ROAD BLOCK

CHAPTER 58

ROAD BLOCK

12/6/1976

( Photo 1 ) . . Trem`s bike, Triumph TR6 650 Saint, a product of the Meridan forge, photo taken in Sarn in 1978.

Myself and my friends were riding home from the biker pub the Knights Arms in Porthcawl after spending the evening there with all the other bikers that frequent the pub, the pub was very busy as usual, as The Knights was always very busy was in the summer time.

It was a dry mild Saturday night.

Trem was riding his 650cc Triumph Saint which was an x-police bike, which he had painted a Cherry red colour, the Triumph had quite a few miles on the clock, and the bike was very problematic, he had constant oil leaks and problems with keeping the engine running, but he kept it going all the same, it did require constant attention, but he persevered, I remember on numerous occasions everyone had to wait for him to do some kind of running repair to get the bike started or fix something on it that fell off with the vibration from the engine.

On this night Lawson was his pillion passenger, and I was riding my Blue Yamaha RD 250.

We headed out of Porthcawl past the Little Chef road side cafes just outside laleston, and then through Laleston village itself and skirting the large Cefn Glas housing estate which lay on the fringe outskirts of the town, and then onto Park Street that lead directly in to Bridgend Town.

As we rode along we traveled alongside each other, there was no other traffic on the road, and the time was approximately 1 AM or maybe a little later.

Just up ahead we spotted a police car parked up in a bus stop lay-by on the main road near to the West House pub, the cop car had it’s lights switched off, we throttled off down to 30 mph, the problem with Trem`s bike, was that it was fitted with Dunstall straight through pipes and it made hell of a noise, even when he shut the throttle down.

We coasted past the dark cop car, we could see no signs of life inside the car, we rode on a little up and over a small rise which leveled off for a short distance then dropped back down a long sloping road in to Park street.

We now forgot about the parked up cop car, and assumed the coppers that parked the car up were elsewhere. So we need not worry about it, and then suddenly the cop car was behind us, the copper had pulled off behind us without his light switched on after we had past it, the car then caught up with us in the dark street, and suddenly switched his headlights on and his blue flashing lights.

It scared the shit out of me, it was like the star ship Enterprise had just beamed them down behind us.

I don’t know why, but I heard Trem drop a gear and accelerated away from me as soon as the lights appeared, I was a little startled at these unexpected events, the cop car appearing out of nowhere behind us and Trem roaring off into the distance, so I did the same I dropped a gear and pulled away from the cop car.

At the bottom of the hill there was a set of traffic lights, the town planers had changed the road system nowa days, but back then the lights were on the left side of the Angel pub directly opposite the new Bridge which was built in 1821.

The lights were on red, Trem did not stop, and went straight through them over the bridge and into the town center.

They were still on red when I neared them, I had no intention of stopping and pulled the bike on to the right-hand side of the road and banked hard to the left, heading up the Tondu road bypass as fast as the bike could carry me, I accelerated hard pulling a wheelie in the process, which I did not want to do, I lay flat on the tank and opened the throttle.

There was no roundabout opposite the Embassy cinema like there is now, so I had an open road in front of me, this part of the road was not lite up by street lamps back then, so I rode in total darkness, oddly I could not see any head lights or any blue flashing lights behind me, i checked my mirrors often, I assumed the coppers had gone after Trem and had ignored me, I kept the pace up all the same, to put as much distance behind me, and leave the bored coppers to chase Trem, the last thing I wanted was to be harassed by some bored coppers on their night shift, I headed for the safety of the valleys.

I rode on past the Victorian hospitals of Angelton and Glanrhyd, and as I sped past the last Hospital the copper put his lights on again, the fucker was right behind me all the way, driving with his lights off again, I learned later the cop car was what we called a Jam Sandwich, it was a Triumph PI, a 2000 cc liter car, a type of vehicle that the cops use to pursue speeding vehicles, I had no chance from the start of out running or losing this guy, the car was much faster than my 250 cc bike, the fucker must have thought he was in some kind of video game, travelling in stealth mode, this was the second time he had done this in the space of around 10 minutes.

I pulled on to the old road that went past the Swan pub, the road is blocked off nowa days, Bridgend council as changed the road system to accommodate the increase of traffic that as developed over the years, there is now a bypass that skirts the village of Aberkenfig.

