Wringing Bells, Part Two
In the first instalment of Wringing Bells, we left Lester Morris and his mate Fred dicing like demons between Lithgow and Bathurst. In the concluding part of this tale from the 1950s, the boys actually make it to the track to see Mr Brabham in action, but not without (naturally) a few more dramas along the way. Including another run-in with the law…
Two hiccups occurred on the leg into Bathurst, only a matter of about ten minutes apart, and I could have faced life a happier man had I endured neither of them.
The first was when we met a dozen or so pigs crossing the road right on line through a treacherous right-left-right series of corners just after Yetholme at the end of a long, fast straight. We didn’t see them until we were on top of them, but we zoomed in, among and finally past them without touching one, which raised the pulse rate a notch or two again. I don’t know if they were domestic or wild, where they came from or where they were headed, but they were accompanied by neither canine nor human escort.
The second occurred when we slowly closed upon a bright red XK120 Jaguar, which I assume was on its way to the Orange meeting. I slipped into the Jag’s ample slipstream and eased the throttle back a couple of degrees to sit in the comparatively still air for a relaxing minute or two, while Fred had fallen strangely silent somewhere behind.
In an inane burst of Supreme Optimism I peeled off to pass the open sports car and was of course rewarded by running into the solid, still air which surrounded the partial vacuum in which I had been riding. It hit me like a brick wall, or somebody flapping a sand-encrusted beach towel in my face, as I fought to hold the BSA and get back into the still air which by now was several metres up the road.
I had arrived in the stream again when the driver – obviously shat-off with the idiot who filled his mirror and ears with a grim visage and a cacophonous sound – floored the accelerator and the Jag zoomed off, leaving me standing as though I had suddenly been tied to a telegraph pole.
In a reflex action to rival Fred’s horn blowing incident, I whipped the clutch lever in, as I assumed for a split second that my engine had seized. Of course it hadn’t, but it was too late to do anything about it because the Jag had picked up its skirts and was gone.
So, too, was Fred, who had dropped back and wound the Vincent out to get a flyer on us and had chosen that very instant to blast us into the weeds.
The sounds of those bellowing exhausts, the shock of Fred’s sudden reappearance, the fumes, the powdered rubber, the crap and corruption, the grit from that blasted beach towel again and the de-moralising sight of the rapidly diminishing duo was too much for me, so I buttoned off and ambled more sedately into town.
Had we been in the mountains I would have given them a run for their money, but the BSA was on sidecar gearing and I couldn’t hope to keep up with those two on the long straight, so I simply had to let them go for it.
In fact, all I wanted to do after that was to lie down in the shade somewhere while a village maiden mopped my fevered brow and made cooing noises at me.
Instead, I had a cup of coffee with Fred, whom I found waiting patiently at the roadside when I drifted into Bathurst.
“Where did ya get to?” he grinned when I pulled up, “I gave you up for lost.”
“Where did I get to? It was you who took off like a rocket, mate, not me. The Beezer couldn’t keep up with you blokes flat-out on a straight as long as that one, it’s not geared for it.”
“Doesn’t matter, old son, honour’s been satisfied.” Fred grinned like an eager schoolboy and rubbed his huge hands in glee. “I done him like a sausage. Dunno where he went, but I blew him right off. He turned off somewhere out of town.”
I felt a bit out of it all and must have shown it, because he suddenly threw an arm over my shoulder and squeezed until something went crack. “Don’t worry, me old mate,” he said, “Let’s have a feed somewhere.”
He put me down to kick the Black Shadow into life, and sat rubbing his jaw for a few moments as he contemplated the road into town.
“What about the White Rose?” It sounded more like an instruction than a question, but that suited me fine because I ate there every Easter, so we trickled up to that once-famous eatery and strolled in for a feed.
For some reason I can’t remember, we decided to stay overnight in Bathurst instead of going on to Orange, and for some equally odd reason – though it was Fred’s choice – we slept alongside the bikes on the manicured lawn of the park in the centre of town.
Chateau de Park
“We’ll plant ourselves near these bushes,” said Fred with a quite unintentional pun, as we unrolled our sleeping bags. “No-one will see us here and the bikes will be safe.”
Of course, he meant the Vincent would be OK, because he frankly looked down his nose a bit at the BSA and wasn’t too interested in its fate. I s’pose the old single-cylinder war-horse was a bit ordinary alongside the big Vincent, which even then was far removed from its fellows in every department – except for some odd handling traits – but at least Fred could grudgingly admire the BSA’s startling performance, even if its handling could be very odd as well at times.
