25. Why I got started on bikes ......???

So much for updating this blog at least once a month! I of course have a great excuse...Coronavirus lock-down, so I thought I would put sown in print where my love affair for motorbikes touring, travel and especially Spain came from. When I as a very young lad and still in Junior school I had to take myself to the bus stop every Friday afternoon once school finished on Sundon Park Road in Luton. If it was Winter I had to get off in Park Square int he town centre and make way to the Green Line busses and catch a 321 bus to St Albans and get off not far past the M1 junction for Luton Airport and walk though the London Road gates of Luton Hoo a stately home owned then by Sir Harold and Lady Zia Werner it's now a huge and expensive Hotel, then walk a couple of miles in the pitch black to my Grandparents home on the estate where I stayed all weekend as both my parents were working. In the summer I would be picked up in town by the Estates mini bus as the big house was open to the public from Easter to September.

My Grandparents didn't live in the mansion but not far from it in what was called the stable yard complex. It was here at the age of 12 that my younger Brother Dave and I found out that my Grandparents owned one of the stables so we went for a look and sitting in the stable under an old tarp covered in dust and all sorts was my Uncles old Lambretta scooter and sidecar. Boy do I wish I still had that combo would be worth a bit by now, we grabbed some tools and over the weekend, with permission of course, we set about disconnecting the red and white side car. To the left of the stable yard on the right hand side was a big sliding door the other side of it was what was left of an American clearing Hospital built during the war, not much left of the old huts even then but they had installed a petrol pump which my Grandfather had a key for so armed with the key and a can we filled the scooter up chucked in some two stroke oil and after a lot of effort she eventually burst into life. They are over 20 miles of private road on the estate all the family learnt to drive up there and we were no exception we  used to go everywhere on that scooter and both Dave and I were eternally hooked on motorised two wheel travel. I did just over 100 miles in a year at the age of 12.

Dave went on to join a junior stunt team and I travelled all over the place on bikes including taking Dave down to Barcelona on the back of one of my Harley's. We have had fun on two wheel for many years and long may it contnue