Flyer
Week
Last Thursday I had a trip out with the
Wey Valley Advanced Motorcycle Club, for me it was a 268 mile day out
on the Buell seeing different roads down to the New Forrest for
lunch and back. The start was at Ryka's where I left a bundle of
fliers for display before we headed off into to deepest Surrey and
beyond.
On Saturday I headed to Birmingham for an overnight stop at
the Holiday Inn Birmingham Airport. It was for the Assam New Year
celebrations called Bihu where there was much eating and drinking and
dancing albeit, from me, Boris style of light bulb, lightbulb,
motorbike, motorbike. This Holiday Inn has an international flavour
and they were happy to have a goodly number of flyers for their
things to do leaflet display. On leaving the Holiday Inn Gita and I
went on to the National Motorcycle Museum. It was somewhere I have
been wanting to go to for ages. Not only to see what they do but how
they do it. It was an impressive display of several hundred
motorcycles. I was on a mission to get engine plate measurements for
a 1927 Cotton Blackburne.
Bill has one of these in bits but not the
engine/gearbox mounting plates. If anyone has one can we have the
dimensions so we can get some made please. There was not one of that
year in their display. I had some interesting conversations with the
volunteers there and left a wad of flyers for them to display and
took some of theirs away to advertise for them “in the south” at
the Museum. Back at the Museum for my Monday stint, Bill arrived
later in the day to have a meeting with Ealing Council about what
surface would be best for the car park at the front of the Museum. I
was on my way home before the meeting ended so I don't know the
outcome. More to report later.
Tuesday I headed for Bristol for a
family visit and was invited along to the Chipping Sodbury Tractor
Club. This is a serious club that takes their tractors to shows and
events and will be out on the 27th April for “Drive It
Day! The presentation that evening was of the history of Parnells of
Fishponds Bristol and peaked my interest with their associations
with aviation and the Parnell Pixie that used a 700cc Douglas bike
engine in 1923 rated at some 6hp but with about 25bhp on tap and more
than enough power to put the plane in the air. Parnell and son did
many things that included shop fronts and fittings and used at
Selfridges in 1908. They also scales that were later to become known
as Avery. During World War 11 the company made gun turrets that were
fitted to Wellington and Lancaster bombers. I guessed that some of
these were electrically powered and the connection with Triumph and
the generator was instantly made. I gave a presentation of a couple
of minutes at the beginning to the group of about 40 members telling
them a little about the Museum and opening times and location but
also mentioning that we had a 1914 Triumph model H on display.
During
World War One these was affectionately known as Trusty Triumphs and
just to add a bit more, if you are watching the new BBC Nursey series
the “Crimson Field” one of the nurses turns up on one late in the
first program. More interest was generated in the Museum and another
wad of flyers disappeared.
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