I mentioned in a recent short ride report a guy called Roy K Battson who passed away (I believe) around 20 odd years ago. He was born in 1900 and therefore as a young man rode motorbikes through, a period romantically called the 'Golden Years', so called because roads were empty of traffic, there were dozens and dozens of British and foreign makes, and bikes were relatively cheap to buy (but as always I suppose that depended on your job). His interest in bikes was kindled in 1911 by his elder brother who was a biker (or should I say a motorcyclist!).
Anyway, when I was a young chappie I used to buy a magazine called 'Motorcycle Sport' and R.K. Battson wrote occasional articles and reports of his adventures on the old bikes which were so beautifully written and with such an affection for his (and our) sport that I sometimes got goosebumps at his way with words.
He wrote an article in the September 1972 edition when he was 70 years old and he could see the end of his motorcycling days looming over the horizon. Over three pictureless pages of tiny print he took you through his post 2nd World War bikes from a 1938 Francis Barnett up to his then current bike - a 1959 AJS Model 14.
I'll say no more about his writing style but let you judge for yourself as here are the last few paragraphs of his article....(he called his AJS 'Pete' by the way).
"And now, Pete is 13 years old, and still running as well as ever, while I (having had a birthday while writing this) am seventy, and by no means going as well as ever. The riding part is all right, though I do not go as fast nor as far as I once did, but find it increasingly difficult to manhandle him and get him on his stand, for he is, at 3cwt, heavy for a two-fifty.
I dolefully suppose that, in the natural course of events, I haven't got much more riding ahead (although I knew one man who rode his Enfield Bullet until he was eighty-six; but he, who had been a lumberjack, was a giant among men) because I have no great wish to wind up with a Japanese 98cc, which costs nearly as much as the Ajay did all those years ago; still less do I yearn for a moped.
So, I shall just carry on with Pete as long as we are both able, and, when I can ride him no longer, a day which, I hope, is yet distant, then I must pack it in; and that will be that.
But I have had a good innings. It is a long time since that summer afternoon of 1911, when a small boy waited anxiously for his brother, and it all began.
And so the River of Time glides on, ever more swiftly, until it ends, as do all rivers, in the Unknown Sea; but, as long as memory remains, I shall recall my passage with pleasure and with love.
Especially, and above all, that part of the River which flowed, so long ago, through the gentle, sunlit valley of the Golden Years."