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Hi,
I came across your website the other day looking forward to the 30th anniversary of Whitby Scooter club in 2007; presumably this has now been celebrated. The writer does not say who they are but promises ‘in the weeks to come I will be putting a more comprehensive history of Whitby Scooter Club. When someone lets me know what it is.’
That’s an interesting intention and I don’t know what luck you have had with it.
It struck a chord with me – not because I can claim to do that job for you – but I was there or thereabouts at the time. Although my memory for names is terrible I do value my past involvement as a Whitby lad, scooterist and soul fan. I’ve been meaning to write some of this down for my own amusement for some time. Your request is a good excuse to dwell on my own involvement with scooters and hopefully shed some light on the early seventies and the beginnings of your club.
The first thing to explain is that, to me the Whitby of the seventies was a very different place to what it is now. To call it a backwater would be too be kind.
In the beginning there were skinheads and greebos. The bikers used to sit in the Coffee Pot in Station Square and go in the Big Angel.
To it’s credit Whitby did have an alternative to the biker culture, unlike the towns towards Teesside that were greebo (ex teddy-boy) territory. (Darlington figured later when packs of ‘Hells Angel’ wannabee’s would descend and create trouble.)
Whitby did not have any Mods that I could see (I was 9 years old in 1964), and certainly very few visible soul fans, but it was not a biker stronghold unlike say Loftus or Redcar. The skinheads apart though, most people either followed the pop charts (like me) or even worse wore Wrangler suits and listened to Country and Western. (Nothing summed Whitby up for me more in years to come than the site of a Paul Wheater poster in the Royal!)
At sixteen or seventeen I became vaguely aware that there were a handful of people riding around on scooters. There was Fudgie on a green and brown GP, Greg Maclaren, and a lad whose dad owned the Beach at Sandsend who had a red and black SX200. I seem to remember that you would see them parked on the front outside the ‘Wimpey Bar’ (near Woolies and Lawsons, now a coffee shop called Atlantis?).
As time went on, as they sold their scooters, some of them ended up in Watsons (?) showroom near the entrance to the indoor swimming pool, massively overpriced.
I got into the fashions of a semi skinhead type. I can remember the scandal when Bruce Patterson, Dave Adamson, and Nipper had skinhead haircuts and stood in assembly at the Grammar School. I didn’t go that far and, although I strutted around trying to look the part, I was no more than a show off. I know I was never ‘hard’ despite the posturing. Obviously though I had decided that I was not going to be a greebo. So how did I get into and develop an interest in scooters?
I believe this was down to the influence of two people, Jesse and Boyo.
Boyo (Trevor Ingham) came from Luton originally. His dad was a director at Winster Hose and Trevor lived with him and his step mum in the big white house at the top of Prospect Hill. He was different. He spoke like a cockney. He bought a black and orange GP 200 from Scarborough and he was scooter mad.
At about this time I was in my final year at school and studying for my A-levels. Whitsun was coming and I wanted a scooter. Rather than revise I bought my first scooter (it was a Lambretta series 2 that cost me £25) from a guy who worked in the garage on Hawsker Straight. I spent my revising time doing it up!
The scooter was different – not a moped, Honda 50 or a motorbike. Like those before and after me it was a form of transport, an imagined bird magnet, and cheaper than a car. Also it was ridiculously easy to pass your test in those days. Ride a few times around the Royal Hotel, answer a couple of questions and job done!
Trevor, Willie Helm and I spent as many nights as possible heading over to Staithes and Runswick Bay where we could try and impress the local lasses. Believe it or not we met another scooterist, Siggy, who lived in Dale House and had an ochre Jet 200. I don’t seem to remember being aware of too many other people on scooters in that first summer – we were just too busy having fun.
I am sure Jesse probably had a scooter for some time at this point but I did not know him well prior to getting a scooter of my own. He had been in the year above me at school and had then left to go to merchant navy college in Shields. I remember talking to him in Station Square and then him coming up to my house some time later on his immaculate SX200 – white and metallic lime green. He took me up Waterstead Lane on it – brilliant! It almost broke Jesse’s heart when he sold it to Turv Paxton, to finance buying a Bond Bug? but Jesse can tell that story
Jesse is an amazing character, not only for the fact that he has ‘always had a scooter’. He is, as those who know him can confirm, an expert on scooters, always patient and ready to help those in need and a great friend to have. Jesse was also a soul fan well before me, and remains one to this day.
Also on two wheels with Jesse was Dave Laws. Dave was individual, smart and a brilliant rider of his red and white GP. He later sold it for a yellow Vespa Rally which he also rode like a maniac.