I was privileged to ride a number of Vincents over the years, marvelling at their relaxed 4500 rpm at 100 mph and the ease of cornering on long, open bends, but not happy with the very heavy steering at “traffic” speeds, the distinctly uncertain handling through tight, slow corners, the peculiar feel of the clutch and the slow, graunchy gearchange.
I rode Fred’s Vincent a couple of times and noted exactly the same features as I had on other models before (and some after) while he rode my BSA only once, and then only for an hour or so.
His verdict on the push-rod single?
“Funny little bike. Vibrates a bit, but it goes pretty well.”
If you had known Fred, you would say that was praise indeed.
I was awakened at around dawn by a gentle prodding through the thick layers of a feather-down sleeping-bag. I beheld a large Police Sergeant peering down at me, with a young Constable on tip-toe peeping shyly over his shoulder. The Sergeant’s shoulder, that is!
“Sorry son, you can’t sleep here,” said the Sergeant, as he withdrew his size twelve boot. “This is a public park.”
I sat up, and I know I was blinking owlishly as I rubbed my eyes and my aching back, approximately in that order. I looked across at Fred, who lay next to me for all the world like a beached whale wrapped in a spinnaker.
I was alarmed at what I saw as I tried to focus in the semi-gloom, and for a second I thought the Law’s minions had pushed Fred’s bike over on top of him, for he was clearly pinned to the ground underneath it.
The Vincent had no centre stand, merely a rear stand which is difficult to use because it is secured to the bottom of the rear guard by a small retaining clamp, but the bike is unique in having two propstands, which are fitted to each side of the crankcases.
The propstands work well enough under normal circumstances, and have wide feet on them, but cannot hope to support 450 pounds of motorcycle leaning at an acute angle when that motorcycle is standing – legally or not – for some hours on couch grass with about four inches of sandy top-soil underneath it.
Simply put, the bike had slowly slipped over as the stand subsided into the soil and it was now leaning its entire weight upon the recumbent giant, the bike (I swear) moving in harmony with Fred’s breathing.
Suddenly I was wide awake as the Sergeant swivelled to face the scene on my left, the young Constable pivoting around the same axis as though glued to the older man’s back, his chin still resting on his superior’s shoulder. I half expected to see a large dog rush out of the bushes somewhere and fling a bucket of water over them.
They sprang apart with neither a pop nor a tearing sound and rushed to assist as Fred, by now wide awake as well, struggled to free an arm from the confines of a too-friendly sleeping bag. Suddenly he gave a shout as he shoved one arm to the grass and another to the Vincent’s handlebars, levering himself and the bike bolt-upright in one move. It was a deft trick and a staggering display of strength as the propstand had gone through the top-soil to the clay beneath, which had clamped to the stand and wanted to come out of the grass with it.
Red-faced boys in blue
I’m sure the soft, metallic clang I heard at the time was the young copper’s jaw as it fell open with a creaking sound and dropped onto the petrol tank; then again, it was probably the folding footrest clanging into place. Whatever it was, the feat was a prodigious one, which did not go unnoticed by the Sergeant who stood, hands on hips, and shook his head in amazement and frank admiration.
“What the bloody hell’s going on here?” Fred demanded. “Hold me bike, mate, while I get outa this thing. I’m stiff as a board.”
The Sergeant obliged as Fred struggled upright, his sleeping-bag inexplicably caught at half-mast.
“Struth,” he said, through a monumental yawn and an awesome stretch, “That was like being born again!”
He looked fuzzily around him, and then focussed on the Police Sergeant, his right eye slowly closing and I noted, as I had on other occasions prior to this, that big though the Sergeant was, Fred was at least half as big again.
“What’s your problem, Officer?” he asked quietly, his arms by now clamped around the bag to keep it up.
“Like I was telling your mate, you can’t sleep here. It’s a public park.”
“Look around you, mate,” Fred nodded at the surrounding parkland. “It’s daylight. We’ve already slept here. And besides, we’re public.”
“Look, we’ll be moving on in about two minutes flat,” he said in his reasoning voice. “We’ve ridden for miles,” he lied, “And we couldn’t ride an inch further. We had a great feed at the White Rose and were so flamin’ tired. We didn’t know where to go, so we flopped here.”
