STRANGE HABITS AND PARTY TRICKS

CHAPTER 29

Strange Habits and Party Tricks

1970`s-80`s

I have some very strange friends with some very strange habits, and the following are some of the more notable ones that I can write about.

ROY.

( Photo 1 ) . Roy relaxing at the drunken bear rally 1986.

Big Roy had what he called a party trick, which he would do very randomly on some unsuspecting victim.

First he would remove one of his socks without anyone noticing and then suddenly, he would dip the sock completely into someone’s pint glass ( never his own ) which was usually half full.

Roy would ram the sock into the pint glass until it soaked up all the liquid in the glass.

Roy didn’t care what type of alcohol was in the pint.

In doing this party trick, a large percentage of the drink would splash in all directions all over the table and everyone sitting by it.

The next thing he would do was to hold the now beer soaked sock above his head with his outstretched arm and tilt his head back, once in this position, he would then squeeze the wet sock and attempt to drink as much as possible of what came out of the sock.

This party trick has he called it, would be preformed anywhere and in all types of company regardless if they were bikers or not.

The trick would be greeted with looks of disgust from some onlookers and howls of laughter from others.

On one occasion we went to a long weekend biker party in west Wales near llandilo.

The party was organised by the ( y Twrch Trwyth mc ), these guys eventually became the Welsh Chapter of the English H/A.

Well Roy did this trick in front of them in the evening, unfortunately using my pint this time.

The whole room stopped what they were doing and just stared at us.

They stopped playing pool and all eyes were on Roy, they just stood there saying nothing, the only sound coming from us lot, we were laughing so loud maybe we could not hear them, I seen one guy in the room smiling, he must have found it funny, all the others looked bewildered, maybe they were all to cool to laugh.

They did not know what to make of us.

I was surprised that none of them approached us, after all it was their party not ours, because none of them looked like wallflowers.

Maybe it was because we all had long bladed hunting knives on us, I don’t know, I was surprised that none of them approached us with the rep they had, still curious about it now.

This weekend party, as its own story which I will write about in the near future.

Like I say, Roy did this trick randomly, so no-one ever knew when it was going to happen.

If it wasn’t your pint it was easy to laugh, but not many people were brave enough to stop him, Roy was a big guy and when he had a drink in him, there was no stopping him, and no way anyone could prevent him from doing his trick or ask for a replacement for the one he just ruined.

If someone wanted his pint refilled, Roy would say something like “ if you can pick me up, you can have one.

Of course that never happened, there are not many people that can pick up a twenty stone plus man off the ground if he didn’t want you too.

We had been with Roy a few times when he did this trick with his sock, as soon as one of us noticed that he was removing his boot, we would cover our drinks or move away from the table, because the whole trick would get very messy, as the majority of the beer would be all over the table and whoever were sitting by it.

As Roy dipped the sock into the pint half of the liquid would immediately splash all over the table sending people scattering everywhere in all directions.

Roy also had another trick.

If someone was drinking a dark drink like Mann's beer or Guinness and Roy was in the same room, it was quite possible that when you were drinking the last couple of inches of your pint, you may find a surprise at the bottom of the glass, if you were lucky it would be a couple of copper coins, we are all responsible for doing the coin trick at some point.

But the next one was exclusively Roy’s.

If you were unlucky it would be a set of dentures staring back at you.

They would have been Roy’s actual front teeth, slowly appearing as you drank the last dregs of your pint.

You would have known instantly that they were Roy’s teeth because Roy would give out a loud belly laugh when you discovered the teeth, and you would see that his teeth were missing as he smiled at you, he would then take them out of the glass, and put them straight back into his mouth.

I think most people preferred the coins to the dentures and the sock was always one to avoid.

On a normal night Roy would do the sock trick without warning, but sometimes, if someone that had never seen the sock trick before, and had just come into the pub, Roy would say to them, “ I bet I can empty your pint glass without picking it up and not using a straw “ .

The victim had no choice in saying no, it was going to happen anyway.

Roy would continue “ you want to see how I can do it”.

He would already have his sock in his hand and out of sight under the table, and before the victim could react, the deed would have been done.

Of course Roy would put the sock back on his foot after he had drunk the soaked in contents of the sock, and this palaver could happen more than once in an evening.

THE PIGS EYE

On another rally somewhere in England, Roy decided to play a joke on the assembled bikers in the local pub.

