Andy Hutchinson is... Equally Insignificant

Staying Alive - Tip For A Recession

Andy Hutchinson, February 13, 2012

One doesn’t want to be political at the risk of alienating one’s reader but let me say something about this appalling temporary depression in economic activity and prosperity, or recession to put it a better way. In saying what I am about to say I will take great care to leave out personal opinion and state only the facts I believe to be true, my opinion to put it a better way. These are they.

                A recession is always at it’s deepest in the two years which follow a brilliantly ept Conservative government taking over from a dreadfully inept Labour government. It happened to poor wonderful Margaret who had to pick up the pieces and wipe out our national debt and now it’s happening to the less poor, infinitely less wonderful David.

                Under Labour we are like spoilt children getting everything we want for Christmas and under Conservative we are like the parents who have to then figure out how to pay for it all. I cannot speak for past recessions being less geographically aware due to my tender years than I am now but I can say one thing for sure about this recession. London doesn’t know it’s happening. They say they are affected by it but I have been there, I have a friend there and I saw a bit of Eastenders last week when I fell asleep during the One Show and woke up with the soap on. I almost wished I’d passed away peacefully in my sleep because the puppy had gone off with the remote and I couldn’t be bothered to get out of the chair to turn it off, so had to watch it. Let me explain, she’s a Tibetan Terrier who has not taken on board the expensive dog training class education we have invested in for her. Now more importantly let me explain why London has not seen the recession we are seeing in Bridlington. London is an insular city in every respect. It is an unfriendly place where everyone is wrapped up in their own world and it is a courageous place. Remember the Blitz? Remember 7/7? They just get on with it because they are so self-indulgent. I don’t mean that disrespectfully because we are talking about tragedies and we are full of admiration for their ‘Bulldog’ spirit. It’s the same with the recession, they seem better able to shut it out and get on with their day-to-day business. Being the city where government sits surely helps because our ministers have 2^nd homes there and they don’t want to have to walk past closed shops to get their daily bread.

Can we learn from London? No. Sorry were you looking for an answer to all your current troubles there? We can’t learn because we are up North and we neither have nor are given the tools to put anything we might learn into practice. The tools being money and investment in infrastructure. We have to accept that we must pay a price for our relatively low crime rate, low cost of housing, golden sands and sea air.

If I could wave a magic wand and have just one wish it would be to have viable shops and businesses. I would want to restart and reopen those that have closed and keep those that are on the brink.

What we have in Bridlington at the moment is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Businesses have cut advertising costs so they are less ‘out there’ and as a consequence they are losing custom and as a consequence they are cutting budgets further.

Can anyone guess what’s coming next?

 

 

It only costs £1 a week to advertise on the most visited website in Bridlington. Contact Bridlington.net and take that first step towards recovery because we won’t be in recession forever and you want to still be around when the money starts flying again.

Scarborough Hospital, a Five Year Old Version of Me

Andy Hutchinson, January 23, 2012

Heaven or Hell? That is the question. Bridlington Hospital or Scarborough Hospital? That is another question. I think if I could say something profound in keeping with such questions it would be this. You aren’t raced past Heaven with sirens blazing and lights flashing on your way to Hell. But let’s put the fantastic facility that is Bridlington Hospital to one side; let’s forget the absurdity of its under use. After all, a hospital is a hospital, isn’t it? Well yes but…

 

My mother shared many words of wisdom with me. “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. If you’re going to ride a motorbike make sure you have clean underpants on, the next person to see them might be a nurse. Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you. Keep away from Scarborough Hospital at all costs.”

 

Mouth shut, check. Avoid trouble, check, well for the sake of this story let’s say a poetically licensed check. Underpants, I change them every week whether they need it or not, so check. Scarborough Hospital? No choice, that’s where my ambulance always defaults to.

