motorcycle shop old broadmarsh


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Never been away Mick!

I had a motorbike which was built in Nottingham,with an entirely home made 4 cylinder engine. It had been an engineers lifetime project. Nothing to do with George Brough,or the Jones from Long Eaton. It may interest some on here,so i will tell you more about it when i can unearth a pic.

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Lol, the joys of motorcycling! Will ask Mick about that trip, but you're not confusing it with his detour through through the open doors of Marks &Spencer Wheeler Gate are you? Had left the marke

Does this show it? It certainly shows Fred Bunney's

Hooleys motorcycle shop later became a chinky (am I allowed to sat that now?) before it was the lighting shop. It was just south the old ballroom and the roundabout it faced was known as Hooleys islan

Andy Bones motor cycle shop spent many years on Arkwright street near the GCR railway bridge before moving to Huntingdon street

Rog

Thanks Rog, wasn't aware of that but it would be before my time i suppose; I turned 16 in 1976.

There was yet another major player in the two-wheeler market on Huntingdon Street of course; Steyr-Daimler-Puch, importers of the ubiquitous Maxi along with assorted mopeds including the lovely Grand Prix Special and the Haflinger 4x4's.

_1213785.JPG

Note that the front vehicle has a Nottinghamshire registration. The owner actually lives near me in Wales.

One of SDP's senior managers, a Mr. Bolton, lived in my home village of Thurgarton; I was at junior school with his daughter and it was not ununsual to see Mr. Bolton driving around the village in one of these. Apparently they're highly collectable today.

For those that aren't sure what the Puch Grand Prix was, here's a pic; old Brit bike owners may sneer but when I was 16 this was the ultimate bike, far superior to the Fizzy!

pp060001.jpg

Not that I ever owned one, even then they were very expensive though a restored one today would probably set you back two grand! I had to make do with the humble Puch 3-speed with its twist-grip gearchange (which broke once in the Peak District!) and suicide back brake, activated by pedalling backwards which was guaranteeed to lock the back wheel and send you skittering down the road on your backside!

VS50d.jpg

Nowhere near as posh but it was mine (for all of thirty quid!) and I didn't care, thought I was Barry Sheene and eventually ran it into one of Cantrell and Cochrane's drays on a bend near Fulbeck. Wrote it off and to add insult to injury got done for driving without due care; fined twenty quid!

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When I worked at BPB Instruments in East Leake, we had several Haflingers (maybe 4). It is possible the one near you in Wales is one of those we once owned!

One of the chaps I worked with there was about 6'4" tall - and skinny as a rail - it used to be a spectator sport watching him climb into one of the Haflingers but somehow he always made it!

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  • 7 months later...

Kingstons moved to canal st around 59/61 as I mentioned in the other thread on bikes shops, I helped my dad prepare the place on canal street for the move.

I would be around 12 -14 then as any younger i wouldn't have been much help and any older I had gathered new interests (girls)!

Cannot remember where they moved from though. And yes all the saleman wore a brown smock coat thing.

also mentioned in another thread my mums neighbour was a salesman with them all his working life after he came out the airforce, his name was Ken Pickering, tubby chap with horn rimmed glasses.

Also remember old man Kingston coming around to check my dads work at the shop, he was quite a nice bloke too.

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I remeber Kingstons' having an old Rudge on display in the window, can't for the life of me remember which particular model but I'm sure it had a "Brooklands can" fishtail exhaust so I'd guess at 1930's.

The cafe mentioned earlier was, I'm sure, "Taff's Caff"; I spent many an hour in there and could tell a tale or two..... ;)

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Bought a 1960 125cc Douglas Vespa from Kingstons on the corner of Canal st and Carrington St in 1964 for £60 with the help of good old Hire Purchase. Picked it up one dark winters evening after work and practiced riding the thing around the car park in Broad Marsh before riding it back home, with some trepidation, through the traffic to Rudd.

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There was another motorcycles sales shop in the I think former Hooleys car sales that was sort of opposite The Bowling Green seen on the map on post 33 between Greyfriars Gate and Maid Marian Way? in later years it became a Lighting Shop, lamp shades, wall lights, fancy stuff etc, been looking for a photo but no luck, funny how you recall things but at one time think the land it was on was a "traffic island" ? now long gone

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Was there a former Hooleys in that location? I don't remember such a thing but I'm open to conversion. There was a garage there, opposite the Bowling Green and at the bottom of the in-progress Maid Marian Way; apparently it was called the Astoria Garage.

astoria-1.jpg

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Hooleys motorcycle shop later became a chinky (am I allowed to sat that now?) before it was the lighting shop. It was just south the old ballroom and the roundabout it faced was known as Hooleys island. I remember because I once slid my bike off there. Not to be outdone another biker once went straight through Hooleys showroom window. It might have been Mick Marriot, but I'm not sure. Ashley, can you ask him?

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Lol, the joys of motorcycling! Will ask Mick about that trip, but you're not
confusing it with his detour through through the open doors of Marks
&Spencer Wheeler Gate are you? Had left the market square on that old harley
750, but failed to get round the s bend or manage to stop so through the
doors and down the steps inside! hell of a job getting it back up them!
good job it was a summer saturday when the doors were open

Nice photo Cliff Ton, had a good look myself but couldn't find any, I thought I was right re it being a one time "island", don't recall it as a garage though, more a showroom with the open drive in bit fitted with large shop windows

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Yes Ashley it was Marks and Spencer, not Hooleys. Re the #63 photo I think that Hooleys had been demolished shortly before t was taken. It would have been on the right of the photo, There was a narrow road shaped like a right angle between the garage and the side and back of Hooleys.

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The garage in the photo #63 was Burtons, an art deco type building. It was on Greyfriar Gate with Denman Hotel on the opposite corner, and I remember the car showroom diagonally opposite, and I also seem to think it was Hooleys.

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As described by Commo in the previous post......this is the garage - the building on the left - seen from Collin Street. And the Denman Hotel is the three-storey building on the right.

And you can just see the entrance steps to the Astoria (now Ocean) on the left.

greyfriargarage2.jpg

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Wasnt Andy Bones shop to the right of Bunny's

Anyone remember the game that was played in the Trip

Of course. My Mrs is Russian and I showed her the game with the hoop and the horn in the trip. She had never seen anything like it and was delighted to see a little bit of history preserved. I have never managed to hook the ring on the horn. Ive seen someone do it 5 times in a row and I imagine that many in this site know who it is.

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Hooleys motorcycle shop later became a chinky (am I allowed to sat that now?) before it was the lighting shop. It was just south the old ballroom and the roundabout it faced was known as Hooleys island. I remember because I once slid my bike off there. Not to be outdone another biker once went straight through Hooleys showroom window. It might have been Mick Marriot, but I'm not sure. Ashley, can you ask him?

Yes it did become a Chinese restaurant and was for many years a superb one. I think it was closed in 2010. I visited it many times.

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