Roy had got hold of a pigs eye from a butchered pig, from Tudor the butcher in Bridgend.

He warped it up in cling film still with the nerve endings attached and put the eye into his cut-off’s jacket pocket and then headed to the rally.

A couple of days into the weekend at the pub, and later in the evening when everyone had a drink Roy decided to play the joke on the people there, he had put a black eye patch over one of his eye, and then when he was standing by the bar with his back to the crowded room he would take the pigs eye out of his pocket, and then when it was unwrapped, he would quietly turn around and made some pretended agony type noises and holding his eye patch shouting things like “ my eye, my eye, it hurts “ and then he would pull his hand away with the pigs eye in his hand and hold it up so everyone could see it in the pub.

This caused some sounds of horror amongst the on looking bikers, people started shouting and looking horrified.

Then over the bedlam that Roy had just created people could be heard to say “ oh my god, what's he done “, and “ Jesus Christ, he's pulled his eye out “.

Roy could not keep the pained look on his face for too long, and then the sounds of agony turned to a bellied laughter that only Roy could do, of course everyone who knew he was going to do this was also laughing amongst the cries of horror.

He walked around and started to show the people the eye pushing into their faces.

By this time in weekend the pigs eye had started to go off and was smelling a little, and started to go slimy.

So Roy would walk past a table after he had us fun with everyone and on his way to sit down with everyone else, he would have chosen a random victim and has he past the unfortunate victims table, he would drop the eye into their pint which would caused more shouting and swearing.

All part of a rally weekend.

Like they say, you make your own fun.

On a less disgusting note.

MIKE and GALEN.

( Photo 2 ) . Galen relaxing at a party in the late 70s.

Fat mike and Galen had a random habit of suddenly bursting into song in the middle of the pub for no reason whatsoever.

The song could be from a musical like Jesus Christ Super Star or maybe some other well known musicals of the time like Hair or sometimes a song that was currently in the charts.

I remember them singing a song from the band 10 cc called ( I’m Mandy fly me ), god knows why I remember them singing that one particular song after all these years, I can even remember where they were both sitting, it was up at the Plough and Harrow, and they were both sitting in front of the only window in the room, we were all sitting around three tables pushed close together, and then they suddenly started singing the same song.

When they would start to sing, others in the pub would wait until the Chorus came around, and then most of the pub would join in, a few minutes later everyone would be singing one part or another of the song and by that time, the jukebox would be drowned out by everyone singing, and then just has it started, it would suddenly stop and the people in the pub would continue with whatever they were doing before the singing started.

( Photo 3 ) . Mike, the photo taken in a car park in the town of Ross on Wye, we visited the town while we were at the fools rally 1980.

This random singing must be a Welsh thing, I have seen it happen many times at funeral wakes, and in the evenings at weddings, unless the fighting starts early and spoils the mood.

It still happens in the rugby clubs and workingman’s clubs throughout Wales, I have never experienced this random singing in England, it must be a Welsh or Celtic cultural thing.

LAWSON.

( Photo 4 ) . Lawson with his finger up his nose again, this time at a beach party at Nash Point early 80s.

What can I say about Lawson, one of his notable features was that 9 out of 10 photos of Lawson show’s him sticking his finger up his nose.

Nobody has any idea why he did this, but it was something he did nearly every time a camera was produced.

He would push his finger up his nose until half of his finger disappeared up whatever nostril he had chosen.

It is a little strange, and maybe a little disturbing after you have seen it time after time.

Sometimes we would not have noticed that he did the finger thing until the photo was developed and printed.

Well, it made it easier to spot him in a photo.

Bridgeman

( Photo 5 ) . A very clean looking Bridgman, trying to look cool, the photo was taken at a Vine Rally, 1982.

Bridgeman had a habit of searching for fly’s in the summertime, mainly trying to catch BLUEBOTTLE fly’s that were trapped by a window, the fly’s would draw Bridgman’s attention by the buzzing sound they make as they try in vain to go out into the warm sunshine via a closed window.

Bluebottle flies are not very bright creatures, a bit like traffic wardens, once they focus on something that they have to do, they can't divert themselves from following their chosen path until the bitter end, in short they are annoying pointless things.

Bluebottles make an annoying buzzing sound, traffic wardens do something similar, ( cant park there mate, already wrote the ticket mate, can't cancel it now, etc ) it’s the same annoying buzzing sound.

