So how come your mum didn't take you in her car?
My mum would go to work on the bus, although she had a driving licence she never have a car. It didn't take me very long to realise that there must be better jobs than this. It was the first summer that I was digging the roads and at the end of this summer I already decided I wasn't going to do this again and I saw 4 men looking after a huge cotton reel of electricity cable on the back of lorry, they would fire up a two stroke motor and that word power this huge reel of cable turning around. It was all controlled with a small donkey type 2-stroke motor with a rubber wheel which would be pushed against the cotton reel. We should have a spindle going through the centre of it and the rubber wheel would be pushed against a cotton wheel which would turn out to allow the cable to be unwrapped, I remembered to operate this donkey with a twist throttle like a bike. |
I started asking and finding out when those guys had summer holidays and surely they needed help and sure enough by the second summer I was working with some of those guys delivering the cable by the third sunrise. I worked out that the people with the best life were the drivers in the JCB, the digger drivers. So for the third summer, I became a JCB driver. After this I was earning enough money from Bultaco to not need to work for the electricity board and the following summer I went to complete my national service in the finish Navy.
What did you do in your national service?
I became a Petty Officer, but to be truthful this was a complete waste of time, a complete waste of time, the biggest waste of time in my life to be honest. The only thing I learnt there was no respect for authority. In this position you see that the person who sometimes has a higher rank as you can be a complete idiot but nevertheless he is a higher rank than you and if you open up your mouth you'll get into trouble and that's just how it is.
Is that something that happened to you?
It happened to everybody.
But did it happen to you more than other people?
I was quite rebellious and I didn't like authority and I didn't like being told what to do and what not to do. National Service in my life did teach me a few lessons. I think having been through that, this would be a particularly good idea in this country for the young men to have to go through this. It doesn't have to be a national service thing but it should be something for the local community, whether they have to actually contribute where they become to understand that we all have to live together and that we all have to follow some rules. Society with no rules is not liveable, it is chaos.
I became a Petty Officer, but to be truthful this was a complete waste of time, a complete waste of time, the biggest waste of time in my life to be honest. The only thing I learnt there was no respect for authority. In this position you see that the person who sometimes has a higher rank as you can be a complete idiot but nevertheless he is a higher rank than you and if you open up your mouth you'll get into trouble and that's just how it is.
Is that something that happened to you?
It happened to everybody.
But did it happen to you more than other people?
I was quite rebellious and I didn't like authority and I didn't like being told what to do and what not to do. National Service in my life did teach me a few lessons. I think having been through that, this would be a particularly good idea in this country for the young men to have to go through this. It doesn't have to be a national service thing but it should be something for the local community, whether they have to actually contribute where they become to understand that we all have to live together and that we all have to follow some rules. Society with no rules is not liveable, it is chaos.
How did you cope with riding these rounds when there must have been clashes with European and are they important trials you need to ride?
The clashing of the events was never as bad as people imagined. I was never able to ride British Championship events until I came over here and people sometimes ask me why don't I ever ride the Scott. The Scott trial was never an international event it still isn't so technically you cannot ride the Scott trial with a foreign competition licence, even an international licence isn't good enough. Scott Trial would have to apply for an international permit which costs extra money in order to accommodate foreign riders and that's just how it is.
The clashing of the events was never as bad as people imagined. I was never able to ride British Championship events until I came over here and people sometimes ask me why don't I ever ride the Scott. The Scott trial was never an international event it still isn't so technically you cannot ride the Scott trial with a foreign competition licence, even an international licence isn't good enough. Scott Trial would have to apply for an international permit which costs extra money in order to accommodate foreign riders and that's just how it is.