cheshirecat

During the late 1980’s I became a despatch rider in London.

Motorcycling is always with you and after not havig riden for several years the urge, as they say, returned. More on a wim than reason, I popped into a local motorcycle dealer in Clapham. Everything had pushed the hyperspace button. Bikes looked either as if they'd just come off the Klingon track or about to enter the Paris Dakar. Playing on familiar and hopefully safe ground, I looked for Honda’s, having had six of them by some strange quirks of fate and spotted a likely candidate up on a stand sparkling in red and blue livery with a full sports fairing. The handlebar’s weren’t too low and the bike fitted like a glove. My previous bike was the Honda CBX1000, a six cylinder effort, happy on the perfectly flat straights but somewhat squiggley on anything remotely resembling a corner. I was 'seen off' on it once by a nun driving a 2CV along a very bumpy, road full of right angled turns in France. The potential replacement seemed a bit small but then my desires had changed, nun chasing was out now and I had to start again somewhere just to reaccustom with bikes. Besides if it didn't work out it could always be sold couldn't it?

One lady owner, 3500 miles. 3500 pounds cash, The salesman seemed happy, a bit too happy on reflection. It was 1987, the bike was a 1986 VF500 and what I didn’t know was the debacle around it’s bigger brother the VF750 which put Honda right on the line and killed the market for not only for their V4's but everyone else's as well. Honda pulled the VF500 in 1986 after only three years of production so this was the last of the run. What I also didn’t know was this Honda, my 7th (and number 7 is a hard number psycologically) was to be put through the toughest test of all my bikes, a test lasting for over three years.

1987 was the great stockmarket crash and film work became harder to find, so I looked for jobs providing the flexibility of freelance work. Not surprisingly despatch riding became an immediate (and soon only) option, The job looked reasonably easy and anyway, it seemed an obvious choice, I had a bike, had bikes for years, ridden all over Europe and lived in London, surely I could do it? There were a few adverts in the motorcycle rags and I called one, “no experience necessary” they said, “come in” they said. I went in. The company was situated some where in a North London yard accessed by a slippery cobble stone muddy road embedded with old tram lines. It was raining. I slipped and slithered in, my confidence not helped by a despatch rider exiting seemingly totally oblivious to the surface. They gave me a cursory knowledge test, explained the radio and general procedure and that was it, ride out and listen for your call sign. Except that you couldn’t. All that could be heard was ‘squelsh crackle’ with the occasional garbled word or two. After too short a time span I thought I heard my call sign. “Squelsh crackle squelsh . . 87 87”. “87” I replied. “ Squelsh '. . 7 crackle, ..up 3 's4nvcx 8 ?sckisxft street N1 going some . .ng 4”, crackle crackle crackle – silence.

After a bit without querying the very patient controller too much, I deciphered all the info and wrote it in the virgin clipboard. Now it’s still raining and so obviously everything got a little wet. Checking my pocket A to Z, which also collected some London H2O in the process, I was off; the first job. Three hours later and 3 jobs. Now when it rains in London not only do you get The Eternal Rain, a supposed gift from Above; but also The Spray, an clever after thought from Below. Within seemingly minutes everything was soaking; me, the A to Z, the clipboard, inside the bag, gloves, boots, inside the visor, down the back of my neck - the day had barely started. There was another 10 hours of it yet. It rained every day that week, and every day I came home soaked, stiff, encrusted in grunge that went right up inside my nostrals and down my throat into my lungs, disgruntled and cold. I completed barely 17 jobs and must have been the slowest rider ever. All the jobs were North East London, an area completely foreign to me and I had barely cleared 100 pounds. Something had to change, I was going backwards. Looking around I found a company based in Oxford Street and was accepted. I thiink they must have figured a saturated dripping wet biker must at least be consistant or they wanted me out of the office before my pools of water shorted their radios. This was much better though, I was at home in the West End, it had stopped raining and the initial shock had worn off. Someone once said London averaged 65 days of rain a year which comes down to once every six days - Hmm. I was also starting to get into a rhythm through traffic becoming more relaxed (relaxed being relative) and so less exhausted.

To be continued