Once Bridgeman had caught one or two, he would not kill them, bluebottles that is, not wardens, he would carefully capture them without harming them, holding them in his cupped hand, and then he would put the annoyed fly’s into his mouth.

The fly or fly’s would buzz around in his mouth for a short while.

He would then bare his teeth to show everyone who was interested in seeing what he was up too, when he did this, people could see the fly trying to get out with its legs poking out in the gaps in his teeth, the buzzing in his mouth was pretty loud and very notable, once he was finished with the fly or fly’s, he would just let the fly go free to get over his experience of being in a giants mouth and escaped without harm.

Like the title says, STRANGE HABITS.

The next short story that looks into the lives of my friends, is not a strange habit, but a strange thing to do.

In the late 70s after leaving the KNIGHTS ARMS in Porthcawl, we would sometimes, depending on the weather stop into one of the LITTLE CHEF road side cafés that lined both side of the road on the short dual carriageway a few miles outside of Porthcawl on the road that leads down from Barn Hill and the village of Laleston.

We would pop into the little chef quite often on our way back from the knights arms, it was something we did quite regular until around 1981, after that time the landlord of the knights KEN EVANS left the pub to run the Pier Hotel on the seafront in Porthcawl.

The knights were not the same after he left, so we stopped going there and spent our time up the Plough and Harrow at Monknash instead.

The staff at the little chef got to know us quite well, and put up with us being a little more boisterous than their average customers, we visited the café almost every weekend, always late in the evening.

We became friendly enough with them to have a joke or two, without offending them.

When we were there we would have a late supper of a warm pie or corn beef pasty and a mug of tea or coffee, just to warm us up a little before we all headed home and on our separate ways.

WOBBLE .

( Photo 6 ) . Wobble, relaxing outside the pub at a vine rally 1983.

One of our visits to the little chef, Wobble for some bizarre reason asked for the mankiest ( worst ) mug of tea the little chef staff could put together.

The staff at the café were mainly middle-aged women and sometimes maybe with a couple of younger girls working with them now and again, when it was the holiday season when they were busier, but the regular staff knew how to deal with us and were quite friendly, most likely we were more interesting than the average boring customers, who ordered their meals and sat quietly at the Formica topped tables and then leave never to be seen again, we did tend to liven up the place a little.

On this night there were only a couple of other customers in the café, and us lot in there, the café was pretty quite until we pulled up on the bikes.

The staff were quite happy to oblige Wobbles request for a mug of manky tea, I think they may well have been bored, and this was a bit of a distraction for them and in no time they made him an evil smelling hot mug of tea.

Well calling it tea was a bit of a stretch, it looked horrible and smelt even worse.

They made the tea as they normally would, with heated water from the large stainless steel urn which was always ready to dispense multiple mugs or jugs of hot water, then they added a large amount of brown vinegar and a few sachets of table salt and threatened the mug with a quick dip of a tea bag and a drop of milk, so they could call it tea.

I don’t know what this mug of mess did, but it turned the milk to brown lumps that floated on the surface of the mug.

Wobble gleefully accepted the mug.

( Photo 7 ) . The little chef logo, which was a common sight on the roads of Briton at one time.

Wobble looked down at the disgusting mess that was in the mug, he looked at it thoughtfully. He then lifted his head up and looked around the large café, we were all staring at him, waiting for him to either back down or swig the contents of the mug down.

We were all staring at him, including the staff, he was the center of attention, there was a hush around the room, we all waited in anticipation, someone said “ well, you wanted it, if you drink that , you don`t have to pay for it “ someone else in the watching crowed, said “ come on Wobble don’t be a pussy, you’ve drunk worse".

There was no backing out now, he asked for it, and he got what he asked for.

Wobble looked around the table, grabbed half a dozen sugar cubes and added them in the mug, which filled it up even more, the liquid in the mug was now at the brim of the mug with the brown lumps running down the sides.

Wobble laughed out loud, took one more look around the café, made a grim face and downed the mug in one go.

Gagging as he did it.

Myself and everyone in the café including the staff watched in horror as he finished drinking the smelly brown concoction.

We were all keeping our distance, expecting him to throw the smelly brown mess back up, so being a few yards away and maybe hiding behind someone was a good idea.

