out, I was to busy holding on to use my other hand, so with blade in one hand I started at the bottom of the flag, cutting the rope.

I used a sawing action with the knife, the knife was Sharpe but the rope was so wet and tough it was hard to cut through, the progress was very slow, it seemed to take forever, after a while I cut through the rope at the bottom of the flag and the flag was finally released, I tugged on the bottom of the flag hoping the top rope knot was not as strong as the one I had just cut, it didn’t budge, so half the job done, I moved on to the next part of removing the flag at the very top of the pole.

I then shimmed up to the top of the flagpole, gripping on tighter.

The pole was much thinner at the very top then the bottom half and it felt and looked a lot thinner then it looked from ground level.

Once I finally crawled my way up to the highest point, the pole started to sway alarmingly, back and forth it swayed, I nearly lost my grip as the pole bent over from one side to the other, I shouted down to the boys below me “ fuck, I think I will be coming down quicker then I came up here “, while all this was happening an occasional passing car would drive past and illuminate the bikers at the bottom of the pole which was not a great thing, the guys would all turn and stare at the passing car, which must have been a little unnerving for the car driver.

The time was getting close to 3 am, in the morning, I kept my movement down to a minimum trying not to make the pole move more than I had to, when I felt safe enough to carry on with this mission, I then started to cut into the top rope.

As I was busy cutting my way through the hemp rope, I heard from one of the boys from down below saying “ fuck, there is a cop car “.

The Copper drove on the other side of the road opposite the flagpole and passed the garage, he kept going, he did slow down a little and paid some attention to the bikes at the side of the road, I could see he was looking in our direction, he was looking at the bikes and the boys just standing around near the bikes, he sped up a little and carried on further down the road, Brian said ” fuck me, that was close and then, we don’t want him asking questions ”.

Then we could see another a set of lights coming up the road, it was the same copper, this car did not drive past like all the other ones.

I stopped what I was doing and turned my head and looked down, what I saw made me say “ O fuck “.

It was the same copper that just drove past only a few moments ago, he had turned around by executing a 3 point turn in the middle of road and came back down the road towards us, obviously he was coming to find out why a group of bikers were hanging around at the side of the road at 3 o’clock in the morning.

(Photo 6) . A police Ford Cortina with the blue and white police paint job.

The police marked Cortina slowed down and then pulled up directly under the flagpole, I could see his headlights lighting the boys and the bikes up making the number plates glow in the dark, I could see wobble look up at me and then look directly at the car as it came to a slow and meaning full halt.

He just smiled, I think he was enjoying my elevated predicament.

So there I was stuck up a flagpole with a copper parked up directly beneath me, if this copper wanted too, he could make a quick call, and we would be all bundled off into a black Maria van ( old name for a police van ) and all the bikes could be confiscated, this would ruin or weekend, just being out at 03:00 would have been enough reason for them to arrest us, they didn’t really need an excuse back then, you could get pulled up on some made up excuse with no real explanation.

I stopped what I was doing and just hung on to the pole as tightly has I could.

While down below me, the boys started talking to the copper.

The copper did not get out of the car he stayed in the drivers seat making no attempt to leave the car, I could see his arm coming out of the driver side window and that was all I could see from my position up the pole, I guessed if I could not see him he could not see me, he beaconed the guys to come to him, I just seen the top of his hand making wavy come here motions.

Wobble and Brian walked around to the driver seat side of the vehicle, I could see them leaning over and talking to him, but I could not hear anything that was said .

The guys were chatting with the copper and I was hanging for grim death at the top of this pole.

The night air had made the pole wet with the evening dew and it did not help that the flag pole was painted white with gloss paint which made my grip even more tenuous to say the lest, I could feel my hold on the pole was temporary, my had kept slipping and sliding down the pole making squeaky sounds as I tried hold tighter, I had to continually change my grip to get a better hold.

