Two-wheeled Tearaways

Trevor Gehlcken of Totnes, Devon remembers:

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My mates and I were all motorcycle mad in our teens. In the years running up to our 16th birthdays, we dreamed about and discussed ad nauseam what we would ride come the glorious day - and all of us managed to strut our stuff on some kind of contraption when we finally hit that magic age.

Looking back, I can’t believe how far our money stretched. I had a Saturday job working on the market which paid the princely sum of £1 a week but, somehow, I managed to buy cigarettes and beer, take girlfriends out and still have spare change to purchase an old Lambretta LD150 from my next-door neighbour (£5) and tax and insure it so I was road legal.

I didn’t really want a scooter as my mates and I were all sort of greasers, but I made do with it until I could trade up to a James 150 Pilot, which was a single-cylinder, twostroke bimbler that was even slower than the Lambretta. But at least it was a motorcycle. I say “sort of greasers” because we were all grammar school lads and the real greasers in town, who roared about on Tritons, 650 Beezers and Ariel Square Fours, held us in complete contempt and ignored us. I suppose we should have been grateful - they could have beaten us all to a pulp for daring to imitate them.