 

My mother, a mostly tolerant woman, had good reason to strongly dislike Scarborough Hospital as they were to blame for me being born. My parents nearly lost my big brother, though technically he would not be my big brother for another three years. They nearly lost him through the gross incompetence of Scarborough Hospital. After a period of relief and counting blessings they decided to get a spare part in case this ever happened again. I am that spare part though they wisely emigrated to Colchester shortly before my arrival.

 

Soon after returning to this area 4 years ago I developed a very uncomfortable condition known as recurrent corneal erosion. Basically you lose the lovely comfortable liquid barrier which protects your eye ball from your eyelid. It is often referred to as ‘Dry Eye’. No one really knows what causes this condition but one theory is that riding motorcycles for 30 years into a 90mph wind on a calm day may be contributory in some cases or perhaps just one case. 

 

I attended Scarborough Hospital regularly for almost a year and their solution was to just keep putting bandage contact lenses in and hope it would eventually get better, though it never at any time showed any signs of doing so. They then had an idea. I should see their specialist at Scarborough Hospital, privately. I did this and as it turns out the difference between seeing the man privately and seeing him on the National Health was that you entered his consulting room from a �200 an hour waiting room as opposed to a free one. Either way, it was the same imbecile you saw, or didn’t really see after he’d poked you in the eye and told you to get some rest. I eventually got an appointment with Mr Ball in Leeds. He saw me in early January, operated later in January, (yes the same year) and by the end of January I was able to comfortably view the glory of the coming of the Lord, the Lord being Mr Ball in this case. It took him 2 weeks to remove 12 months of pain and frustration and he did it all on the National Health with the aid of just one nurse, to hold me down, a service I would have been happy to pay extra for, and one �20m laser machine, which my National Insurance contributions have given me a share of.

 

Why I took a sore right toe to Bridlington Hospital after closing time 2 years ago, in the full knowledge I’d end up in Scarborough is beyond me. Mr El-Barghouty recently sacked for “bringing the medical profession into disrepute”, chose not look at my affected foot. He chose to look at a computer notes version of my right foot. He then offered to amputate my left leg as opposed to the dead small toe on my right foot. He later corrected the computer notes but still didn’t ask me to remove my shoe and sock in subsequent meetings. This is a shame because he would have seen a whole foot dying a horrible death.

 

It never occurred to me to just turn up at A&E somewhere else but it did to my wife Sarah after seeing me suffer months of agony. And so we went to A&E in Hull where a short time later I was in a one bedded room on a ward, meeting Mr. Renwick. The first words out of this mans mouth were not very perceptive but from that moment on the man has been a saviour to me. The first words being, “Hello, I’m Paul Renwick.” No, you are Mr. Renwick and you will always be Mr. Renwick because people like me don’t call people like you by their first name, and in conversation may I refer to you as Sir. He removed a toe the next day but sadly he and my leg had lost the battle due to Scarborough’s sit and wait policy of medical care. I have no idea what he’s like in surgery because I took the “knock me out and don’t bring me around until the pain has gone” option at no extra cost. I know when he removed my leg a month later he changed my life for the better in every way. I also know that there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance in day-to-day life and I know in the medical world there is a chasm between the two. The specialists at Scarborough were arrogant and useless in equal measure. The specialist at Leeds and the specialist at Hull, were confident and highly professional in every way. I prefer a confident man to be poking my body. I like medical people to have an air of confidence where my health is concerned.

 

Today I got my second new leg because the first one no longer fit me after Mr. Renwick had to remove a bit more leg due to A&E in Scarborough not stitching my stump last year after I fell. The wound I presented with was long and wide but Scarborough Hospital took the view it would probably heal over in time and sent me on my way. Of course it didn’t and Mr. Renwick fixed it for me and for them.

 

Here’s what happens at Hull Limb Centre. They say good morning Andy. Then they give me a cup of coffee, then a prosthetic nurse works his magic and then I walk out a better man than I walked in. The Scarborough version would probably be something more like this. Turn up to find your appointment had been cancelled without notice or warning. Turn up a week later, then sit for 4 hours then be told, let’s give that stump a bit of time, see if the leg grows back.

