Burned bike 1990, Minchinhampton, Glos.

Burned bike 1990, Minchinhampton, Glos.
Originally uploaded by Eleventh Earl of Mar.

Being quite poor at the time, and needing transport, I bought this little 100cc bike from Eddie's on Kirkstall Road, and rode it all the way down to Gloucestershire from Leeds, in the Spring of 1990.

Because my rented house on West End opened straight onto the street, and there was no street parking, and I didn't want to drag the motorbike through the house... I parked the bike in the car park of Minchinhampton library. It was no great hardship to walk a couple of hundred yards to and from my house.

One evening there was a knock on the door, and it was a member of Her majesty's Constabulary.

Being a little worse for wear, I feared that I must have committed some heinous crime.

Instead, it was this: "are you the owner of a black Kawasaki motorcycle, registration number blah-de-blah?
I owned that I was, and made haste to the library car park, where my frazzled bike stood, still smoking, next to the above-pictured Ford Escort.

The next day I had the owner of the Escort round at my house accusing me, if you will, that I had instigated the fire myself for insurance purposes, and that he and his mates were going to give me a goodkicking,and well deserved it too be would.

Once I was permitted to get a word in, my evident superior breeding, intellect and really good posh voice that I can turn on at the drop of a hat, were sufficient to assuage him of his suspicions. He tugged his forelock, apologised for being alive and went away.

The great thing about a lot of these Gloucestershire locals is that they're so in-bred they'll kowtow to just about anything with a pulse, and of course if you speak 'loik a poiraaahhhttt' , then the natural order of things conditions you to accept anything said in a posh voice as compulsory.

As beautiful as this area is it's wasted on the locals, apart from Laurie Lee, who was a genius. And that vicar who wrote Thomas the Tank Engine.

Unfortunately, a lot of wealthy people from London have realised that too, so you can't find a house for under 300K.

Anyway I digress (as per usual); I wheeled the bike back down West End and had to take it through the house to the back to keep it safe.

Norwich Union took forever to pay up, so it was about two months before I got another bike.