I carried on down the old road into Aberkenfig itself with the chasing copper right behind me, and now with his siren screaming its head off.

And there across the road opposite Mario’s chip shop and Keens tackle shop was a police Mini car parked right across the road blocking my exit into the village, his blue lights flashing madly, and giving the whole scene an eerie look.

This was no road block like they portray in Hollywood films, where there would be coppers everywhere with weapons drawn, all I had was two welsh coppers armed with waving torches, there was no dramatics on my part either, I did not do a locked up back wheel sliding stop, I just slowed down as if I was approaching a road junction.

( Photo 2 ) . The scene of the Road Block, the police mini was parked across the road between Marios chip shop on the right, next to the tall telegraph pole and on the opposite side, Keens tackle shop, the Golden Lion pub can be seen on the left with the Simmons beer sign hanging outside on the wall, I came down the road in the distance, photo taken in 1955, there are modern photos available, but I liked the look of this one.

I had nowhere to go, I was blocked in, the street was narrow and with a mini car sideways on the road in front of me, and the triumph 2000 jam sandwich behind me, all this nonsense stopped here, there was no point in going any further, they would have already had my number plate and knew who I was and where I lived, so I slowed down and stopped, and just sat on the bike, facing the road block waiting for all the crap to start.

In front of me waving a torch around was a tall copper who needed to stop eating Mario’s steam pie and chips for a while, another copper standing to one side of the cop car just watched me and did not move, oddly there was a small crowed of people hanging about outside the golden lion pub with pint glasses in their hands, they had obviously been enjoying a lock-in, in the pub and came out to see what all the fuss was about outside, the coppers ignored them, even though they too were breaking the law by drinking after hours.

The pursuit car pulled up behind me, and the two coppers slowly and deliberately climb out of the car as if they had all the time in the world, the driver of this car walked up to the fat copper and spoke to him, I could not hear what they said to each other, the other copper who looked very young walked up to me and took the keys out of my ignition, and told me to get off the bike in no uncertain terms, he then told me push the bike on to the pavement, I got off the bike flicked the side stand out and left it there, if he wanted to move the bike, he could move it, I was not pushing the bike anywhere for him, The copper said “ take your helmet off “, I replied to his suggestion by simply saying “ no “.

He said it again, but this time with a little bit more venom “ take your fucking helmet off “, He grabbed the chin guard of my full-face helmet and said “ take it off now “ and then pulled my head down and forward, so I took my helmet off to prevent him breaking my neck, he was pulling down so hard on the chin guard I had no other option to take it off or suffer a neck injury, he then also grabbed me by the collar of my leather jacket and held me there, I waited for all the sarcastic nonsense to start.

I stood on the side of the pavement outside Mario’s chip shop and then the young copper grabbed my arm and held on so tightly I had bruise’s the next day where he grabbed my arm, he did not let me go for a second, the fat copper moved his mini from the middle of the road, and drove it up a side street and the pursuit driver drove his car around the corner and parked it up in front of the police station, and then the young copper escorted me to the triumph Pi car, holding me by my arm and by my collar, he then held me up against the car, and produced a breathalyser test kit to check if I had been drinking, I fully cooperated with this, knowing full well I would pass, I had not been drinking on this night, I blew into the bag and lo and behold it was green, I smiled at the young copper, the kind of smile that winds people up, and I gave him a wink, he did not smile back and looked very disappointed with the result, he seemed very dismayed by the result, so no drink-driving charge for me tonight, I had the impression he was hoping to arrest me and put me in the back of the car in handcuffs and then have my bike impounded, both these guys had a very negative attitude towards me, once he was finished with checking the breathalyzer he then opened the passenger door, and told me to sit in the passenger seat next to the driver, and then he went off to check my bike over.

The driver called me a menace to society, “ that’s what you are a menace on the road ”, he said this without looking at me, he held an A4 clip board on his lap and a blue Biro pen in his right hand, the type that you could get free from the banks back then, the passenger door was wide open the copper said “ close the car door “ I ignored him, he said it again “ close the door “ I ignored him again, “ so that is how you want play this, is it “.

