Nothing like it, the chug and throb of that four-stroke beneath your thighs. But my Royal Enfield rarely came out nowadays, except on dry summer days and special occasions like today. I mean, fifty years since the Brighton bundle! Where’d it go?
We’re down to three now, from the original Ghost Riders of Benny’s Caff. Ironic, most of them have become just that: ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky,’ as we too often croon for our lost pals. In fact, Bomber, riding alongside me, looks well on his way to meeting them. He still tries to cruise like an easy rider, but it takes Tommy and me to help him on and off his Harley. To think, he once rode a Triumph Bonneville in the TT races!
This year, Bomber took some persuading even to leave his old armchair. It was his missus, Jean, who eventually riled him enough to shift his fat butt. Endless choruses of ‘Born to be Mild’ finally got to him.
Tommy, on my other side, is more your man. He’s still up for it – a bit too much so, in fact. Thinks he’s still the likely lad, though his dyed sideboards aren’t very convincing against those hairy old ears of his.
We should have been four, but poor old Jimmy hadn’t made it. Not a motorcycle ending, but cancer. In fact, I was wearing his old white silk scarf today, as Mary, his wife, had asked me to give it one final outing.
***
It’s just outside Crawley that we spot them. Four mod dudes at the side of the road, bent over a poorly Vespa.
We’d passed them long before I finally get us to pull in.
‘I think we should go back and help them lads.’
‘Those poncy Mods?’ protests Tommy.
‘Come on guys,’ I insist. ‘We can’t commemorate this event without some mods to ritually insult.’
I’d already turned my Enfield and was heading back. Reluctantly, they follow.
They still leave it to me to do the talking, though. ‘Hi dudes. What’s up?’ I ask.
As the tall, thin one pulls back the hood of his parka, I’m shocked to see it’s a black lad, his hair cropped in a two-tone. ‘It keeps misfiring, cutting out.’
Tommy, who’s only just dismounted, can never resist a mechanical challenge, even though he’s anything but a Good Samaritan. He starts poking around the engine. ‘Ow!’ he yells. ‘Still hot in there!’
‘You should get yourself a proper bike!’ Bomber can’t resist telling the black lad. ‘None of this foreign rubbish!’
I manage to respond before the mods get their oar in. ‘Like that oh-so-British Raleigh Davidson of yours, Bomber’ (I make ‘Raleigh’ rhyme with ‘Harley’).
Excepting Bomber, everyone laughs.
Tommy, meanwhile, has removed the spark plug and is tutting. ‘No wonder you were going nowhere, mate. State of this!’
He starts cleaning the plug, having pulled a wire brush from the saddlebag of his BSA Goldflash.
While Tommy works his magic, I try to build bridges. ‘So, lads, off to replay the Battle of Hastings, are we?’
‘Er, Brighton,’ corrects the mod who most resembles Bomber in shape.
‘Joke,’ I say.
‘Oh,’ says he, scratching his bald head. ‘And “ha-ha”!’
The tension notches up a fraction.
Tommy, meanwhile, is firing up the Vespa. It sounds healthy enough. He straightens, his leathers creaking.
‘Tell me,’ says the one who has more mirrors than scooter. ‘Why’d you wear that old creaky stuff?’
‘Creaky?’
‘Yeah. Those leathers. They sound kinda arthritic. Creak, creak.’ He bends his arms and knees like a monkey. The other Mods laugh.
Tommy stands as upright as he can manage, all 6’ 1” of him. ‘Well, when you’re doing a ton, and you come off your bike, these can be lifesavers. Whereas,’ he waits a beat, ‘that poncy dress with the fur collar wouldn’t protect you from a puddle.’
‘It’s called a Parka,’ responds mirror-man, pausing to unzip his coat to reveal its orange lining, let alone a maroon mohair suit, high-collared white shirt and slim, knitted tie.
‘Yea, about as British as your mopeds,’ says Tommy. ‘Parkas are Russian, as you’ll know, of course.’ It was easy to underestimate our mechanic. Bit of an autodidact, he was. But then we’d both done Open University, back in the day.
Tension’s winding up again. I could see fists being twitchily balled. Fortunately, the young black dude dissipates things.
‘Er, I never said thanks, Mister, for sorting my bike. We’re really grateful.’
I respond. ‘Yep. Be a shame to miss the fifty-year anniversary of ’64, wouldn’t it? I’m Johnny, by the way, this is Tommy, ace mechanic – as you know – and that’s Bomber, our easy rider.’
‘Baz,’ ‘Colin,’ ‘Dave’ and ‘Sam,’ they recite in turn, the last being the young black lad.
‘You were never there fifty years back, Sam,’ I say.