He looked at the Policeman appealingly. “I’m sorry about that. I’m sure you understand.”
Whether he did or not, the Sergeant could hardly argue with that reasonable approach, and he bade us farewell and asked us to vacate the park at once if not sooner than that. He turned on his heel and strode off, the young copper trotting alongside him doffing his cap. I’m sure if he had known of the custom, he would have touched his forelock or tugged at his right ear-lobe, the way other lackies did when their superiors were in-tow.
“Who’s the cringer?” Fred nodded after the departing duo. “They give you any trouble?”
I assured him I didn’t know who the cringer was, and that, no, they didn’t give me any trouble, and that please could we get out of the joint in case they came back again to see if we were as good as our word.
“Let ’em go,” he said, “And we’ll watch them out of sight.” When he was sure they were gone, Fred stepped away to reveal a deep and large hole concealed by his sleeping bag.
It transpires that he decided to dig a hiphole in the Council’s lawn, and, allowing for a King-sized hip, had dragged a tyrelever out of his bag and removed what looked like half a ton of grass and soil in his bid for as comfortable a night’s sleep as he could muster.
Of course I didn’t know what a hiphole was, nor that creating such a simple depression could transform the stoniest sod into a most comfortable resting-place, but Fred certainly knew all about it.
I knew we both would if we stayed any longer, and were caught with the evidence strewn carefully among the flower beds, so we departed for Orange as quickly as we could, having decided to wait about half-an-hour and have a relaxed breakfast at journey’s end.
We weren’t five minutes out of Bathurst, trickling along the Orange Road, when we met a group of about six (I didn’t count them) motorcyclists apparently on their way to the same meeting. I recognised them almost a once, because they were all customers of the suburban motorcycle shop in which I was working.
In fact, their leader – for so he proved to be – was mounted on the 1956 Tiger 100 Triumph I’d sold him brand-new and upon which I had taught him to ride in the time-honoured manner: half-an-hour up and down the side lane and then in at the deep end with an “escorted” ride home through traffic, with best wishes for whatever arrangements he was going to make from then on’
“Where are you off to?” I asked as I slipped alongside him.
“Orange,” came the reply, as he grimaced at the BSA, “We’ll see you when you get there.”
With that he screwed the grip open and departed hurriedly, with me in close company and his mates, already warm to the game, wringing the necks of their respective machines as well.
Fred was at my right elbow in no time at all, and I could just hear the command as he half-stood on the footrest and leaned over alarmingly till he could shout straight into my ear.
“Let ’em go for a bit. We’ll reel ’em in soon enough!” he shouted.
Rat pack
They were all over the place, grinning and shouting, looking back at us and each other; one with his elbows in the breeze and his head out of sight; another, chin on tank and tucked-in like a classic racer; others clinging grimly to a machine they were riding quickly for the very first time; yet another wallowing about, bogged down with much too much heavy luggage.
They weaved about all over the place and would clearly be difficult to pass as they nudged one another unintentionally and boinnnged apart again, or slipped off the road edges to send sticks, stones and dust flying everywhere. The air was rent with noise and I frankly wanted either to slip back and leave them to it, or get to hell out of it all, and in fact had just made the latter decision when I espied a narrow bridge looming ominously ahead.
The riders closed ranks and speared onto the bridge as though poured down a narrow funnel, and I buttoned right off, certain there would soon be bikes and people lying about everywhere. By some miracle they fanned apart again and I pounced into their midst to despatch two of the more tentative ones, one of them upon a sad-news Model J Royal Enfield 500 single, the other on an AJS with a buckled rear wheel. One of their number, on a MAC Velocette with a white petrol tank, was a bit tough for a while as he weaved about all over both sides of the road in a bid to hold us off while the Triumph and a near-new Matchless 500 single got a break on the bunch.
I slipped past the fool when he zigged as he should have zagged and began reeling in the Triumph when the leader sat up on the entrance to a righthander, removed one hand from the Matchless and began flapping his arm around in a half-baked “slow down” gesture.
Blast that for a joke! I was round him and gone, wringing the BSA’s neck as perhaps never before, and happily clear of that lot but expecting to hear the sound of that Vincent at my heels at any moment. I rode it as hard as I could go, and endured the odd twitch at the tailend in so doing, but I couldn’t hear anything coming up astern and chanced a quick look back at an opportune moment. Nothing!
