CHAPTER 33
Vincent Black Shadow
1966
A Vincent Black Shadow came thumping its way up the hill heading straight towards myself and my friends.
We were playing football in the street which was a regular event in the street where I lived, the bike was straddling the middle of the road and rode straight up the center.
We could not see it at first, we just heard the thump of the engine coming closer.
The street that I lived in was called Upper Adare street and the street came to a dead end at the very far end where I lived with my mother and my brother, and at this point in the street, where we were all playing football the street was relatively flat, the year was 1966, it was a time when England won the world cup and the Aberfan Disaster happened.
Upper Adare street was placed high on the side of the mountain hundreds of yards away from the main road below, and from the main road it was all up hill with a very steep sharp turn as you entered the street, anything that came up this hill would not have be seen until the road started to level off.
We all stopped kicking the ball around and watched the rider slowly approach us, we could only see the top of his helmet and gradually he came into sight as if he was rising out of the ground itself.
( Photo 1 ) . Looking north up Adare street with Carn mountain in the distance, my friends and I were playing football just out of sight where you see the road rise up and flattens off, on the left of the photo in the shadow of the house out of sight is the road with the steep hill from the main road. Photo taken by myself in 1984.
We had a good view of the rider because back in the day, there were maybe only one or two cars ever parked up in the street.
There was no real need for a car and not everyone could afford the luxury of having their own vehicle.
At the time most men worked in one of the two collieries in the valley, they either worked in THE OCEAN or the FFALDAU Colliery and both of these collieries were in walking distance of wherever they lived in the valley, it could well have been a three mile or more walk on the surface to work and at pit bottom they may have had to walk another two plus miles or so underground to the coal face and then do it all again after their 8-hour shift finished.
Not many women worked at this time in the 60s, some were teaches others worked in the local shops, but most stayed at home being housewife’s and taking care of the children and doing all the domestic duties.
It was a very different world back then.
Some people worked in the factories in Bridgend which was a ten-mile trip by bus.
There was a local bus service run by my uncle Mansel David or the National bus line called Western Welsh, these buses were easily recognized by the fact that they were all painted red,
There used to be a naff joke we kids used to say back then.
Question :- “ What’s long red and hairy “.
Long pause.
Answer :- “A western Welsh bus with the windows open “.
Ok, I know the joke is crap, but it was hilarious to10 year old’s.
So, vehicles were always about, but never in great numbers, I can remember numerous Brit bikes roaring around the valley, but this black and gold monster was something special.
The year was 1966, I was 10 years old and as I say I was playing football in the middle of the street and then I could hear the sound of a motorcycle climbing up the steep hill to where I lived in Pontycymmer.
All the boys I was with stopped playing football, we all watched this black beast coming towards us.
The rider slowly and deliberately pulled the bike up along the curb just yards away from where we were standing, nobody had to say anything, we all moved as one and made a bee line for the bike to get a better look.
The rider sat on the bike for a moment and slowly took off his large fanned out gloves which went nearly to his elbow.
He neatly laid them on top of his tank with extreme care.
He looked up to the house he pulled up outside of and then sounded his horn, giving it a short blast.
The rider then with both hands lifted his goggles off his face and placed them on the front of the helmet.
He was wearing a black open face helmet with a rough hand painted image of a skull and cross bones just like the pirates of the old day had on their flags, it was painted in white and had one eye socket with a cross covering the whole area where the eye would have been and the goggles that the rider was wearing were of the old fashion type, the type a second world war spitfire pilot would have worn, he also wore dark blue denim jeans with the bottom of the leg seams rolled up at lest 6 inches showing the bluey whitish under-cloth of his jeans.
His shoes were the fashionable type that everyone wore back then if you could afford them, called winkle pickers.
He left the bike tick over.
He was in no hurry to switch the engine off.
The rider then dismounted the bike and effortlessly lifted the bike onto its main stand.
He looked around at the group of boys who came to look at his bike.
He said “ you can look, but don’t touch “, looking us all in the eye with a serious look on his face, it sounded more like a threat than an instruction.
He then pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his top pocket of his black Belfast type jacket.
He lite one woodbine up and took a long hard draw making the tip glow bright red and then blew a storm of smoke over his bike, as the rider did this his friend came to the front door of his house that he parked up outside of, he shouted down to the rider “ I will be down in a minute, I just woke up, I was on the night shift “.
The rider answered “ yeah ok, no problem, I'm not going anywhere “ and then he took another long drag on his fag.
( Photo 2 ) . The Vincent Black Shadow.
I was in awe.
What a bike, I could not take my eyes off it.
The bike was still ticking over, the sound of the engine vibrated around the street.