‘No. It’s in honour of my dad,’ he pauses. ‘This was his old Vespa.’
‘Well, good lad,’ I reply, and the others mumble agreement.
With that, we wish each other a fun day and go back to our machines.
Of course, Tommy makes sure we’re away first, burning rubber as he accelerates off on his Goldstar, leaving us to choke on the afterburn.
We motor on towards Brighton, our pace sharper. No doubt Tommy is keen not to let the Mods get there first; or, more particularly, not to let them overtake us. Tommy barely lets anyone go past him, not even a fellow Ghost Rider.
I start thinking about us all, Rockers and Mods. I suddenly realise I’ve never seen a black Rocker. Was it something to do with our music? The Mods’ tastes did seem more, well … colour blind, perhaps? Soul, ska, Motown, R&B. Whereas ours was, well … more white, maybe, with a few notable exceptions (Little Richard, Fats Domino)? Were we the dinosaurs, I wondered. The, er, racists?
Come to that, Mods had female riders, too – though, with their cropped hair, it was often hard to tell the difference. Yet I couldn’t recall any female bike riders. I mean, there were lots of chicks, but they always rode pillion …
***
We finally arrived
at the seafront. And there, unbelievably, amongst hundreds of other Parka-clad
figures, were the four Mods we’d met earlier. But for Sam’s presence, I wouldn’t
have recognised them.
Tommy’s beside himself. ‘Impossible,’
he keeps muttering. He would clearly like to ask them about their route, but
that would mean admitting defeat. So we just have to listen to him yawping on.
I leave them to it and wander over. ‘You made good time,’ I say.
‘Yeah,’ says (I think) Baz. ‘Dave used to live round here. Knows all the back-roads.’
After a while, the other three drift away and I’m left talking to Sam. ‘So, where are you from?’
‘Dagenham.’
‘The Ford factory?’
‘Yeah.’
Next thing, the two of us head off for a coffee, though it’s queues and bustle everywhere. Quite a sight, I can tell you, Rockers and Mods chatting like long-lost friends. And there’s me, thinking I’m the exception, holding out the olive branch. How the world has changed! This said, as I look around, Sam and I are the only mixed-race people chatting. I feel quite smug about this, but I’m also a bit thankful me mates aren’t present.
‘So, was your dad one of the original Mods? Down here on that Vespa in ’64?’
Sam suddenly starts talking about the weather and the crowds, and it’s quite a while before he comes back round to my question. It was a lie, he confesses. His dad never did have a scooter. His dad had been a Rocker, just like us. Used to hang out at the Ace Café – which I knew well (it was from there we went up the North Circular to try and pull a ton on our customised machines). His dad, so Sam tells me, rode a Triton – probably the meanest machine around in those days – and, sadly, he’d paid the ultimate price.
‘Your dad was, er, a black Rocker then?’ I ask hesitantly. This was getting weirder.
‘No, he was white. Mam’s black. Caribbean.’ I nod. ‘It was she who made me swear never ever to ride a motorbike. But then this event comes up, and I really wanted to do it as me dad was always going on about it. So I bought that old Vespa.’
‘A bit too old, perhaps!’
He chuckles, then pulls a little wooden box out of his Parka. ‘Some of his ashes,’ he says, opening it to reveal a little pouch inside. ‘I was going to scatter them from the pier. It’s what made Mam agree to me coming.’
‘Let’s go and do it, then,’ I say, standing up. ‘Scatter Gary’s ashes.’
‘Gary! How did you-?’
‘Soon as you said he had a Triton and rode out of the Ace Café’ (and that he was white, I don’t add). ‘He was a great guy!’ I give Sam a friendly punch on the arm, and suddenly have an idea. ‘Is there room in that box for this?’ I pull off Jimmy’s scarf with its little skull-and-crossbones motif at the centre. Sam lets me lay it in his box.
‘Me dad had one just like that,’ Sam stutters, choking up.
I throw my arm round the lad’s shoulders and give him a hug. Of course, at that moment, Bomber and Tommy come creaking our way, giving me a very funny look.
‘We’re off to the pier,’ I say. ‘We’re gonna chuck someone in.’
‘As long as it’s a mod,’ says Bomber, with only a mild hint of sarcasm.
‘No, this guy swings both ways,’ I say. ‘Rod the Mocker!’
With that, Sam and I waltz off, laughing, though less at my remark than the utter bewilderment registering on my mates’ faces.
About the author
Dr David Rudd is an emeritus professor who, after 40 years, turned from academic prose to creative writing. He has published some fifty stories, several appearing in CaféLit. A collection of his short stories, Blood Will Out, and Other Strange Tales was published in 2024 (available Amazon and elsewhere).
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