One of the staff said “ he must have a cast iron stomach, how could he drink that “.

He did keep it all down, how I don’t know, it looked and smelt disgusting.

Wobble did screw his face up as he swallowed the last few drops, he did have a little trouble with the lumps.

He finished the mug with his face still screwed up making lots of jibs as the last lumps disappeared, some of the lumps that hung onto to the edge of the mug managed to get onto his cheeks somehow, and stuck to his face, he then wiped them off the onto the sleeve of his leather jacket and gave a big smile and made a loud AAHHH sound as if he had been looking forward to drinking it and that he was satisfied with the result of his special request.

He put the mug down on the table and said “ thank you “ and then lifted the mug back up as if to salute the little Chef staff for their efforts.

Wobble did tell me later, after we left the café that he would not be asking for one of those mugs of tea again.

One of the girls behind the counter spoke to me about what wobble had done, she came from behind the counter to clean the tables, she said “ is there something wrong with your friend, that mug of tea was disgusting “.

She continued saying “ we did not expect him to really drink it “.

I replied “nor did I to be honest, but I can assure you this is not the strangest thing he has done, his drinking and eating habit's boarder on the edge of bizarre most of the time

( Photo 8 ) A typical little chef road side café, many of the Little Chef outlets had this type of building and layout.

Wobble had something else to add to his list of strange drinking and eating habits.

he also had a certain connection with fire.

On the odd occasion, wobble would set fire to his denim cut-off while he was still wearing it.

Nothing dramatic or life threatening, just a little fire on the bottom hem on the front of the jacket.

A typical instance would be when we would be drinking up at the Plough, our regular haunt during this time period.

Wobble would pull up outside the pub on his bike and then put the bike on to the main stand so the petrol tank was level, he would then unlock the petrol cap and proceed to dip one end of his cut-off into the petrol tank.

When he was happy with the amount of fuel that he had soaked into the denim material, he would then take his lighter out which he carried around in his cut-off pocket, which he always carried a lighter around with him even thou he didn’t smoke normal tobacco cigarettes, he would then ignite the petrol soaked part of his cut-off and then walk casually into the backroom/poolroom which we always occupied, with his jacket on fire.

He did this so often that 90% of people in the pub just gave him a cursory glance as he entered the room and then would carrier on with whatever they were doing before he entered, and maybe someone would say causally “ wobbles on fire again “.

Harry did ask a couple of times “ is there something burning “.

The answer would be “ it’s ok, its just wobble “.

Harry would just sake his head and say some like “ he’s too green to burn “ and carry on serving, ignoring the smoldering wobble across the room.

Beryl the landlady was always too pissed to notice.

The remaining 10% of people would fuss over the fact that he had walked into the room with his jacket on fire.

If it had been raining the flames would go out on their own because his cut-off would either be soaking wet or just damp with the rain after riding around on the bike, other times concerned observers would put an end to the flames by throwing some cider or beer over the flames, luckily nobody would waste putting the flames out by throwing whiskey over him.

Wobble doing this type of party trick would cause some merriment in the room for a short amount of time.

We all got used to him doing this after a while, and just ignored it.

I can remember harry saying to wobble as he walked to the small bar in the corner of the room while he was still on fire “ you can put yourself out, before you burn the place down “ and then harry would give him one of his lingering hard stares until he put the flames out.

There were a number of times when the flames had taken a good hold of his jacket and looked like they were getting out of hand, the flames would climb up the front of his cut-off, to the pocket where he kept the lighter.

When the flames got to this stage, the flames would so large they would start licking at his neck, he would then hurriedly put the flames out himself, either by smothering the flames with his hand or pouring someone’s else’s beer over the flames.

Anyone not aware of this kind of behavior would remark on the fact that his jacket was smoking as he sat by the table with wisp’s of smoke quietly drifting up around him has he drank his Guinness or this unaware person would say something like “ OMG that man is on fire “.

This would just make us all laugh.

You may be curious about what strange habits or party tricks I may have had back then, well I didn’t have any because I’m perfect, nothing strange about me, well nothing I can get arrested for.

Ok, there was a couple of things I did now and again, one is an annoying party type trick ( I didn’t find the trick annoying, just some other people did, I always found it extremely funny ) and the other trick was a curiosity that became apparent after falling off my Yamaha RD 250 some years earlier .

PHIL FROG.