I was wearing ex military German paratroop boots which had thick soles that did not help one bit to hold me up on the pole in shape or way, ( I still own and use these same Para boots all these years later, but not for climbing poles thou ) my feet slipped every time I tried to boost my position up on the pole, my legs being wrapped around the pole was the only thing that kept me up there.

The boys were only talking to the copper for a short time, but it seemed like a lifetime being four meters or more up a thin white pole.

After a short while the copper just drove off and everyone watched him disappear up the road, they all looked up at me and just laughed, I hurriedly finished cutting the rope that held the flag and when the flag was finally free from the pole itself I let the flag fall down to the ground under its own weight.

I shouted to Brian ” Brian, catch your knife “, Brian looked up and I dropped the knife down, he missed catching it and the handle broke off as it hit the ground, Brian still goes on about me breaking his knife nearly 40 years later.

It's very strange that people tend to remember little things about trivial incidents in their life’s and then at other time’s they have completely forgotten more important details that had more of an impact in their everyday lives, ( This is not important to the story, but I find it very odd on how memories work ).

Once the flag was on the ground, I then I lowered myself very slowly down to ground level, trying not to burn my hands on the way down just like Lawson did earlier.

Wobble told me later, what had happened with the copper, Brian had seen the copper coming, so he quickly took his road tax disc off his bike ( we don't use road tax disc’s anymore, everything is digital nowa days ) and put the paper disc and holder in his pocket, which was quick thinking on Brian’s part.

When the copper pulled up, Brian’s explanation to the copper was that, as we all had just pulled out from across the road from the garage opposite one of the boys had seen the tax disc fall off Brian’s bike onto the road.

so they all stopped and were in the process of looking for the metal disc on the road, the copper told them to hurry up and find it and move on, the copper was concentrating on the bikes and the guys talking to him, he did not look up or around, not that I think he would have had any inkling that we were stealing the flag off the pole.

he didn’t take any details nor did he ask to see anyone driving licenses which was the standard practice of the time, maybe he had just finished his shift and wanted to go home.

So once the copper had driven off, we hurriedly stuffed the flag in to one of Brian's bike panniers on his 750 and drove steadily back to the party, not trying to draw any more attention to ourselves, we were trying to be careful as the Bridgend police could be very awkward.

Bridgend was known has hazard county during the 80s for good reason, we had enough attention from them on normal days, there were always issues with them, the police attention would be regarded has harassment in today’s approach to police work, you had to experience the crap they put us through to really appreciate all the bollocks we had to put up with, being randomly pulled in for some bull-shit excuse or just been followed for no good reason, it happened so often to everyone, it became a running joke and became part of everyday life at the time, at lest it kept us legal on the road with M.O.T.`S and motor insurance etc.

Once we arrived back at the he flat, the same people were still there at the party and the party was still going on, the slower soft music was now playing and everyone was just chilling, we all had a good laugh about how we obtained the flag, so we proudly displayed our new rally flag to all who were there.

( Photo 7 ) . This is the very same flag that the story is all about, which we took on the rally’s, this photo was taken in 1982, at the Behind the Vine rally in Essex England.

The flag was used many times over the years, it was taken to every bike rally from that time on.

A non-biker friend of mine wanted to borrow the flag, he told me he wanted to take it to France for a Welsh rugby international, I said that he could, but I also told him if he loses the flag, don’t bother coming back.

We did get the flag back, all tattered and torn in places, he had to fight French rugby fans for it, when they tried to take it off him as he wore it like a cape in the evening in Paris after the match.

The flag is still around somewhere, the last time I saw it, the flag was being used has a bed spread by wobble, he has assured me that it is in his house somewhere.

It was a good laugh that night and the memories of that particular night has stayed in my mind all these years later, I think you needed to be there to appreciate it.

I have spoken to the other guys, who there on that night, about how we obtained the flag, and they all remember that night vividly.

It is not often that one simple event in your life can be shared with so many others, and still be remembered and laughed about nearly 40 years later.