 

It’s not geography, it’s not doctors, it’s not nurses, it’s not prosthetic nurse, it’s management and there is another way. Extend the car park at Scarborough onto ground where the hospital building is, reduce the car park at Bridlington by extending the hospital building onto the ground where the car park is and keep us away from a hospital that has been perpetually inadequate for generations.

 

When I was little my brother and I would build airfix models and because I was so bad at it I used to break his ones to equal things up a bit. Scarborough Hospital, at every board meeting when you break our hospital a little more are you just being a 5 year old version of me?

 

 

And the only difference is…

Andy Hutchinson, January 10, 2012

I awoke on Sunday morning to a beautiful sunset. Realising it was still Saturday evening I went back to sleep and awoke on Sunday morning to a beautiful sunrise. Much better. I looked out of the bedroom windows as I drank my coffee and noticed the trees between my house and St. John’s Street had gone from yesterday’s Twist to a rhythmic slow dance. That’s good. Time to saddle up.

 

I met our rag tag bunch of bikers at Stox Motorcyles where Stox Dave transferred free air from his compressor to the inside of my tyres. Five minutes later we snaked in convoy out of Bridlington towards a full cooked breakfast at Skirlington Market. A beautiful morning and beautiful roads.

 

Once outside our bacon and eggs we set off back to Bridlington via The Wolds. I’m not actually sure what a Wold is but I’m guessing it’s some ancient word meaning a stunning place that makes you glad to be alive. We cruised through villages and past picture postcard village pubs. The scenery was breathtaking, marred only by a sudden, probably expensive, plume of blue / black smoke from Pete’s exhaust which in itself took my breath away. It was all very artistic; the scenery and a pyre under a warm pile of clothes with a helmet on top.

 

As we turned onto the A165 and headed into Bridlington I saw the view that always lifts my spirits, the Priory in the foreground with the town and then Bridlington Bay as a backdrop. It is a vista both inspiring and welcoming. We wriggled round the roundabouts and headed down towards the centre of town, past the Old Town, past the Town Hall, past the pubs and the cafes. We continued through the main shopping areas before turning left to head up the Promenade then right down Sands Lane onto the seafront. North Beach had many walkers on it and we picked them out against the sunlit bright white cliffs which stretch from Sewerby out to Flamborough Head.

 

Destination reached, Stox Dave’s house where bikes would be rested and iPhones would come out. What had we missed? I sat with my coffee thinking more of what we had seen rather than what we had missed. The scenery, the history, the town and the golden sands. It occurred to me that there might be someone in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool or anywhere for that matter, who had seen all the same things I had seen this morning.

 

And the only difference is…

                                                     …they would have seen it in a Bridlington Tourist Brochure.  They would be dreaming of a holiday here this summer. Me? I wake up to this every day and the only thing I have to think about is which bike to take out.

 

Picture by EJ Grove

Politics - Letter To Alex Salmond Scottish First Minister

Andy Hutchinson, January 10, 2012

I hope you don’t mind me calling you Alex but we were at Linlithgow Academy together so I thought it would be okay. You won’t remember me because I used to hang out with the ‘cool’ people and you were a bit of a swot. Still, you seem to have done alright, First Minister of a devolved nation with almost as many powers as an English County Council. Good lad.

Dear Alex

I hope you don’t mind me calling you Alex but we were at Linlithgow Academy together so I thought it would be okay. You won’t remember me because I used to hang out with the ‘cool’ people and you were a bit of a swot. Still, you seem to have done alright, First Minister of a devolved nation with almost as many powers as an English County Council. Good lad.

I don’t want to sound clever or anything but have you ever wondered about full independence? I lived in Scotland for nearly 40 years and thoroughly enjoyed my time there, so I know what I’m talking about. In those 40 years I was beaten up regularly but only once because I was English, the other times were because I was quite annoying and a bit of a prat to be honest, especially when full of your fine McEwens Lager.

