[Dartskipper]

Bikes and Scooters:- (Thread drift strikes again!)

When at school in the 1960's I saw a great variety ot two wheeled transportation. The only kids who had cars were from prosperous families who could afford them. There were many bicycles, one mate owning a Claud Butler with dropped "racing" handles. There were a few Falcons too, but mostly they were middle of the road "sensible" bikes. Motor bikes were few, some Royal Enfields, Matchless, AJS and the like, plus on Ariel Arrow Sports and a Grieves scrambler. The majority however were scooters, Lambretta or Vespa.One Lambretta was owned by a lad who happened to be our star athlete and sportsman. He played rugby for Essex, London and England schoolboys, was Essex and local borough cross-country champion, and at cricket was our best wicket keeper, medium fast bowler and middle order batsman. He also took part voluntarily in the Duke of Edinburgh Awards / Outward Bound Scheme"Just for fun." Anyway, one Wednesday afternoon he arrived for rugby practice on our sports field which was a few miles from the school grounds. Our schoolmaster in charge that afternoon was also a keen amateur player, turning out for the Ilford Wanderers Club. He asked our star athlete if he could "have a go" on the scooter. The master settled himself onto the seat (which disappered under the master's rather broad beam), kick started it, revved it up, let out the clutch, released the brake, zoomed off about 50 feet onto the rugby pitch and promptly fell off into a large muddy puddle. He picked himself up to much mirth and derision with one half of his tracksuit completely muddy, the other still spotless. He looked like Tommy Cooper doing his famous sketch portraying two different characters in different outfits.
As I posted earlier in this thread, public transport where I lived was so good in those days, you didn't really need a bike or other transport, so I never owned or rode a bike. Dad was also fairly strict and didn't allow my older brother or me to have a bicycle or motorised two wheeler, declaring them all to be "death traps." Our rugby master's escapade on the Lambretta didn't give me much confidence either!