There was nothing to be seen or heard anywhere so I rolled-off, sat up, braked, slowed, changed back and finally stopped. Nothing!
I waited for a couple of minutes, expecting the pack to swoop into view at any moment, but still nothing happened. I stopped the engine and stepped off, lifting the bike onto the centrestand and listened hard, but apart from the customary ringing in my ears there was no sound but the normal ones of the busy bushland.
I caught a bit of fluff and a couple feathers that were floating about in the air, and I could see a bit more flotsam in the air behind me when I looked back, and it was only when I turned slowly to the bike that I could see the cause of the foreign matter that was floating about me.
My sleeping bag, which I had lashed to the rear of my seat with lighting wire (no elastic straps in those days, folks!) had slipped down to the left and then slid into the rear wheel!.
The spokes and rear chain had happily wrecked it; first nibbling away at it, then chewing it up and finally dragging most of it between sprocket, chain and attendant chainguard.
I stood there aghast. I couldn’t believe it, and it came to me with a rush that it was the bag grabbing the spokes which had probably caused the stutter or two which made the bike twitch a couple of times when there should have been little reason for it to have done so.
Damaged goods
But the biggest hassle, when I had calmed down a bit and stopped walking about with the back of a wrist held to a fevered brow and could think a bit more clearly, was that the bag was not mine to begin with! I had borrowed the thing from a brother who quite frankly didn’t want me to have it, and I wasn’t too sure that he knew I had taken the thing with me! The last point he had made was that he’d saved for some weeks to buy the blasted thing, and that if I wanted one why the hell didn’t I go off and do the same as he did? Oh, and yes, leave the bag where it belonged like a good younger brother would I, there was a good chap.
Patronising bugger, it served him right that I borrowed the thing and that it had ended its days in the BSA’s rear wheel on the side of the road about three hours from home. Well, didn’t it? No, it bloody didn’t!
I suppose I spent ten minutes or more heaving at the bag before it finally came clear, and in all that time I heard not a sound from anything except a few cars which roared by. There was not one motorcycle to be heard, whether from the group I had so recently ridden with, or from elsewhere, though I must say that concerned me not as I was busy trying to drag the bag out and re-attach the remains before the jeering hoard arrived.
I had in fact done just that before Fred could be heard charging along on his own, and he finally swept very quickly into view to pull up with a screech alongside me. I tried to look nonchalant, but black grease on the fingers was no more easy to hide then than it is now.
“What happened?” he asked, “I’ve been helping those poor flips find some bugger’s chain which flew off and shot into the bush. Shoulda seen it. Worn to buggery, and covered in red oxide. Dunno how he got this far.”
I told him about the bag, and he was at once sympathetic where I would have thought he’d be scornful. There was still no sign of the others, who could just as easily have turned and headed home, so we clambered aboard our bikes and headed briskly, though by no means as briskly as usual, along the last few miles into Orange.
Trackside
We decided to camp near the pits, and pulled into a good spot under a grove of trees right near the first corner leading to Muttons, where we saw plenty of action, a spin or two, and a couple of forays into the scrubbery.
Jack Brabham, of course, murdered the opposition in his green Cooper Climax and set a scintillating lap record of 106 mph, a record never to be equalled, and in fact never to be approached.
Though the incidents which occurred on the ride up there remain as clear as though they had happened yesterday (though yesterday’s incidents are by no means as clear!), much of the racing eludes me.
I do clearly remember one incident, however, which horrified me well beyond the pale. I had been standing on one of the large fence-posts outside a series of large buildings set some little way into the bushes, and was watching two MG/TCs hard at each other for several laps, the leader clearly enjoying the advantage of a more powerful engine, while the second-placed driver was making up for this with some ferocious driving. There was really little in it, but the leader was not headed at any time.
Suddenly, one of the small band of men who were idly wandering about and watching the races from the other side of the fence grabbed me by the ankles in a grip of iron, and started shaking me about.
“Do you know what he needs, mate?” he said quietly, “He needs a bigger engine. A bigger engine. A bigger engine! A BIGGER ENGINE!!”
By now he was becoming frantic, and no more so than I was, because the poor bugger clearly had some problem. Perhaps he was the second car’s head mechanic? Somehow I doubted that.
Fred was suddenly there, but from whence he came I have no idea. He had decided to watch this race from a point a bit closer to Muttons Corner.