I don’t want to be controversial or anything but I would be the first to say that Scottish Oil has been badly managed by an English government. For a start, I was allowed to make over a million pounds out of the Oil Industry without ever knowing what I was actually doing. Also whilst working at Sullom Voe Oil Terminal, that’s in Shetland, an island you stole from Norway, I shut down the Brent and Ninian Oil fields twice in 36 hours (still a record to this day I believe). If things had been managed properly I would have been promoted after making the mistake the first time thus preventing me from making exactly the same mistake a second time. I was useless to be fair

Anyway, let’s talk about you getting independence. I have heard English people say that Scotland would not survive financially without England. I have heard Scots say the opposite. I take the view that if we are giving you money we should stop because we are pretty skint down here now. By the same token if you are giving us money we should stop taking it and stand on our own two feet as a nation.

I also envy your popularity as a people. When I was in Israel and Palestine last week I told everyone I was Scottish because like everyone else they hate the English. Of course they have more reason than most because after the First World War we decided to help them. We were completely unbiased and completely even-handed. So much so that we gave each of them precisely what they did not want. Better to take sides in such cases and at least have one friend.

When I left Scotland 4 years ago I thought, if that SNP crowd get in it will be a disaster. I could not have been more wrong. You really do seem to be doing very well. I came back South over the Forth road bridge this morning and it was toll free. Went North over it yesterday, toll free. The bridge looked to be well maintained and in beautiful condition. If I go over the Humber Bridge near me, it looks shabby even though I must pay. Prescriptions in Scotland are free too. Mind you with your climate and diet they would need to be. I wonder if the Scot who invented deep fried Mars Bars was related to the Scot who first thought eating a sheep’s stomach was a good idea.

Would you keep our monarch if you were independent or would you have your own? Billy Connolly would make a good King. King Billy, it has a certain ring to it. Perhaps you would have a president. If so can I recommend my mate Billy from Napier University, he’s really clever and very very patriotic. You could have my other mate Gordon as First Lady, she’s quite confused but she’s a brilliant musician and singer and is known around the World for her work. Actually he and to a lesser extent she was at Linlithgow Academy too.

Actually I should stop buttering you up and tell you why I am writing to you I suppose. I wonder if you would use your influence as top man to help out an old school chum. Since leaving my now ex wife in Orkney 4 years ago I have not had a single Christmas card from her. I assume these are being stopped at the border and rather hoped you could let them pass through to England and then onwards to Bridlington. I know my English cards are getting over the border into Scotland okay because my younger son has seen them in the bin when he has his pre Christmas clearout to make space for bigger and better things.

Yours indefatigably

Andy Hutchinson

p.s. Were you ever a ball boy for Linlithgow Rose?

p.p.s My sister thinks you’re rubbish.

 

Weightlessness

Andy Hutchinson, December 12, 2011

While this blog is ostensibly about Bridlington I have to confess I have spent the whole week preparing to go on holiday and therefore have no heroic biking stories to share. I will therefore share with you a priceless thing, my knowledge of all things, or in this case, one thing, space travel and weightlessness. Actually that’s two things so already you’re doing well.

I am to the best of my knowledge the only astronaut to have ever lived in Bridlington. I never talk about my time with NASA, it’s like it never happened. I do however share my wisdom if asked. You know, if I had a pound for every time someone asks me to explain why the Astronauts on the Space Shuttle float around in a weightless state, well I'd be a wealthy man. But I don't get a pound; all I get is fed up explaining this simple thing to people.

When sharing knowledge via the written word it's difficult to know at what level to pitch my explanation because I can't see who you are, whereas when I explain this to people in the street I can very quickly judge the intellectual power of my audience based upon the extent of the facial hair they have achieved. For example:-

• Bearded person I give in depth analysis, statistics and theory.
• Capable of beard growth I explain the basic concepts but keep it fairly simple
• Incapable of beard growth I don’t share science with women, it’s awkward

Here’s the explanation I would give a middle-aged man with no visible facial hair and a mobile phone older than 4 years.

