LIFE LESSON`S
CHAPTER 61
mid 1960`s - early 1980`s
( Photo 1 ) . A red Italian scooter, not the actual one, but a very similar looking bike.
SCOOTER
1964-65
This event I witnessed in the mid 1960`s, I was around 8 or 9 years old, this blog is more about my observation of older boys riding motorcycles and scooters, or trying too, these boys during this time period were doing exactly the same thing I was doing some years later, except for the fact that they all moved on to cars, and other boring pursuits and I stayed with motorbikes, and I didn’t do so many stupid things as these idiots, their stupidly was a big leaning curve for me, it helped me to avoid making the same mistakes as they did in the future.
The first story in this blog relates to an old and battered Italian scooter.
The little Italian scooter had seen better days, it was once someone’s pride and joy, but those days were long gone, it had been used and abused for years by a series of youngsters enjoying a brief moment of two wheeled fun, it was passed around the valley for the price of a packet of Embassy number ten fags or an old shirt with a paisley pattern that was in good enough condition to wear to the local Saturday night disco held at the ambulance hall on Pontycymmer square, the shirt swap is how the scooter landed in its current owners hands.
The scooter was originally red in colour, but time and the suns rays had taken the shine off the paint, and now the paint work looked very sad with a Matt finish, there was nowhere on this scooter where there was not a scratch exposing the rusty base metal beneath.
It was in a very sorry state, the engine side panels had been missing for a long time, exposing the oil dirty engine, there were no lights, they also had disappeared years ago, the space for the speedo was now just that an empty space, the original seat was still there tattered and torn, but still usable, it was covered with a piece of plastic so the rider would not get a wet arse from sitting on the wet sponge, the little red scooter responded to all this abuse by refusing to start.
I can remember a boy called Terry W (I am not using his full name as it may embarrass him) he was trying very hard to get the scooter started, a small group of younger children stood around watching the failed efforts of these boys, which I was one of, the older boys were in the gully below the Avenue and above Victoria street in Pontycymmer.
This particular Gully had a slight downward gradient ideal for push starting a reluctant scooter.
We watched as the three older boys pushed the sorry scooter up and down the gully several times,
The little scooter popped and spluttered resisting all attempts to start her, she putted along not showing any real interest in starting, my friend John Rees and I watched with amusement as these bigger boys huffed and puffed as they pushed the scooter, myself and my friend left the bigger boys to play some football in the park across the road from Victoria street for an hour or so,
As the boys pushed the scooter down the gully they were watched by Ray Rees, who was standing outside his garage.
Ray was electrician and worked in the ffaldau colliery opposite his house, and was known locally as a very good mechanic in his spare time.
Behind him in his garage was a Reilly car, the type that had doors that opened like London Taxies, and tucked away in the corner was a Royal Enfield 700cc constellation with a bright yellow petrol tank.
I will always remember above his garage door facing the gully were two round Francis Barnett tank badges screwed to the wood beam, I also remember Ray showing me a set of BSA 500cc Gold Star gears.
He told me “ These beauties are racing gears, you should see the bugger shift with these fitted ”.
Ray was well known in the Village for helping with any vehicle related problems, two wheel or four wheels.
He watched the boys hurtle passed, hanging onto the bike like a bunch off seagulls chasing a bag of chips, they were pushing the scooter with all their might.
He shook his head in a negative way and said “ They are wasting their time, it should have been scrapped years ago”.
When we made our way back up the hill the older boys were still pushing the little red Italian scooter up and down the Gully from A to B and the B to A without any real hint of a spark of life, and then a miracle happened, with a great burst of pastel blue smoke the engine fired up, it struggled at first and then held its own, the scooter belched out more smoky light blue two stroke fumes, this was a joyous moment for everyone, smiles everywhere, and now the fun can begin.
The little scooter putted away, ticking over with no problems.
The older boys were now very excited and very eager to start riding the bike after all the effort they had in getting the scooter to start, almost immediately Terry W stood astride the bike and then sat down on to the seat, he then put his foot on to the foot plate and suddenly the little scooter shot forward.