I started knocking around with Dave and Jesse and together we went on a scooter weekend away to….Selby. By then I had an immaculate GP200 in West Ham colours, black coach lining with a quilt stitched king and queen seat and a smoke grey bubble fly-screen. I bought the GP from a Scarborough lad called Wal Philips (after the injector) and sold my then GP 150 to Pete Gordon.
Jesse and I had acquired chrome ‘Elite’ badges from a Panorama Elite coach parked near the rifle club. One was on my fly-screen the other was on the rear panel of his Bond Bug.
We camped in Selby and then met some local lads on scooters who took us on a ride out to Selby Fork. Wow.
That evening we rode to Flamingo Park. In those days there was a campsite, a bit of a zoo and the original big old house bit with a bar. That was it. We pitched our tents, rode to the bar and got pissed. Riding back to the tent I rode into Jesse and bent my forks, smashed the fly-screen etc.
In the morning the site warden asked us if we had heard any bikes riding around keeping everyone awake and pointing out that we had to come and pay for our camping. We packed up, lifted the scooters over a hedge and did one!
I told everyone I’d been kicked off by greebos in Pickering when we got back; I was so ashamed of wrecking my beautiful machine. I can still see Dave Laws on the ride home, stood up on his Vespa, steering it with his knees. Mad!
It was nice to see Barry Brown on your website. I remember Barry having a blue Vespa Rally in the seventies. Barry took me to a scooter shop in Beverly to get my replacement set of GP forks – just for something towards the petrol.
I rented a garage in the Council Estate off Chubb Hill to use for working on my scooter. I am sure Barry for one used to come around there. I had no power and used to work using a Tilley lamp. I thought I was really good when I learned how to set timing using a battery in circuit with a bulb.
Riding scooters in the seventies and early eighties was different to today. First off, before Quadrophenia there were hardly any scooters about.
When I left school I went to Scarborough Tech and there were a few there parked up outside the entrance. I got to know Dicky Camish, John Wreggit, Ray (who had a GP200 Electronic and always wore tinted glasses).
I was riding an LiSeries 3 then, that I painted (with Willie Helm’s help) in an Aladdin Sane style with flashes down the panels. I was in digs in Scarborough and used to ride back to Runswick Bay in winter to see my girlfriend, and then set off back to Scarborough from Whitby in the morning – all weathers.
When I moved up to Newcastle to go to college, apart from one old man on a Lambretta, I never saw another scooter, ever.
There were no rallies or major gatherings. In Easter we used to go to Scarborough as we knew that there may be scooters there from Leeds or York. You had to ride around to find them and Scarborough was a funny place if there was a motorcycle meet at Oliver’s Mount.
There’s another thing that was really different in the late seventies. The scooter shops were terrible. There was only really Andrews in Scarborough, though by then they were not really carrying Lambretta stock. Everyone was more interested in bikes (or Vespas). Middlesbrough had Matt Newtons. You could try there but often there was nothing. (Trevor had actually been to Arthur Francis in Watford. Respect).
There was no internet and so, to get some forks, Barry had to take me almost to Hull. Now you can get almost anything delivered the next day. Wow!
Secondly whenever you saw a biker you expected something to happen. You either flegged at each other, stuck up two fingers, they buzzed you or worse. Alan Pound had his scooter thrown in the harbour (allegedly by Hells Angels, who also threatened Dave Laws with a ball and chain as they rode past one day).
One day Trevor and I got some back. His GP had broken down and he had left it at Saltburn overnight (would you do that now?) The next day I took Trevor back for it, with Trevor riding pillion holding a new silencer. As we were labouring up Lythe Bank a pack of bikers passed us spitting and jeering. There was little we could do but grin and bear it. Then Trevor spotted one behind the rest coming up behind us. We made his life a misery weaving from side to side while Trevor swung at him holding the tail pipe. His mates never missed him and must have been miles ahead by the time he got past. One back for us!
Nowadays it is so different and friendly (and better for it). It still takes some getting used to. Stopped at the lights in Loftus the other week I was ‘surrounded’ by bikers. Even now I half expected them to kick me off. Old habits die hard.
Back to the Seventies. As time went on more people got scooters. I suppose in the heyday there would be Dave Laws, Jesse, Trevor, Turv Paxton, Hovis, Dave Brown, Nipper, Barry, Gezzler, Gary Taylor (on his Honda 250), Pete Gordon and one or two others I may have forgotten. Apologies.
Hovis suffered one of the funniest mishaps when Harry Roberts was messing about with his DL 125 and drove it over the side of the harbour near the ice shed, onto a fishing boat! No-one was hurt, but Hovis was understandably less than pleased.
We use to spend a lot of time parked up down there in summer and riding round the town, posing. That was more fun then, before pedestrianisation. You could ride round and round Pier Road and Baxtergate, trying to look cool, pushed forward down your Ancillotti seat, and startling shoppers with your compressor driven air horns.
