You are reading a single comment by @Squoocher and its replies. Click here to read the full conversation.
  • Well there's a blast from the past. I was at Nottingham High School For Boys with Jack Taylor in the 50s (he's the cheeky chap in the (spotless!! Typical! He was a tad workshy, although he'd spin in his grave to hear my say that) blue work overalls in the photograph above).The other two fellows are Cecil Dumbar (left) and the famous (to his friends back in Stolly Village, Lancashire) Simon Bavis. I'm the one holding the Kodak Brownie, hence my non-appearance in the shot!! The four of us built bicycles together from 1963 until 1983. We made bespoke gents tourers, the odd flanged racing bike and one or two tridems (triple tandems. What ever happened to them all!!??). We were quite the entrepreneur (collectively speaking) because, and do correct me if I'm wrong, we were the first British bike company to use salvaged Spitfire tires and scrap Word Word II ordnance to make our bicycles. Had Dragons' Den been on the wireless back then or had television sets been around back then a day, I'm sure we'd have been telly celebrities!!!! There's a funny story behind why we ended up calling our company Jack Taylor and not naming it Gunner Bikes (my idea, and a good one I felt, seeing as our frames were essentially made of melted down DC9s and Browning M1917s, albeit alloyed with molybdenum and Tungstun, or indeed namingit after Cecil, Simon or myself. We were at a Sheffield Wednesday vs Leyton Orient match at Selhurst Park in Otterhyde and we were all tucking into our halftime sandwiches when Jack got HP sauce all down the front of his duffel coat. Try as he might he couldn't shift it, but the funny thing was the stain that was left was noticeably similar in outline to the boundary of Nottingham Borough Council (I'd spent time after the war working for the local authority and, as a keen amateur designer I'd devised the council's logo based around its boundary delineation).. something or other etc blah blah

About

Avatar for Squoocher @Squoocher started