This was not terry’s doing, there was a button or some kind of foot leaver that was part of the footplate, he depressed this ( Button ) and the scooter moved under its own power.
He was holding the throttle at the time, and as the bike lurched forward terry’s hand came back and opened the throttle fully.
The throttle stayed in that position and the scooter lurched forward and shot off like a greyhound after a rabbit with the front end of the scooter pointing skywards.
Terry hung on to the handlebars out of shear fright, he shot up the gully, trying desperately to control the bike, and hanging on for dear life.
He and the scooter criss-crossed the gully in sweeping arch’s, just missing the tall dry stone garden walls on both sides, missing them literary by inches.
He was stretched out on the bike like superman flying through the air, the front wheel of the bike did not touch the ground at any one time, it stayed air born.
This dramatic situation did not last long, only one or two weaving turns and then the out of control scooter and its reluctant passenger headed straight for an old wooden back gate, made from an old front door.
Once the bike hit the door it flung open and the bike and terry disappeared in to the garden.
Luckily terry fell off before the scooter hit the back wall of the house, if this was by choice or if his grip on the handle bars had finally loosened no-one knows, the rider-less scooter slammed in to the house wall where its engine died, and with the scooter screaming to the end.
Terry picked himself up and ran back out in to the gully looking very shook up with his eyes wide open like a mad man, his reappearance in the gully was a catalyst for a stampede of all the kids that had just witnessed the sudden event, including myself, we disappeared in all possible directions.
And that was the last time that little red Italian scooter was ever used, and I think it was the very last time that Terry W went any where near anything that had two wheels.
( Photo 2 ) . The Gully below Upper Adare street with Carn mountain in the distance, the photo was taken by myself in 1982.
IDIOTS
1966-67
This event happened around a couple of years later.
There was a family living in my street called the ( I know their name, but not to embarrass the family I will call them by the nickname they acquired from the rest of the streets inhabitance ).
They originally came from west Wales, and because they never grew up in the valley they were always treated as outsiders to some extent.
They were known locally by everyone who knew them as the SHITS, not a very nice nickname, but if I remember correctly they fully deserved it, there were five brothers in all, and this blog involves two off them, one was called ( I will not name them, but will refer to them as sly shit and mad shit, which are the names that they obtained after people got to know them ).
One of the family was known as the Mad Shit, mainly because, he seemed very unstable at times, and did irrational things for no reasons, if you had a conversation with him, however short you would soon realise he was a sandwich short of a picnic.
These two brothers had somehow obtained a Francis Barnett 125 cc motorbike from somewhere, and they were in the process of trying to get it started when myself and my friend John Rees came across them in the gully below Upper Adare street and above the Avenue.
The gully at the north end of Upper Adare street had a flat section which dropped down to a slight gradient running all the way down to David street, the slop downwards began just after Ivor Harding’s garage which was stocked with old Panther 600 cc motorcycles and a plastic pig ( which is another unwritten blog story ), this slopping part of the gully was ideal for trying to bump-start any reluctant motorcycles, I have used it many times myself in the past with various old British two stokes, with varied degrees of success.
We watched the two brothers push the bike up and down the gully a few times and then one of them shook the bike back and forth, checking to see if there was petrol in the tank.
Sly shit said to his panting brother “ You said you had put the petrol in the tank, you said you filled it up “ the mad shit replied “ you said you were doing it, you’re a fucking idiot ” sly replied “ no you’re a fucking idiot ”, a small argument erupted, and after a brief exchange of insults, I decided to put some petrol in to the tank to end the pointless argument, or the argument would have gone on until the sun went down.
So the tank was topped up with petrol from a glass pint milk bottle that had been filled from Pat Woosnam`s garage on Bridgend road, the garage was a short distance from the black railway bridge on Pontycymmer Square.
The sly shit poured the petrol in to the tank and then the brothers took it in turns to kick and kick the bike over until their legs became tired, and then they pushed the bike up and down the gully numerous times with no luck in stating the bike.
So they stopped for a little while, so they could catch their breath back.
