Bill pulls no punches
By TMX Archives on 25th May 07
NOSTALGIA is in the air around T+MX circles this month, along with all those ripe, rich clouds of smoke trailing behind three decades of off-roaders who mostly rode zinging, stinking two-strokes.
All these fumes accumulate and hang around the atmosphere like afart in a space suit. I'll bet the carbon layer smells like theHawkstone Park paddock on a Grand Prix day in the 1970s when the fewfour-strokes thundering round were mainly CCMs. Wouldn't it be nice togo up there and have a deep sniff?
Not that CCMs were guiltless in the smoking department. But thearoma of Castrol R was, to some of us, like a whiff of Chanel No 5 onthe pert breasts of a Miss UK finalist.
I've never known why no-one has ever developed a Castrol R incensecandle. Equally regretful is that I have never actually seen in theflesh the pert breasts of a Miss UK finalist.
Hard to believe that it was 30 years ago this month that we launchedT+MX, slipping up immediately by missing the opportunity to use theSSDT as the launch-pad. To tell the truth we were as green as grass inthose days, but the paper swiftly caught on, thanks mainly to theefforts of club enthusiasts who started to see their names in anational paper for the first time.
Wasn't that long before the piranhas of Peterborough, otherwise MCN,tried to scupper us by all sorts of tactics, including refusing ourentry to a London show they sponsored after we had been accepted by theorganisers.
We did OK in the end though, because all the off-road standsplastered their bikes with T+MX stickers. There was nearly fisticuffswhen MCN tried to peel them off the Kawasaki machines. It was thisfarce that led directly to the creation of Off-Road Promotions and theDirt Bike Show.
We had ten great years as a profitable part of Morecambe Press, withBob Clough as the boss. One of his two sons, Mike, was an AMCAscrambler, which gave him the idea of an off-road weekly in the firstplace. At one stage we had ten riding staffers, most with companybikes. Great days indeed...
Things became rather less cavalier with a succession of take-overswhen I was introduced to things like budgets, executive committees andall the bullshit associated with big business.
I was never a company man. Still, I soldiered on for another tenyears before walking the plank into early retirement with a usefulpension and a golden handshake which enabled me to buy a Paris-DakarBMW.
I could write a book about the fun we had in those early days. Therewas the occasional cock-up, naturally. The most expensive was printingsome bum specifications for increasing performance by a barrelmodification on, I think, YZ Yams. We had to fund the replacement ofsix barrels for anguished readers who had wrecked their machinery.
Another was a technical tip from some idiot who said we should usemother's Hoover for cleaning out air filters. I don't know how manylads blew-up Hoovers and garages but there was a nasty few weeksworrying about it.
Ironically, I was caught out with my only libel action in 50 yearsin newspapers. This blossomed after I'd retired. My fault entirely. I'dmonstered an ACU official with impunity so many times over severalyears I thought we were invulnerable - but I thought wrong. The matterwas settled out of court but it dented my self-esteem.
Many great days, too. One unforgettable occasion was sitting in theKawasaki hospitality tent at a big weekend schoolboy meeting when LedZeppelin drummer John Bonham's heavies staggered in with what lookedexactly like an aluminium coffin.
I thought the ACU steward had popped his clogs, because he waslooking a mite fragile earlier that afternoon. But no, it was full ofbooze, but no glasses. So that became the only time I've ever drunkmalt whisky out of baked bean tin and slugged brandy straight out ofthe bottle.
I think the organising secretary wrote the report of the next day's proceedings - I was too knackered to function.
It was my great pleasure to give various people their debut injournalism. A few names you will recognise: current editor JohnDickinson, whom I discovered' in Eddie Crook's workshop in downtownBarrow; Mannix Devlin, best anchorman in the business, who came overwith my family from Teesside where he was our lodger studying computerscience; Mike Rapley, trials fanatic and a one-time Volvo partsstore-man in the south-west.
Can't possibly mention all the folk I came to know and like. Lots ofthem are dead now. We joked about the late, great Ralph Venables whowrote dozens of obituaries about people he knew. ''Every hearse apersonal triumph,'' we used to joke, cruelly.
But it's no joke now, because the celestial snipers are picking offmany of my contemporaries and it probably won't be long before they getme in their sights. I have an arrangement with JD that I will write myown obituary. So, hang on folks, there's another good read coming up.
Meanwhile, I'm still riding (if you can call it that on a 125ccHonda trail bike) and my clack is still working so I can drinkcopiously.
The Arthur Itis' doesn't bother my throttle hand all the time; thenear-terminal piles are solaced by a special cushion strapped to thesaddle made by the Happy Bum Corporation of Kowloon; the diabetes ismitigated by Metformin tablets, otherwise known as Metfartin because ofa flatulent side-effect - I could break wind for England. Meanwhile,the nasty right hip and knee allows me occasionally to get my leg over.
These problems with the joints were caused by kick-starting, orfailing to kick-start, British ironmongery in the '50s and '60s. Yeskid, I am that old. Considering I have always been rubbish on anoff-road bike, I am suffering for my art.
Anyway, you T+MX readers, I lifts my glass and I looks towards you.Hope you got your name in this week's results. If so, T+MX remains theonly place you will see it.
Viva T+MX...
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