I knew I was not going to get any favours from the guy, so I was not going to do anything he asked me to do if I did not have too, he was going to book me for something anyway, and I was not going to give him the idea that he was in control, I still had my rights, even if he thought I was scum, because that was the impression he was giving me, he talked to me as if I was something he had stepped in, that works both ways, I did not have a good opinion of him or his young sidekick, so my time with this copper did not start off on a good footing.

The copper asked what my name was, I said “ why, you already know it “.

He gave me a very hard stare and looked super annoyed with me, and then he said in an aggressive tone “ What’s your fucking name and give me your licence, if you have one “.

I replied “ I don’t carry it around with me”, the radio crackled and my unfriendly copper spoke into his microphone, I could not understand a word that was said, it was all white noise to me, but he seemed to understand the distorted noise with no problems, he put the mic down and looked at me again and said “ are you Philip David Lloyd “ I replied “ yes, and yes I own the bike, and yes I live in Pontycymmer “.

Me answering all his questions before he asked them seemed to annoy him even more , which I knew it would.

I have to admit I have always enjoyed moments like these, annoying these type of pretentious people was good for my soul and gave me a more relaxed approach to the crap that spew out of their mouths, it was kind of looking at someone naked when you are nervous, so it helps to deal with stressful situations, maybe I enjoy winding people up too much, but I enjoy it, if people don’t like it, they can learn the lesson and stop pretending they are important or whatever root cause it is that makes them excessively boring to other people.

Well the prick still asked the question anyway, my answer was “ yes and yes and yes “, which put a smile on my face and made his frown deeply.

He then turned all the questions on to the other rider who with me, he said ” what’s the name of your friend you were riding with “.

I said, “ I don’t know ”.

He replied “ yes you do, what’s his name “.

I replied “ no I don’t, I just caught up with him on the road coming back from Porthcawl ”.

He said, “ what bike was he riding, it sounded like a British bike to me “.

I said “ how the fuck would I know, I only seen him for a short time “.

At this point the situation in the car took a dark turn.

The copper lent over and grabbed me by the throat and said “ you want to show me more respect boy”, he only held me for a moment, but he had made a point, this guy really wanted to hurt me, he did actually say if they had more time he would take me around the back of the police station and beat the crap out of me, what that would have achieved I have no idea, giving me a few slaps behind a building is not going to teach me not to speed on the main road again, maybe he took pleasure in beating young boys up, well making that ridicules statement did not phase me in the lest, I was brought up in welsh mining valley in the 1960s, when men were men, and sheep were very, very afraid ( Welsh joke ).

When he made that stupid threat, I just answered “ yeah whatever “, I was the wrong person to threaten with violence, it meant nothing to me, and with him making that statement, I now knew he was full of shit, and would not have done anything of the sort, it was all physiological bullshit to try and get the upper hand in the situation we were both in, I was frustrating the guy by not falling into his way of thinking.

( Photo 3 ) . Trem messing around on my Yamaha RD 250 in Sarn, photo taken in 1976.

Then he changed the line of questioning.

Your friend would have been a better chase then you, he said, he had a real bike not that two-stroke pile of JAP crap you're riding, I knew he was trying to goad me in saying something that would drop Trem into the shit, and also get him booked.

It didn’t work, I just shrugged my shoulders and said nothing.

After a little while the young copper came back to the car, he went to the drivers window and leaned in, and he spoke to the driver saying, “ I checked his bike over, I can't see anything wrong with it, it is street legal “.

The driver turned to me and said “ well, your lucky, I was hoping to scrap it “.

There was more said, nothing nice , but at the end when they had finished with their abuse of official power, and most likely ran out of things to say to me, to be honest a lot of things they said sounded very rehearsed and as if they have lessons on how to belittle people that they deal with, I was given a Hort1 to produce my documents at a police station, as he gave me the ticket, he kind of smiled and said “ your going to get banned for a long time for this “ and then he told me to get out of the car, and promptly ignored me.

I walked to my bike, Aberkenfig was now empty of people everyone had gone home or back in the pub, the two coppers watched me start the bike up, I rode off very slowly, and I kept to the speed limit all the way home, just in case the coppers were following behind with their lights off once again.

