well here's the Christmas Tale - a bit early, but I hope to be in Snowy Saxony this year for the Christmas festivities.
Beachcomber’s Tales from the Day
“John, the fabulous Eurasian Bird and the Araldite” – November 2011
So here we are back in 1964 – the single [ as in not married ] Beachcomber and mates are enjoying a spectacularly good Summer of riding, fun and birds.
Work got in the way somewhat as I was at this time still working for other people – but that didn’t stop us enjoying our free time from Friday night and on through the weekend.
Usually Fridays were reserved for some serious riding with mates – up the lay-bye to see if there were any races to be had, or any challenges to be thrown down and then off to one or more of the rural Caffs. Usually things would quieten down by 2.0am ‘ish and most of us would head off home to recoup for Saturday’s fun and frollicks.
Generally, we wouldn’t venture too far on a Saturday – Southend sea front maybe, but usually back on our home turf by late afternoon. Why, when there was still riding to do? Well, Saturday night was Wykham Corn Exchange night [ local dance hall ], where we’d all gather to dance and more importantly attempt to score with the opposite sex ! So Saturday it was important to be home around 6.0 ‘ish to get ourselves spiv’d up for the night. It also allowed those of us that did drink to do just that as in the Winter months the bikes were left at home and you did your best to get a seat in a pal’s car.
Very few of the lads owned a car / van, but a few had older Brother’s that could be persuaded or bribed to loan their wheels out. One such was my pal John, another of the biker fraternity that never owned a bike, he was quite happy to grab a pillion ride any time he could. Saturday night the boot was on the other foot as his older Brother owned a Bedford Dormobile caravanette – a compact motorized shagging wagon ! The beauty of this particular vehicle was that there was no need to play contortionist if you did get lucky, as it had 2 pull down beds – and a cooker – and a chemical toilet, what more could your randy biker need? John and his Brother were very close and as he was some 6 years older than John he recognized the needs of early 20’s something blokes and was quite happy for his Dormobile to be used. The golden rule was that it was returned in one piece and full of petrol.
John was one of those lucky bastards that didn’t have to make any effort to pull a bird – they all but threw themselves at him. Naturally I made it a priority to give John as many pillion rides as he asked for, so that Saturday nights I was first in the queue for a seat [ bed ] in the Dormobile !
The Wycham attracted some up and coming live bands [ no fargin DJ’s there ] – people like Joe Brown, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, Screaming Lord Such ……….Oh yes and some other blokes - Long John Baldry, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck. The night was split in 2 sessions – a support group followed by an interval [ spent at the Golden Lion across the road ], and then the main attraction. The plan was to pull a likely bird before half time, get her into the mood with a few Scrumpy Ciders and then cement the liaison during the second half and then hopefully into the Dormobile and off to one of Essex’ quiet leafy lanes.
Now as stated, John didn’t have to work hard at this – in fact 9 times out of 10 he’d have birds taking HIM to the pub at half time. Never hurt to tag along with John in times like these as there was nearly always a surplus. Yes the unwritten rule was that one of the gang of girls would be a dog, but if you got in quick ………………
Anyway John was so used to getting birds fall at his feet, it came as quite a shock when a fabulous Eurasian bird turned up at the Wycham one night and despite John’s best efforts, she’d have nothing to do with him. John was so depressed by this rebuff that he didn’t even bother to get a second string bird for later.
A week later and John was still moaning about not getting this bird and generally getting on every one’s tits. Then one of the lads contacted me to say he’d seen said bird working in a store in Romford. Anyway, come Saurday and John went into the shop to see if he could persuade the girl to go the Wycham with him to the evening dance. He managed to persuade her that it was a proper date and that he really liked her, and she accepted. He called me at mid afternoon to ask if I could give him a pillion to go to pick his best suit up from the cleaners as he really wanted to make a good impression.
I had my roadgoing Tribsa at the time with a neat high cross-over Siamese exhaust exiting into a Goldie silencer on the right side. We made uneventful progress up to the Moby Dick roundabout – the scene of various Tales and situated at one end of the lay-bye. I couldn’t resist winding it up round the island, scraping the pegs and silencer on the way round. All was well until we came round the last part of the bend to find a fresh spill of diesel from one of the many lorries that used the arterial road. This was quite common in the 60’s before lorry emissions were tightened up. Anyway, down went the Tribsa in an even bigger shower of sparks, fortunately we didn’t hit anything and nothing hit us. Before the bike had fully come to rest I spotted that the end of the Goldie cone had broken off and was lying in the middle of what was a busy 2 lane road. I managed to retrieve that before anyone ran over it, and it was only then that I realised John was grubbing around on his hands and knees in the middle of the road, obviously dazed. I went over to him, but no he wasn’t dazed, he was looking for his crown from his front tooth that had come off in the crash !
I tried to pull him out of the road to stop him getting hit by traffic, but he insisted on looking for the broken tooth. As luck would have it he spotted it just before a car was about to run over it, almost getting squitted in the process.
“That was a pretty stupid thing to do, you could have got yourself killed” I offered. “Can’t go out on this date tonight with no front tooth” said the indignant John. “Fuck your tooth,” quoth I “look at my Goldie silencer”.
Anyway we collected John’s suit and I dropped him off at his place to get ready. A couple of hours later I went back round to get a lift to the dance and John came to the door really distressed. “I can’t go out with that bird like this” John said – I told him he looked fine, and he did until he opened his mouth to reveal a huge gap where his crown had been ! Too late for a dentist [ and too expensive ] – what to do ? Well, this wondrous stuff called Araldite [ or was it Loy ? ] had just become available on the market [ no rapid Araldite for another 35 years ], so I suggested that we fix his tooth with that. I tried to reason with him - “If it can fix my gearbox housing it can fix your bloody tooth”.
By this time he was desperate and willing to try anything. So off I went home again to get my tube of Araldite.
By the time I got back time was running out – only an hour to the appointed meet. So, we stuck the tooth back in place with a dob of Araldite, with strict instructions to keep his mouth clamped shut to give it time to set – hopefully. Remember this was in the early 60’s and the setting time for this adhesive was 24 hours ! It also gave new meaning to the phrase “glue sniffing “. So with John’s teeth clamped firmly shut we set off for the dance and the meeting with the girl of his desires.
Everything went reasonably well initially and I explained to fabulous Eurasian bird’s equally fabulous sister that John had lost his voice [ in 3 hours ???? ] and that was why he was talking like a ventriloquist. This somehow made John even more appealing to her and by half time in the pub she didn’t need any scrumpy to get her in the mood. As a bonus her sister thought I was an absolute saint for looking after him while he was ill.
So there we stood around the bar having a pint of Somerset’s best and John forgot all about the keeping teeth clamped instructions and was openly happy and smiling with the thought of things to come. I stood there in horror watching him as he was quite oblivious to his crown slowly sliding off the peg – obviously loosened by the alchohol. It seemed to happen in slow motion – the 3 of us were facing John and the look on the sister’s faces was like something out of a horror film. John was blissfully unaware of this and continued to smile at the girls, until the inevitable happened and the tooth fell into his pint glass.
Now really that should have been the end of it, but no - after we explained what had happened [ the truth for a change ] and the fact that John would do anything not to miss the date, and I of course had played an important role in that – the girls were sold.
Modesty forbids the telling of the next 4 hours antics in the Dormobile, but eventually everyone went home with a smile on their face !
And what became of fabulous Eurasion bird ? Well they got married a year later – I was the best man and the sister was the bridesmaid – and you KNOW the unwritten law about the best man and the bridesmaid right??