On earth we don't float about all over the place because of gravity, which holds us down. Most of us have experienced brief weightlessness - without going into space - on a roller-coaster. When a roller-coaster car drops suddenly we are left hanging in mid air for a moment. But let's be a bit more scientific than that. Look at the two pictures below

The picture above right is what really happens, the Space Shuttle follows the curve of the Earth and this is called a fixed orbit. If the picture on the left were true the Astronauts would not only miss out on that wonderful floaty feeling, they would also go off into space and probably get lost. The main thing to note is that the Shuttle in orbit has to be falling to remain in orbit and as we know when something we are in is falling at a certain speed, we are left sitting in the air, making us ‘weightless’.

Below is a more detailed diagram for bearded people.

 

Misconception.

You probably thought you would be weightless in the Space Shuttle because there is no gravity. Wrong. At the distance the Shuttle travels from Earth, gravity is only 11% weaker. So for example if you weigh 100 pounds, in the Shuttle while in Earth orbit, you’d weigh 89 pounds.

Right, I’ll leave you to think about that while I pop over to Israel for my pre Christmas holiday and I’ll be back with you soon unless I am mistaken for the second coming. I’d like to see them try and get a nail through my metal foot. Well, no I wouldn’t actually as that would be a serious breach of my civil liberties.

A Christmas Gift

Andy Hutchinson, December 5, 2011

This week’s story starts off with motorbikes, don’t they all, but read on because there’s more.

When we awoke this morning we saw a bright star in the sky above my motorcycle stable. We rushed to investigate. Can you imagine (our) surprise when we saw that my Gilera Fuoco and Sarah's little Honda Sky had given birth to a lovely little 1000cc, 150mph Triumph Speed Triple. We were speechless; in fact Sarah hasn’t uttered a word to me since we discovered this ‘miracle’.

Later we were having Sunday lunch with friends and the only one with anything interesting to say asked me, “What’s the best bike you’ve ever had?”

Without hesitation I replied, “It was my Honda 400/4.”

Later in the day I was thinking of all the bikes I’d owned and I realised that if I lined them all up the 400/4 would be far from the best even though it would definitely be the most yellow. So why had I so quickly declared it the best? Thinking about it I realised it was not the bike at all, it was what I did on it. I was 19 years old, no mortgage, no bills, engaged to be married and I had three sources of income, BP Chemicals (apprentice), The Star and Garter Hotel (barman) and Revolver Record Shop (Saturday boy).

I then carried out the same thought process on my cars and again the best car was not the best car but it became so because it was the best time. Thinking I had stumbled upon a great philosophy here I extended the exercise until I quickly came to my best Christmas.

You know what’s coming don’t you? Yes, the best Christmas I had was nothing to do with presents; it was all to do with the people I spent it with. It was at home, with family and friends. Eating, drinking, talking and sharing. Yes, there were presents exchanged but I could not tell you what I got or what I gave.

This Christmas give the best gift you have to offer and that is the pleasure of your company.*

Buy Bridish

Andy Hutchinson, November 28, 2011

I recently popped into my local cafe for some poached eggs on toast. As I placed my order Slade came on the radio and Slade on the radio can only mean one thing, yes it’s that time of year again. When I first become aware of the season I always take a quiet moment to myself and I look to heaven and think Jesus…

…Christ this is going to cost me a fortune. Only then do I stop to consider how lucky I am. For I have indeed been blessed by the holy father of Jesus. God in a kindness to me made me a stubborn, awkward, argumentative, ill-mannered, opinionated so and so. In doing this he ensured I would have very few friends and this would keep the cost down when celebrating his lad’s birthday. He also in his infinite wisdom made me ugly to ensure I would have very few dealings with the more expensive to maintain sex. For this I am less grateful.

If you are one of the chosen few who get a card from me this year then good for you. If however you get a present this means someone has stolen my identity but don’t worry it’s happened before and they always give it back when they realise what it’s like being me.

One thing I would say is that a card from me will always have the word Christmas on it, never Xmas. After all we are not celebrating the birth of Mr. X are we?