Three months later I received a brown envelope in the post, it was from the court system informing me that a court date was arranged at Bridgend county court, and that I had no option but to attend, I was requested to turn up in person and I needed to inform them that if I was pleading guilty to the charges or pleading innocent, I phoned the department responsible for all this rigmarole and told them I was pleading guilty and just deal with the matter over the post, I was thinking that pleading guilty and excepting whatever the fine was, and the ban from driving there would be no need for me to attend court, but I was told I would need to attend the court, and there was no getting away from it.

( Photo 4 ) Me in 1979, aged 23 years, I had not changed much in the three years since the road block.

So on the court date ( 30/9/1976 ), three days after my birthday, I caught a bus to Bridgend Magistrates court, I did not take the bike mainly because everyone was telling me that I was going to be banned from driving, and they would take my licence off me for a long time.

I turned up in court without any legal representation, did this because I expected not to have my licence at the end of the court hearing, and I was pleading guilty to all the six charges that were brought against me so I thought there would be no point in me paying for solicitor, when there was only going to be one result at the end of the day, I also went on my own there was no point in bothering to drag anyone else in to my courtroom misery.

I stood in the dock, the copper that was driving the Triumph PI was there in one of the wood benches on the side of the courtroom , he was eyeballing me every second I was there, he did not take his eyes off me, I was the very last court case of the day, the time had passed 17:00 p.m., I had been in the waiting room since 09:00 a.m. in the morning, I was bored to death.

The main Magistrate looked up at me from a bunch of paper work he had in front of him, and said “ you do not have representation for your case” I said as meekly as possible “ no sir, I am pleading guilty and I will except any result that you decide to give for the stupidity of the actions I took that night “, the magistrate spoke again “ if you are happy for us to continue, it's been a long day, and I am glad to hear you except responsibility for your actions that night “, I had already worked out what I wanted to say weeks before I went to court, showing humility was something that these pretentious type of people expect from the people who end up in court in front of them, so I gave them what they expected, and it seemed to work, all of these three magistrates seemed to have stepped in to my web of bollocks with their eyes wide open, which was something I did not expect, I thought they would have been more street wise, and had not fallen for this kind of ( I’m very sorry and I won't do it again, I have learned my lesson, kind of crap ).

These type of middle class pretentious creatures love the fact that people feel remorse for the crimes they commit against society, of course these type of people also believe that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden, and unicorn exists, I could not believe they were so naïve.

Firstly they read the charges out against me, there were five separate speeding offences and one for dangerous driving.

I pleaded guilty and waited.

The magistrates talked amongst themselves which seemed to take forever, and then they asked me a number of questions.

The main question was why I did not stop.

My answer was simple, I said " I panicked ".

The whole courtroom looked at me including the copper.

“ Why did you panic, it shows here on the paper work that there were no defaults with your vehicle, and your documents were in order and it was a routine stop that the police do on a regular basis”.

My answer to them, started a new in-depth conversation between the three magistrates, I said “ When you get a car driving behind you with no driving lights on and suddenly switch’s his siren and blues lights on, anyone would panic “.

A three magistrates looked over to the copper in the corner, and started talking amongst themselves once more.

“ There is nothing stated in the report that indicates anything like that happened “.

My answer to that was “ you would need to talk to the police officer in charge to find the facts about that “.

They all looked at the copper once more.

After a little while, the middle class monkeys were ready to give me my sentence, the main magistrates said “ there are five speeding offences, can you explain why there are five “.

I answered the best I could, I was not expecting to have to analyse everything that I did that night “ I believe I rode through five different speed restricted zones “.

The top monkey said “ you also drove in excess of 100 mph and rode through an area where there could have been patients crossing the road at Glanrhyd Hospital, hence the reason why you have a dangerous driving charge against you, what do you have to say about that “.

I answered “ it was after 1a.m. 'In the morning', so I don’t think there would have been anyone crossing the road at that point, at that time of the night and like I said earlier I panicked and I’m very sorry for the problems I caused that night “.

I said all that, but to be honest, I didn’t give a fuck, I just told them what I thought they wanted to hear.

I looked around the courtroom while the magistrates debated my future, I could see the copper staring at me with a very stern or possibly an angry gaze.

The main magistrate, began his boring moral speech justifying the judging panels decision on my case, he looked at me with a very serious expression and said, “ these are very serious charges against you, you have five speeding offences and a dangerous driving charge, these offences can not be taken lightly, so we have decided to fine you £20 for each of the speeding offences and £50 for the dangerous driving offence, I hope you take note of this court when we say I don’t want to see you again, what do you have to say to our decisions “.

