Monday 31 March 2008

Post War bikers.


Not mine, I’m sad to say and almost nothing to do with the Jeep, but what a lovely picture depicting a life free of Health & Safety, when people were allowed to think for themselves. I love the Wallace & Grommet slippers. I found the picture mousing around on http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/familyhistory/your_photos/
One can waste hours, but the rewards are well worth it. Peter will be lost forever in an historical cyber space. The bike, a B.S.A. M20 (I think) is relevant, however, as one of these lived up the road from me when I was a car/bike mad 13 year old. It was for sale, but the £5 was beyond my pocket money, so I bought a B.S.A. B31, 350 single, for ten bob instead. It was an early one with a rear sprung hub and started a relationship with the infernal combustion engine that lives on today, in the Jeep project. Thanks to John Hyatt, Nottinghamshire for the picture.

9 comments:

Peter Ashley said...

This is a picture from the time when people were allowed to 'drink' for themselves. It's really Ron and Diplo off to the Queen's Head.

Fred Fibonacci said...

Are you sure it's not Gilbert O'Sullivan on the back; 70s pop warbler? He used to wear slippers, in his bedroom apparently. Great photo.

Diplomate said...

Location please. That has to be a school in the background. are these two birds in fact dinner ladies on their break, being tricked into all sorts by a wanabee AA patrol man ?

Ron Combo said...

OK, so if you had to, which one would it be?

Peter Ashley said...

The one in front. The other looks too much like Griff Rhys Jones.

Ron Combo said...

Nah, the slippers would put me off.

Peter Ashley said...

Slippers have never bothered you before Ron. Do you still have that pair with pink pom-poms on 'em?

Diplomate said...

heh - hung for a sheep an' all that - BOTH.

Toby Savage said...

Guess I should have added the comment in the first place, but having now found the posting again it says:

'Sadly everything about this picture has disapeared, including the people. Thank goodness though for capturing this image through a boxed camera in the mid-nineteen fifties. Elsie is sitting at the front with Nellie behind. Note the pinafores worn to protect their clothes from every day housework. Both wives of miners, both mothers to a son and daughter each. It was hard for them without many of the modern machines of today. As the picture suggests they had been good neighbours to each other and found time for this happy shot taken by the husband of Elsie Hyatt. The street, in the village of Whaley Thorns, was pulled down in 1978/9.'