So when did the ‘club’ start. What is a scooter club?
We never collected subs. We never went to a rally; so what did we do?
We all got chrome helmets (that is we chrome taped them), wore dark see-through GP peaks, and called ourselves the Chrome-tops. There were no full face helmets that scooterists would wear then.
I decided to try and get everyone to have numbers and worked these out based on who had scooters first. I remember I was number six. I think I made Jesse number two or three?
I even made up two or three ‘club’ shields that I painted, and we fastened to our back rests with jubilee clips. I can’t remember the design, but by then I was a full time soul fan so I’m sure there would have been a soulie fist on them somewhere.
I suppose that may not make us a club in the modern context – though I couldn’t say what would have done in those days before rallies etc. I am pretty sure it was before 1977, although I don’t know what happened in 1977 that started your current club. Sorry my memory is so poor.
Our biggest ‘ride out’ was when we all decided to ride to Redcar. Wrong move! As we came down the Coast Road from Marske (funnily enough where I now live) bikers passed us hurling insults. By the time we reached Redcar we were expected, and scores of greasers piled out of what I now know to be Leos and barred our way. We turned tail pretty quickly. (Leos has just been demolished. Nice one!)
On an individual basis Turv and I broke the mould a bit when we rode across Snake Pass to Wigan Casino, danced all night and then rode back. Turv had a black Vespa then, and I had my Lambretta. I think I had Duncan Macallister on the back and Turv took Bobby Dixon who, as I recall, did not own scooters, at that time. He’s had some beauties since.
Turv also used to come across to the Ebor Suite Thursday soul nights in York. Steve Verrill took us all in his car and Turv would follow us on his scoot across the Moors. On the way back once some lads tried it on as Turv was setting off. Turv drove through them and bent his kickstart across one of their legs. We later heard from someone in York that he’d broken his leg!
Neil Smith from York came over one weekend on a red Vespa he’d had coach lined and sign written with the name ‘Soul Shifter’.
I thought that was pretty good and decided to name my current scooter. I chose ‘Soul – A- Coaster’ which I painted in Okeh style lettering. It was black and jade green metallic with white coach lining that I did myself.
We got to know some lads from Darlington (Phil??) and two or three of us went through to see scooter racing at Croft Autodrome. I am not sure who I went with or what year it was. I remember being a bit ghoulish and standing where I expected them to come a cropper. It seems so long ago now.
Between them Trevor and Jesse introduced me to soul. Trevor played me Motown Chartbusters Volume 3 and I had to have it.
Going to live in Newcastle exposed me to Northern Soul. I went to my first All-nighter at Queens Hall in Leeds, on my own on the train from Newcastle. I was hooked. When I got home Booby and I were the first in Whitby to go to Wigan Casino– an achievement we share. We’d broken out of the Whitby mould. It was different – just as it was riding a scooter back then.
In common with like minded people across the country we would all head off as the pubs closed to cross the Pennines. I remember some locals asking us where we were going as we left the Little Angel to go in Jesse’s car to Blackpool Mecca one winters night – “What”, they said “there’s no beer and you’re not going to pull birds?”
Soul music and the desire to get four wheels started to push scooters out of my life. I stopped drinking for six months, saved up some cash and John Mallette lent me the rest that I needed to get my first car. Unlike Jesse, I turned my back on scooters, although I never forgot them.
About seventeen years ago I bought a scooter from Jesse that I eventually turned into Soul – A – Coaster II. I think at that time your club used to meet in the Cutty Sark. After a rear wheel blow out with my young son on the back I sold it.
A couple of years ago I had a rush of blood and bought an red Indian GP 200 from e-bay. Funnily enough my scoot is almost identical to Nipper’s red and white GP 200 but without the big carb.
Yes, I was naïve and got sold a ‘pup’ but, as my wife would say; half the fun is getting them sorted. I remember Nipper once saying ‘owning a Lambretta is like having a money pit’. I guess that why I never wanted a Vespa. In those days Vespas never went wrong so you didn’t need to get as close to them as a Lambretta.
In any case to end your journey on a Lambretta truly is ‘to arrive in style’. As I say to my daughter’s biker boyfriend, “Yours may be fast and reliable but no one stops to watch you drive by”.
In the modern parlance I suppose I’m a ‘born again’. I don’t do rallies and I don’t even like going out in the wet in winter anymore.
I like to live in the past on occasions and enjoy the present. It will be the Whitby Soul Weekender soon and you’ll find me ‘out on the floor’.
Who would have thought it in 1974, that Whitby would have scooter rally and a weekender within a month of each other? It’s certainly ‘better to have…’
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