As it happens I’m taking my lovely wife on a cruise for Christmas which will take in Bethlehem, Jerusalem and the Suez Canal. I imagine that most wives would have settled for a meal followed by a night out in town but Sarah is very special. Special to the tune of �2093.76 as it happens. That’s �1022.60 + the all-inclusive drinks package.

Bethlehem will not be without interest at this time of year but Bridlington is also a wonderful place to be at Christmas time. The lights are truly heart-warming and it’s probably because being a top holiday resort we know how to make our town look appealing, joyful and inviting. It’s embedded in our seaside nature to share happiness with people we don’t know personally.

Today we have lost a lot of the Christmas ideal, we look more to getting than to giving and that is the precise opposite of how we used to feel and how we should feel. It is hard to undo change but there are small things that can make the joy of Christmas more like it used to be. For example when you go online to buy that book, or whatever, for a friend or relative, stop yourself and consider the option. Why not pop into town to a ‘Real World’ bookshop? Here are some things that may happen, things that Amazon can’t compete with:-

• The bookseller will smile and ask you how your preparations for the festive season are going.
• He or she will wish you a Merry Christmas and will genuinely wish it for you.
• You may bump into a friend (unlikely in my case) and go for a coffee or a bite to eat.
• You will see, feel and smell the season and if you get a bit chilly you will feel truly content when you get back home to the fire, a fire you would not appreciate so much if you had never left it.
• The person receiving the present will receive it with the goodwill that made you go out and browse for it instead of just clicking for it without emotion before moving on to do something equally unfulfilling and mundane.

Here’s the best bit of all though. You will have given a good, hard-working, honest shopkeeper the opportunity to wish you a very Merry Christmas next year.

Equally Insignificant

Andy Hutchinson, November 23, 2011

On a moonlit night a man approaches a crossroads at the south end of Rosedale where Highway 8 intersects with Highway 1. A guitar rests on his shoulder. He stops at the crossroads and he looks at all his options. It is a metaphor. A presence joins him and after an exchange, the man with the guitar walks purposefully on, in possession of musical genius, but minus a soul.

A crossroads offers three new directions, and one previously trodden. It did not serve for Andy. He arrived at a roundabout between Falkirk and Larbert at 2am on a clear starry winter’s night. He arrived on his motorbike but without helmet and leathers. For reasons he would never know he had got out of bed twenty minutes earlier and climbed on his Honda 400 four, in jeans and tee shirt. If you are going to do something life changing, at least try to look cool.

At the roundabout he pulled over, leaned his bike on its stand and walked to an area of wasteland 20 yards distant. He lay on his back, never feeling the cold and stared at the sky. A moon, maybe Jupiter and a whole load of stars. How many stars? An infinite number.

 He had bought a telescope two months ago, but had never considered looking at distant objects in the sky; he bought it to look at distant girls without being arrested. Unfortunately he bought a reflective rather than refractive type and consequently all the girls were upside down, this telescopic flip didn’t matter when looking at stars and planets, but was a real problem when viewing girls, especially for someone who didn’t understand their bodies even when they were the right way up.

On this night he used just his eyes but as no one was around afforded himself the luxury of putting his glasses on.

Like anyone who looks skywards and thinks, he was immediately struck by the enormity of it all. He was overwhelmed by the thought of the distances involved. Two stars which looked adjacent might be billions of light years apart. There was just no way to tag measurements to what he was looking at. He imagined if you looked long enough and thought hard enough; insanity would take hold in no time.

He wanted to know where he was, where he fitted into the whole scheme of things, the meaning of life question just wasn’t pertinent enough, he wanted to know much more than that.

As he lay there he began to try and equate the span of his existence, possibly 80 years at best to the span of it all. Billions upon billions of light years. He thought of his life span in terms of being 1mm and wondered how and where that fitted into infinite.