I was transfixed.
Nothing could draw me away from looking at it, I just stood there with my eyes and mouth wide open, we didn't refer to a situation like this with any small word of amazement back then, but this was a WOW moment.
One of the other boys called Tony Davies who we called “ kip-rough “ said “ come on boys, lets play football and finish the game, my side is winning “.
I said “ no, I’m not leaving “ nothing could drag me away, I was glued to the spot.
They all left me and played further up the street, away from the bike on the instruction of the Vincent rider.
There was no nonsense or any lip from kids back in the day, they did what they were told, everyone had far more respect for each other back then, anyway you would get a clip across your ear if you mouthed back.
I just stood there not moving an inch, I just kept staring at the big black and gold monster.
The slow pulse of the engine was fantastic.
I can see it all now in my minds eye.
The engine seemed to shake on its mountings with every stroke of the pistons.
The riders friend came out of the house to meet the rider, he looked if he had dark black eye shadow around his eyes, this I had seen many times in miners who gone to the pub straight from the pit head showers for a couple of pints before going home after they had finished their shift, they would go to bed then have a bathe in a tin bath in front of the fire to get completely clean before they went to work and be turned into one of the black and white mistrals once more with all the coal dust that they were exposed too underground.
( Photo 3 ) . Vincent Black Shadow.
The rider switched the bike engine off and the engine died slowly resisting the fact that it should stop and the rider and his friend both stood around the bike chatting.
I kept staring, wide-eyed.
I could hear the ping of the engine as it cooled down.
I got up enough courage to walk closer towards the bike, I was hoping I was not going to be told to go away, I wanted to savor every second of this bike, it was in touching distance.
I started to walk around the bike, wanting a better look.
The rider watched me, he said, “ its hot, watch yourself “.
This was all I needed, I saw it as a green light so, I took a closer look, being very careful not to touch the bike, I was treating it like a sacred object, I remember I held my hands behind my back, the Vincent rider was keeping a close eye on me.
Something similar to this situation happened to me many, many years later, I had just pulled up outside my mothers house on my Honda CB 550, I parked up, then flicked the side stand out and then started to remove my full-face helmet.
Then this little fat kid of about 9 -10 years old stood right by my bike, I said to him “ don’t touch it, the bikes hot, it will burn you “.
The cheeky little prick said “ you can't tell me what to do, I’ll touch it if I want ”.
I said “ I have warned you “.
He said “ I will if I want too“.
I replied “ it will hurt “ and shrugged my shoulders and said “ oh well, it's your fingers ”.
I turned around and walked to the front-door, trying not to get into an argument with a 10-year-old, with my back towards the kid, I put my door key into the front door Yale lock to let myself into the house.
The next thing I heard was a scream of pain and the sight of the little fat kid running down the street holding his hand crying his head off.
The idiot kid only touched the hot exhaust.
I bet he didn’t do that ever again, some life lessons hurt more than others.
Anyway, back the Vincent.
I still remember the shape of the down pipes and the finish of the exhaust and the styling of the petrol tank.
The whole styling of the bike seemed perfect to me, I will never forget seeing this bike from all those years ago.
This time was the very first time I realised that bikes would be a governing factor in the rest of my life.
From that day on until till now, motorcycles have always been in my life, there as never been a moment from the first time I have owned a bike that I have never been without one and that is a very, very long time, 47 years so far.
I still have six bikes in my garage.
But I have never had a Vincent black shadow, but there is always the lottery.
Just for curiosity, I checked the average price of a Vincent black shadow in today’s market.
MAKE SURE YOU ARE SITTING DOWN WHEN YOU READ THE NEXT PART .
( photo 4 ) . Vincent Black lightning, the sports version of the Black Shadow.
April 2013.
The Bonhams auction at the International Classic Motorcycle Show at the Staffordshire County Showground topped £1.4 million on Sunday 28th April 2013 with the top-selling lot a 1952 Vincent Black Shadow, which realised £113,500.
January 2018.
The Vincent black lighting was basically a tuned up black shadow .
The Vincent ultra-rare Black Lightning was the highlight of Bonham’s annual star-studded Las Vegas Motorcycle Auction, which took place on Thursday, January 25th 2018 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. Its sale price of $929,000 (or £651,715) makes it the most valuable motorcycle ever sold at auction. According to Bonham’s’
April 2019.
1953 “C” series Back Shadow £92,500. 29/4/2019.
A beautiful example in utterly reliable mechanical order. 1953 series “C”, full matching numbers, registered with the Vincent owners club and restored on a money no object basis. The Vincent had covered 21k miles, 270 miles since restoration.