| A friend had a Mobylette,we decided to do a Moped trip, and camping as well touring airfields around Bedfordshire,piled high with tents,pots,pans etc, first stop was Luton airport where we slept that night on what we found out in the morning to be a sewage farm,having arrived late and unable to find somewhere to camp we just set up as is,we were rewarded the next day with the sight of some of the very last Lockheed Constellation's in service with Euravia,the journey continued towards Old WardenShuttleworth's then was not open to the public as we peered over the edge could see TV cameras,as luck would have it they were filming a TV drama centred around a World War one pilot who lived like an hermit in the cockpit of a Bristol Fighter ! they waved us over and we managed to get around the hangars to see the dusty aeroplanes,things were so different then,thrilled to bits it was on the saddle again to our next stop Sywell,then the scene of much crop spraying flying using old Tiger Moth's,an Australian pilot who saw us peering through the hangar called us over and invited us to look over the Tiger,it stunk of Pyrethon which had to be hosed down after a days spraying,this was a lethal substance and caused many early deaths with crop spraying pilots,this all happened at the height of the sugar beet season,the farmers were desperate to kill off the beetle attacks and the organic brigade had yet to arrive on the scene.
Anyway on the homeward stretch my buddy's moped gave up the ghost as the points welded themselves together climbing a big hill,stuck in the middle of nowhere we found a lump of old lorry rope,placed this around the handlebars and I towed him to the centre of Northampton where we found a Mobylette agent,he went away and got a new set of points but the problem was we had run short of money,he trusted my mate and home we went,grubby,tired but happy,his dad took the money to the agent by car the next day,how many would trust you today like that ?
Funny how these things stick in your mind,a sad ending as Barry,my good mate died slowly of leukemia a few years later,so the story of our exploits probably means a lot more to me.
__________________ 'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !' www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/ |