It slowly came to his mind how completely insignificant he and his time on earth was. He tried to relate the distance between his significance and someone else’s significance and then how close they would be in the context of infinite. There would be no gap that could be measured. He then thought of the most significant figure to have spent his time on earth at the same time as himself. Nelson Mandella, he thought. He’s probably the most significant man of my time. He was getting close to understanding what he came to learn.

What he understood was that nobody mattered; nobody would put a scratch on the surface of entirety, a mark that could be seen or would need to be seen. Everyone would come and go and nothing of impact to the universe would be recorded.

Everyone is equally insignificant.

Once he realised this, he feared no one, respected no one, liked no one and disliked no one. Ships that pass in the night just couldn’t do justice to his newly formed views on the interaction of insignificant people who shared with him his 1mm of eternity.

He climbed back on his bike and headed home. That’s when he first felt the cold, he wished he’d put a jacket on. He got to Lathalan roundabout and veered towards Linlithgow, that’s when he heard the siren and he wished he’d put a helmet on.

The insignificant policeman who took his details asked what he was up to. Andy tried to explain the man’s insignificance to him but this didn’t go down well and he ended up in a cell for the night.

While he fully understood the knowledge he had gained through this experience, he did concede that he might need to find a better way to explain it to others.

And so for Robert Johnson it had been a crossroads, for Andy Hutchinson it had been a roundabout. The difference was Andy still had his soul. He also had a £15 pound fine, but that wasn’t significant.

---------------------------------------------------------

Adapted from Chapter 7 of

Equally Insignificant

by

Andy Hutchinson

Available from Amazon £5.95

Also available in all good bookstores and some bad ones

Warning - This book contains strong language which some may find offensive.

Carburettor Leak May Fuel Local Crime Wave

Andy Hutchinson, November 20, 2011

I recently bought an old Police motorcycle from the Isle of Wight. The bike had been ridden by none other than P.C. Fred Piper who patrolled a rural area of the New Forest on it between 1978 and 1985. The bike is one of only two left in the UK. I now own a classic bike and can hold my head up high at our next classic bike club meeting.

After buying the bike I contacted the Police and asked if I could ride it around, with Police markings and colours, unmolested by their traffic units. They said yes, to which I replied, “That’s nice because I don’t seem to be able to ride any of my other bikes around unmolested by you lot.” My, how we laughed. They did say the only thing I had to do was to cover up the word ‘Police’ but the colours were fine.

The word Police appeared on the front windscreen and on the rear panniers, so I duly covered all three occurrences. I took the bike out last Saturday and patrolled the Bridlington area humming the tune to Heartbeat as I went. It was wonderful and I got enough attention to suggest that while not being guilty of the crime of impersonating a Police Officer I could certainly suggest that I was a deterrent to the local scallywaggery.

It was when I stopped for petrol that I first considered the mount and dismount procedure that would best suit my particular situation, it being that I am one leg too many short. I put the bike on its side stand and hauled the lump of metal impersonating my right leg over the bike and dismounted with ease if not grace. I then noticed that with the bike leaning at 45 degrees on its side stand it was leaking petrol out of both carburettors as quickly as I was putting it in. It is a typical fault with most eBay bikes I have since learnt. I quickly put the bike on its centre stand so it was upright and the leak stopped. I fuelled up and paid. To get back on the bike I simply stood on the left footrest and threw my leg over the seat, literally.

Having patrolled for another hour I headed home and pulled up at the Coachman’s Lodge where I store the bike. I put the bike on the side stand, hastily dismounted and then pulled it onto the centre stand losing only a cupful of precious fuel, which amounts to about a fiver now I think. I opened the door, got back on the bike and rode it into the Lodge. Then I sat and thought. To be fair, thought almost always precedes mishap in my World. I thought, I don’t want to keep losing petrol and I don’t want to spill petrol in my Coachman’s Lodge, particularly as I often sleep there when I have been naughty. There has to be another way. I decided I would hold the bike upright, balance on my left leg and haul my right leg over the top. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, I got my leg halfway over the seat where my foot got caught up in the Police radio on the rear rack. I tried to get back on the bike but my leg would not move either way. I was in a pickle now because my wife Sarah never comes into the Lodge; it is my private place and I therefore faced the option of falling over with the bike falling on top of me or starving to death. Before I could weigh up these two options I fell over and the bike fell on top of me. The windscreen hit my workbench and split up the middle between the P and the O of Police.