( Photo 9 ) . Me, Phil Frog at a vine rally 1982.

I don’t know if I have any strange habits, I will leave that for other people to judge.

What is strange about someone may look normal though someone else eyes.

But I do have, what I would call an entertaining technique, that I would normally use on wobble.

I don’t know if he was aware of it, but I have used this trick on him numerous times over the years.

Imagine that a group of us are sitting around a table in a pub somewhere, all with drinks in front of us.

We would be chatting just like everyone else does when you are out with friends in a pub talking about whatever was relevant at the time.

After a while I would steer the conversation to a funny topic that had happened recently or something we had done somewhere.

This would create a jovial atmosphere and everyone would be laughing and joking about whatever the subject was, once this mood was set, I would wait for wobble to take a swig of his Guinness or Cider whatever he was drinking at the time, and drop a funny punch line into the conversation.

Timing was crucial.

I had to get it just right, or it would not work.

Has wobble lifted his pint glass up to drink it, we would be all be laughing on the table, then I would say something funny knowing wobble would not be able to swallow his drink.

He could not stop himself from laughing even if he had a mouth full of drink, and that liquid was only going in one direction.

I would make sure I was out of harms way.

I made sure I could lean right back if I was sitting next to him or well away from any area that wobble would cover with his induced projectile vomiting.

As soon as I said the punch line, he would lose control and try his best to swallow the drink in his mouth, but he would always end up spraying his mouthful of cider over everyone sitting in range in front of him, and anything that was on the table.

I always found it very funny.

This sudden turn of events would make everyone scatter and remove themselves from the vicinity as quickly as possible, which would make it even more amusing.

It is a great pity we did not have camera phones back then, it would have been a classic on YouTube.

Most people took it has a bit of fun, but you always get whinges, mainly the girls, for some reason they took objection to being sprayed with cider or Guinness, whatever was said to me by the alcohol sprayed victims which including giving me a slap and death threats always made me laugh more.

It never stopped me repeating the trick when the opportunity arose.

Well at lest myself and wobble found it funny, and he was normally the victim.

I did have something I could do just as a conversation piece, I can't do it anymore, the older I have become, the stiffer my joints are getting.

The trick was to do with my right leg.

In 1976 I dropped my RD Yamaha banking around the horseshoe bend at the bottom of the Rhigos Mountain, the bend opposite the reservoir.

My front end slipped away from me after hitting a small patch of gravel on the road.

The yam went down immediately, the bike dropped like a stone, I was banking anyway and bike was not far off the road before it slipped away, so I didn't really have far to go before I came face to face with the road surface.

The bike slid away from me and into the curb, it then bounced over the curb onto a small earth banking that ran alongside the edge of the road, this mound of earth stopped the bike going over the edge and disappearing down the side of the mountain and into the wooded area below.

I was following right behind the bike, my right leg took the impact when I hit the road edge, mainly my knee.

The curb stopped me dead, and I lay face down half on the banking and half on the road.

From that day on my right leg was more flexible.

Many months later when my leg had healed well enough, I found I could twist it much further than it would normally turn before the accident, in fact I could turn one foot pointing to the front of where I was facing and the other foot would be pointing 90 degrees in the opposite direction and this was done without turning or twisting my body in any way.

I used to show people this trick now and again at parties.

I don’t know what the impact of my knee hitting the curb did to my leg because I never went and had it checked out at a hospital after the accident, I tied the clocks and my headlight up with a bungee because that was the area that hit the curb and went camping up Brecon beacons, I should have really gone to hospital and had a doctor take a look at the knee, but being young and stupid I did not want to miss the weekend camping.

But in retrospect we all had some laughs out of it, has I have grown older my leg has stiffened up, so now I can only turn it a little way around not that I try very often, it still twists further than it should for a normal foot, but not 90 degrees.

This is just a sample of some of the things that the guys used to get up to back in the day.

I have not included everyone, there is more to say on this subject, maybe another time.

Some other habits and tricks are best not written down until whoever done them in the past has passed on, so there’s no come back.

Even writing this story has made me laugh.

I still find it funny remember all this kind of stuff.

( Photo 10 ) . My foot turned around 90 degrees, wobble needed to hold the foot in that position, or it would not stay there, this was some years later after my accident, and my leg was starting to stiffen up, this photo may have been taken at a party in Wobbles house or his flat in Nolton street Bridgend.