He reached over the fence and took the man’s wrists, slowly turning them outwards as I felt that vice-like grip loosen off. Another man close by saw this incident and giggled like a schoolgirl as he watched un-moved.
“Let him go mate,” said Fred, with a gentleness I hadn’t seen him use before, “Go on, let him go!”
As the man’s fingers opened, and I could see another in a grey uniform hurrying across the grass, the man spat in Fred’s face. He looked straight at Fred and made an odd statement.
“All women have got side-valve engines, you know.” he said.
“Get down off the fence. Get-down-off- the-fence!” Fred whispered to me from the corner of his mouth as he held the man’s arms and the male nurse collected his charge to lead him quietly away. “Of course you didn’t know that this track runs round the outside of a lunatic asylum, did you?”
I assured him, and anyone else in hearing, that I assuredly did not, for there was no way I was about to be caught standing on a low fence of any mental hospital while many of its inmates were almost at my feet, suffering from who know’s what problems?
That was a very chastening experience, and I couldn’t watch the races from that viewpoint any more without fearfully glancing over my shoulder constantly, so we chose to watch most of the action from then on in the pit area. In fact we (or at least I) decided to sleep in the pit area, where there were many more people to choose from if anyone else from the establishment decided to scare the hell out of an innocent abroad!
I dragged the tattered remains of the sleeping-bag out of its cover and ruefully surveyed it before we bedded down for the night as the last race was about to be called, and the thing was a hopeless mess!
There was only about half of it there, and that was smeared and tatty, but it was all I had and I decided to sleep in the thing as best I could. The biggest decision was whether I should have the bag’s remains round my neck, with my feet sticking out, or round my feet with most of the rest of me sticking out.
Fred had a solution to the problem, and it was simplicity itself.
“Get into my bag with me, mate,” he grinned, “there’s plenty of room!”
I told him there was no way in the wide world I was about to climb into any bloke’s sleeping bag, particularly one who carried a large jar of Vaseline with him and who could hold up a double sleeping bag no-hands!
Fred’s got a laugh like a donkey, or perhaps like a dog being run over, and you can hear it for miles when it’s in full swing, and it suddenly swung into top gear.
A driver who was warming-up his MG close-by for the last race switched-off, assuming he’s just blown the thing up, while a dust-coated official with a new-fangled phon-meter came running over, his decibel counter smoking and its face hanging off at the end of a long spring, to complain about the noise.
Well, p’raps it wasn’t quite like that, but you get the picture, I’m sure. Fred dug me a hiphole, which made the ground unbelievably comfortable, while the bag’s remains under my chin and Fred’s jacket over my legs allowed a warm and un-disturbed sleep.
We slipped home to Sydney quietly enough, with no incidents I can remember, and Fred reckoned he’d come along and “ease the sting” when I gave my brother his sleeping bag back again. I didn’t really want to be there when that happened, but I frankly could see no way out.
Don looked at Fred with some suspicion when we arrived home again, because Fred was just a little too jolly.
“All right, what’s the matter?” he asked, looking from one to the other of us.
“I borrowed your bag,” I said sheepishly, “And had a bit of trouble with it.”
“Yeah,” said Fred, “He…er…borrowed your bag and had a bit of trouble with it. He didn’t have any trouble in it. Hee! Hee! He had trouble with it!”
“What sort of trouble?” Don asked, giving me that mournful look I knew so well, but wished I didn’t. I produced the bag with a flourish.
“It got caught in the wheel,” I said, as Fred tut-tutted in sympathy.
“Struth, look at it!” Don grabbed the bag, and held it close to his face. I thought he was going to try and kiss it better.
“Listen, you, you’re going to have to pay for this.” He glared at me as only bigger brothers do.
“Well,” said Fred brightly, “It can’t be worth much. Look at it, the arse has been torn right out of it. You couldn’t give it away.”
I’ve seen some looks of frank dismay, or total disbelief, but I can’t remember such total amazement on any face, anywhere.
I’m sure if it were medically possible, my brother’s face would have fallen right off the front of his head. They tell me you could hear Fred’s laugh three streets away.
By Lester Morris. Two Wheels, February 1987
Lester’s book Vintage Morris: Tall Tales but True from a Lifetime in Motorcycling is just that, a memoir of his many-and-various – and often hilarious – experiences in the motorcycle industry. It’s available as a paperback or e-book from large online booksellers, or you can order a signed copy by emailing the man himself at lm2@tpg.com.au. Volume 2 is now available also.