I now ride an OLICE bike and this is likely to be as much of a deterrent to criminals as the officer who walked down my street last February because he was lost.

And that ladies and gentlemen is why a small petrol leak may fuel a crime wave in our lovely town of Bridlington. I did my best

A Super Dream

Andy Hutchinson, November 13, 2011

Two little boys played in the streets of Bridlington, kicking and throwing stones. They grew and went to Headlands School where education and opportunity were offered to them. Neither saw the merit in this offer and both gazed out of the window while their teacher despaired at his gift going to waste. The boys left school as soon as the law permitted them to do so.

I’m not a psychologist, I wish I was. If I was I would tell you why one boy stole one of my motorbikes while the other repairs my motorbikes. Why one invokes sympathy the other empathy. The most obvious difference between these boys is passion. Only one of these boys found passion and it all began when, as a 4 year old boy his father took him on the back of a late 1970’s Honda Superdream.

The moment he followed his father’s lean into their first bend, something within the boy connected the dots. He and the motorbike were one, so natural, so easy and so exciting. When he stared out of the classroom window he was miles away, he was on a twisting road with his knee down. The frustrated teacher interrupted his daydreaming one day and asked, “What is going to become of you lad?” Without taking his eyes from a passing Kawasaki GTR 1000, he replied, “I am going to own a motorbike shop.”

This boy with a future was Dave Stead who went from supplier and fixer of mini-motos and off-roaders to fellow pupils to businessman at 21. His journey was challenging, frightening, exciting and very quick. That’s motorbikes for you.

On leaving school Dave went to Carnaby College to learn his trade. Having completed levels one and two the course was discontinued; level three the final level was not offered. Dave travelled to Doncaster to complete his final level. By this time he had long since passed his car and bike tests and Doncaster wasn’t very far on his Honda CB500. While at college he worked as a mechanic for Mayhem who trained and still train motorcyclists in the fine art of sharing tarmac with those who have twice as many wheels and half as much road sense. At 19 Dave was offered the chance to work at Rojos, a motorcycle dealer with a franchise and fully equipped facilities. What could possibly go wrong?

When riding a motorcycle you’re always looking for that pothole and just when life couldn’t get any better for Dave a pothole came out of nowhere. Rojos owner announced that in 3 months he would take a well-earned retirement and the business would cease trading. For Dave at just 20 this was devastating news and his initial reaction was one of despondency. His next reaction was to put his future in his own hands. He would not ‘sign on’ and let a well meaning Job Centre Plus employee tell him about the shelf stacking vacancy at Tescos and that, if he applied himself, he might just be the lad for the job. No, he would start his own motorcycle business as he had told his teacher he would only 5 years earlier.

Dave left Rojos in November 2010 and by February 2011 he was up and running in partnership with a long time family friend. Stead and Wilcox imaginatively became Stox Motorcycles. With his girlfriend Sarah and his parents offering their support the business got off the starting blocks. Dave was very quick to benefit from the cheapest and best advertising a new business can have; word of mouth. Soon ailing bikes were arriving at 15A St. John’s Street in a steady stream and were just as quickly leaving with a new lease of life. Bikes were also being bought and sold on a regular basis.

Stox Motorcycles is nearing the end of a challenging first year and will grow into its second year in very good shape as a respected and established business.

How did a daydreamer become a motorcycle mechanic and businessman by the age of 21 while his fellow pupil slipped effortlessly through the net, in all probability to become permanently disenfranchised, never feeling the pride of achievement and ownership?

How did it happen this way? The answer is passion. The Honda Superdream was indeed a life changing motorbike.

http://www.stoxmotorcycles.co.uk