I could not believe it, they were not going to ban me from driving, inside I wanted to jump up and down and shout “ FUCK YEAH “ and making a whopping sound, but I kept my cool and said “ thank you, and I’m very sorry for the trouble I caused, and I will never do such a silly thing again “, I was so happy.

The magistrate finished the hearing off by saying, “ you are very lucky you pleaded guilty, or we would have banned you from driving, you can go now “, and that was my day in court over and done with.

I was stunned by the result, I didn’t get banned, I turned to the copper, I could see he was seething with anger, I gave him a great big smile.

I had to wait a little while, as the court clerk sorted my paper work out, and as I left the courtroom the copper was outside in the waiting room which was now totally empty, everyone had finished their day in court and had gone home, I had to walk past copper, who was obviously waiting for me to leave the court room, he leaned over as I came closer to him, and said in a low voice, “ there will always be a next time “, I smiled again and shrugged my shoulders and said “ yes, of course there will “.

I was still gobsmacked by the fact that I did not get banned from had driving.

Considering I had two endorsements on my driving licence already from another occasion I had the displeasure of an encounter with the police, I could not believe my luck, the dangerous driving offence was enough to get me a ban on its own.

In the coming years I had only one more endorsement for Careless Driving ( 90 mph in a 30 mph speed zone ), I have written about this event in the blog called ( COPPERS #2 ).

There was a number of things that puzzled me about the court case, a number of the events in the actual police chase were never mentioned, the road block and the involvement of the two cop cars and the two other coppers was briefly mentioned, the magistrates were only aware of the coppers cashing me and nothing really about the Aberkenfig roadblock incident, there was very little regarding this event in the copper's statement, he excluded the fact that he was driving behind me with no lights at night for a very long distance, and his remark that my yam 250 was ridden in excess of 100 mph was bullshit, I never achieved the 100 mph mark on this bike, ever, and believe me, I tried very had, maybe 90 plus, but in excess of 100 mph was a fantasy, I think he did this to try and get me an instant ban.

From that day on, I have never believed anything a copper ever said to me, sometimes you see them on TV, saying they are doing all they can BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, how can you trust an authority that manipulates the laws to suit their own agenda.

Ok I could have just stopped, and this event in my life would never had happened, and there would have been no chase and no court case, but the copper would have found something wrong even then, even if I had just pulled over, bored coppers on a night shift are people to avoid, he could well have booked me for some trivial driving offence.

I never came across this copper again in all my time in riding around Bridgend which is in excess of 40 years, shortly after this incident I changed my bike to a red American imported Yamaha RD350.

I had some fun with that RD 350.

Police harassment back in the day was an everyday occurrence, it was something which we all excepted and were very used too, the CB radio enthusiast of the time called the South Wales area ( Hazard County ) for very good reason, it could well have been because Bridgend was the main headquarters for the police in the county of Glamorgan, so the cops made an extra effort to keep their backyard clean.

The fines for the one dangerous driving offence and five speeding offences added up to £150, which does not sound a lot of money, but in today’s money it equates to £976, I was fined £20 for each of the five speeding offences, and £50 for the dangerous driving offence, and received an endorsement for each of these offences on my paper licence.

There were two previous endorsements on my licence before the road block incident and only one more later in 1978 for careless driving which is detailed in the blog ( coppers #2 ) which is Chapter 38 on the blog site.

After the last endorsement, I did not pick up any driving offences, I still rode in the same way as I ever did, the only thing that changed was that I was riding bigger bikes, there is a massive performance difference between a 250cc bike and a 1000cc one, I was a bit wiser, and I was far more aware of how PC plod went about their business, so I was thinking ahead of them.

Happy Days, I would not change a thing.

( Photo 5 ) . My old paper driving licence, there are nine endorsements on the licence in total, two were from a previous encounter I had with a very keen young copper, ( not written about that encounter yet ), and six more from the blog detailed above, the last endorsement you will find the explanation in the Blog ( Coppers #2 ) Chapter 38.

( Photo 6 ) . My Yamaha RD 250 in the snow in 1978.