While they rested, the mad shit decided to look in to the petrol tank, he unscrewed and removed the petrol cap and shook the tank and looked over the tank and down in to the tank for some bizarre reason, he already knew how much petrol was in the tank, he watched me pour it in a little earlier.
There was really nothing wrong with what he was doing except for the fact that he had a lite woodbine fag in his mouth at the time.
There was a sudden whooshing noise, and then a painfully loud AAArrrragggg, and then Mad shit was running off down the gully holding his head with a faint white cloud streaming off his hair.
This happened so quickly, none of us who were there at the time were not aware of exactly what had happened.
It was not till a little later when the Mad shirt returned from his unplanned jog down the gully did we understand what he had done.
He was not badly burnt, he did have any eyebrows anymore and his face was a little on the scorched side, and his front hair line was further back then it had been when he got out of bed in the morning, but generally he escaped without any serious or permanent injury.
The Francis Barnett motorbike was never started, it was just left leaning up against one of the garden walls in the gully and forgotten about.
It disappeared after a few weeks, I dear say another group of kids tried their luck, and had a go at getting it started or the bike may have been picked up by the Rag and Bone man when he was on his regular rounds around the valley.
The mad shit was well known for doing stupid things like having a lite fag over a petrol tank, the last thing I remember that I had heard about him was that he was chasing someone down the street with an hatchet.
( Photo 3 ) A random photo of one of the party's, with Brian saluting the camera.
STAIRS
1980`s
At one of the many party’s at Wobble and Fat Mikes flat in Nolton street Bridgend, an incident happened that was funny, and quite bizarre, it started off just like any other party held at the flat, the small living space was full of like minded people, and was well attended by friends and some hanger-on’s, this particular party Wobble remembers for the wrong reasons, it was the time he was throw out of his own party.
For some unknown reason Wobble was walking around the flat and going on to everyone and standing in front of them and push his face as close as possible to the person he was facing and saying things like “ you’re an arsehole and nobody likes me anyway” and then walking away without waiting for an answer, he was literary in your face.
I have no idea even to this day way he was acting as he did, and was saying things like he did, I remember thinking “ This is not going to end well “, maybe he had to much to drink or he had some kind of chemical running through his veins that was influencing this strange behaviour, anyone’s guess.
He carried on approaching the people at the party throughout the night, with the same attitude, and basically repeating the same sentence, most people at the party knew him well and just ignored him or just found it funny and laughed it off.
But Wobble pushed his luck a little to far this night and said it to the wrong person, who took offence to being called an arsehole.
The flat was on the first floor of an old detached Victorian town house with two or three other flats sharing the building, and a post office on the ground floor facing the main road which was originally a butcher shop hundred and forty years earlier, since 1983 it as been a Turkish Kebab shop.
There was a set of internal wooden stairs leading up to a narrow landing, and then to Wobbles flat, the entrance doorway for the flat was in a small lane on one the side of the building.
The party’s at the flat were always full of people and most times the party itself would spill out on to the landing outside the flat, mainly because there would be no room left in the flat for all the party goers.
One of our friend s called John Hopkins communally known to everyone as John Pig, John obtained this nickname because sometime before, he ran over a pig in the middle of the road and killed it outright while he was ridding his bike, and because of this event with the pig, the nickname had stuck with him ever since.
Well, Wobble said the same thing to john as he had been saying all night to everyone else “ You’re an arsehole and nobody likes me “, John was not happy with the way Wobble spoke to him and took offence to being spoken too in that manner, John grabbed hold of wobble and dragged him across the flat knocking people out of the way and out on to the landing and promptly threw him down the stairs from the very top of the stairs, Wobble stumbled down the stairs like a rag-doll, and ended up in a heap at the bottom of the stairs bruised and battered.
All Wobble had to say about being ejected from his own party was “ That’s the first time I have been thrown out of one of my party’s”, he said this with a smile on his face, for the rest of the night Wobble did not say the same sentence again he had been repeating to everyone, a hard and bumpy lesson, these kind of situations were never taken personally and after a little while in the light of day everything was good with the world once more, and the whole event was just laughed about and as seen as a bit of fun.
Happy Days.
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