OLDACE

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Posts posted by OLDACE

  1. When I joined in the Cycle Design department of Raleigh in 1969, Alan Oakley was head of the Concept Design department. Access to this department was severely restricted, although I was able to have a peek now and then.

    As head of his department, Alan Oakley was a member of the senior management at Raleigh, and as such he probably would not have expected extra payment for doing what was in fact, his job.

    The US was a huge market at that time, but it was the S.L.R's that were the main export. although many thouands of Choppers went to the States as well. The S.L.R's (sports light roadsters) had the self adjusting brakes. these brakes were not a huge success.

    I recall that in 1972 a whole bunch of us from the design department had to go to Marshall's Transport depot in Bulwell for several weeks in order to alter the brakes of the bikes waiting for transportation to the U.S.

  2. I used to go to rock disco's around Nottingham in the 70's & 80's Metal Micky & a blond chap Pete used to DJ.

    The blond DJ you mention might have been Pete Smith. Among other venues, he was a regular at 'Brummies' next to Warrow's. I occassionly covered for him there when he was double- booked.

  3. There were several of the 'patch' clubs, 'MC' clubs, or 'Outlaw' clubs around the White Hart in the 60's and 70's,although none of the early ones were 'chartered' to the original yank clubs. In the 60's there were the Notts Outlaws, the East Mids Hells Angels, the Ratae (Leicester Hells Angels). The Northants Hells Angels from Kettering were regulars, and there were occassional visits from others including Wolverhampton Hells Angels and Birmingham Hells Angels.

    In the 70's the clubs tended to be chartered, The Manchester Coffin Cheaters were regulars in the early 70's, as were Choppers Incorporated from Long Eaton. The Ashfield MOFOS were there there, they are now the Ashfield Hells Angels.

    It's really is surprising that there was not really all that much aggro at the Hart, but then we all respected the landlord Tom, and John Allen and his wife who managed the upstairs disco.

  4. That is definitely Chris Mann kneeling, the bike looks like a beige DA10 Golden Flash from around 1958-61. The early A7SS Shooting Star was light green, but IIRC the bulge for the drive sprocket on the primary chaincase was a slghtly different shape. Chris died a few years ago, he was a keen photographer, sadly missed.

  5. old ace paid a suprize visit to whitehart on thursday night said it took them 15 and a half hours to get across on the ferry from shetland to aberdeen instead of usual 12 hours at the rate this weathers going it going to take him weeks to get back home it will be nearly time for him to be comming back down for rockers reunion begining of august only four months to go.

    We got back to the Auld Rock OK. The weather here is sunny with a slight frost at night.

    When we were in Notts I had hoped to visit Wollaton Park, but decided against it because of the ice underfoot. Last Saturday, St James Street near Maid Marion Way was too treacherous for my Mrs with her three wheeled perambulator to make it to the Roe Buck or the Sal, so we were marooned in the Hotel. A 330ml bottle of Tiger Beer was £7.80, so we phoned a friend who brought some cans and we had a drink in our room.

    We still enjoyed our trip, especially seeing the soon to retire government chief scientist on TV explaining that the cold snap was all to do with man-made climate change. I remain unconvinced.

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  6. I notice that south of the river is East Trent Field. This is the first time I have seen this designation, on later maps this area is always referred to as The Hook.

    To the residents of Lady Bay it was still known as Trent Fields up to the 70's at least. I never heard 'The Hook' mentioned at all.

  7. It's quite true that most of the recoverable North Sea Gas has been tapped, but what is not in the news, is that most of the reserves are in the 'Atlantic Frontier' west of Shetland. Currently there are 8oo Petrofac workers up here, most living in a specially built camp, in the summer hundreds more are expected, these will live in a flotel. The managers are being put up in hotels.

    These men will be building a new gas separation plant at Sullom Voe. The French firm Total have discovered a huge gas field west of Shetland, they are building a pipeline from Sullom to St.Fergus on the N.E.Scottish coast, fron there the gas will be available to all of the U.K. The investment by Total in the plant and pipeline is in excess of £2 billion.

    There are more huge fields to be tapped out there in the Atlantic, oil as well as gas. New technology means that fields that used to be thought impossible to exploit are now coming on stream, both in the Atlantic Frontier and the North Sea.

    The local Shetland radio and newspaper have been talking about the second oil and gas boom for a couple of years now. You may have your own ideas why this apparently good news has not been mentioned in the mainstream media on the mainland.

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  8. I can confirm what Babs says about the music the Mods and Rockers listened to. Way back in the early 60's at the Toreador the rockers were listening to the likes of Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and Fats Domino, as well as the Beatles and the rest of the Mersey Sounds.

    In 1964 when we moved to Beeston, there was plenty of Tamla Motown on the Juke Box at Jack's Cafe, and it was always being played.

    When I was the Saturday night DJ at the White Hart in 75-76, I would play stuff like The Doors, Hendrix, Hawkwind, The Allmann Bros, Led Zep etc. The sort of discs you would expect at a Biker's disco, but among that lot I would also play what might be considered Mod sounds, The Who, The Troggs, (RIP Reg), The Kinks etc. I think the only reason we didn't play Northern Soul was because we had never heard any.

    Many people like to imagine that there were fundamental differences between our musical tastes. That the Rockers liked only Rock and Roll for instance. Well personally speaking as a life-long Rocker, I think that Elvis Presley made 2 or 3 good records in the 50's, followed by a succession of appalling tracks in the 60's and ended up a bloated junkie working for the Mafia in the 70's. I would much rather listen to one of my favourite LP's Quadrophenia.

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  9. Jimmy Needham was known as Noddy when he was a member of the Aces motorcycle club, he had a Ducati/Honda cafe racer at one time.

    Dave was breathalysed after leaving the White Hart one night, it was thought that his manager, who will be nameless, grassed him up. The motive being that a crash would finish his career. The subsequent ban had consequences much later on. He was caught again in the late 80's, this time he was jailed. Dave was the nicest person you could wish to meet, even when he'd had a drink.

  10. Hi Mudgie, I agree that Xmas has become a huge marketing opportunty, but when you talk of it being hi-jacked, don't forget that originally it was an Pagan festival celebrating the Winter Solstice.

    I will be wishing my fellow Pagans New Year Greetings on the Solstice, as I will to the followers of the Abrahamic religions, and also hoping that they can stop killing people in the name of their deity.

  11. Don't even wait until you get any symptoms, in some men there are no symptons until its too late for a curative treatment. I'd had niggling but not too troublesome symptons for years, almost imperceptably they got worse over a period of two or three years.

    A year last February I watched a programme about Bob Monkhouse's prostate cancer, and how he coped with the illness that eventually killed him, in the programme he recommended that all middle-aged men shouild get tested.

    The following day I phoned my GP and he saw me within three hours. That began a procedure that lead to a difficult 5 1/2 hour operation.

    After the op. I was told that there was a 60% chance that it had been a success, I have had 3 quarterly blood tests since then, and they have all been negative. If I had had a blood test before any symptons, or when the symptons first appeared, I could have had the hormone and radiology like Piggy.

    So, if there are any men reading this who have not had a PSA blood test, please get one and save yourself a lot hassle.

    As the Floyd said 'it's just a liitle pin prick'

  12. Lower back pain can be caused by kidney problems associated with an enlarged prostate. A simple PSA blood test will tell you more.

    In fact all men of our age group should be getting tested regularly. I, like many others ignored the symptons, one of which was lower back pain.

    Fortunately when I did eventually get the blood test, it was not too late, but if I had had it done earlier it would have saved me much discomfort.