Triumph and Tribulation

 

I need to mention that this chapter comes with a warning. There will be pain.

Contrary to the belief held by some (not many to be honest), that I have led my life as the apotheosis of good sense and wisdom, the next few pages will surely demonstrate the folly of this viewpoint. When the following events took place, I still had some years to go before my cognitive functions had matured sufficiently to manage my decision-making processes. Sublimely oblivious to an under-developed prefrontal cortex, like most of my peers, I cheerfully responded to whichever of my many impulses came first. That I am indeed here to tell this tale, is the result only of good fortune and not because I feared to tread the path of fools.

In my defence, I had not cornered the market on stupidity. I had one friend, whose main goal in life was to hit 50 miles per hour in his Dad’s Zephyr whenever he turned into the narrow dirt track that led past the Council Depot a hundred yards to our back gate. On arriving he would screech to a stop in a cloud of smoke and dust and announce himself (quite needlessly) by long blasts on the car horn. This simultaneously had the effect of sullying the washing on the clothes line, petrifying the family spaniel and irritating the hell out of my father.

Before getting too far into this story, it needs to be said that there will always be two discrete groups of people – those who love them, and those who don’t. This is true for all things - from sailing and golf to do-it-yourself carpentry and quilting, but since this episode is about my enduring love of motorcycles, I have no need to explore this topic further.

There have been many evocative words written about this thrill and joy and it would be a foolish person indeed who tried to match the words of Robert Persig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) or Che Guevera (The Motorcycle Diaries). I urge anyone who wants to understand the lifelong attraction of sitting astride a quarter of a ton of machinery moving at a hundred feet per second to read at least one of these books.

Compared to the Bantam, the Norton was a real motorcycle. She was deceptively easy to manoeuvre, and she was quick. The 500cc Model 7 Dominator had been built specially for Australia and had been around for about 10 years. Her looks had already been superseded by the more streamlined later model with the featherbed frame and the sleek flat-bottomed petrol tank but as far as I was concerned, this was everything I had ever wanted.

She had a big, shiny petrol tank with “Norton” emblazoned on both sides in bright red and black, slimline mudguards and wide cone-like mufflers which stood out like a pair of chrome vuvuzelas. Her throaty and distinctive roar was unmistakable from a couple of streets away.

She wasn’t up to the power and speed of the 650cc monsters ridden by some of the really cool guys in town – particularly the Triumphs and the BSAs, and the king of the road, the Dominator 650SS, but this machine totally expanded my horizon. On the Bantam, I had rarely travelled further afield than the city limits – now the world was my oyster.

Motorcycling in the tropics was quite different in the 1960s than it is in 2020s.  In the first place, protective gear including a helmet, was considered optional, and leather jackets if worn at all were fashion accessories rather than a defence against the elements (or the bitumen).

There was a small group of us who regularly hung out together including Daryl, Ross and Paddy. We were not quite at the level of cool of the dudes who rode the Big Valves and the Bonnies, we were just a group of guys who liked riding 20 or 30 miles to find a pub or a beach, hang about for a while and then ride back again.

Daryl had a 500cc Speed Twin, Paddy a 650 Thunderbird and Ross a huge low compression Royal Enfield Meteor that could have climbed a wall in second gear but was always a bit slow out of the blocks.

There is nothing to compare with riding in this part of the world, breeze in your face, wearing only shorts and tee-shirt with sneakers or thongs on the feet. When riding in wet weather, you have to turn your head sideways and look through one eye so as to minimise the effect of the rain and at dusk, it is always a challenge to keep the insects from smashing into your face.

It was the height of irrationality, but I was eighteen and immortal – until one day I wasn’t.

It wasn’t that we weren’t used to the odd gravel rash. I had nasty scare coming down the windy Kuranda Range road one wet Sunday afternoon, when the bike slipped out from under me on a downhill corner and I had the joy of watching my machine sliding sideways down the bitumen ahead of me, while I followed behind on my arse, shredding my shorts, and taking several layers of skin off my elbows. Did I learn from this incident?

No I did not.

A few days later on our way back from Ellis Beach, I was travelling behind Paddy, when his front wheel punctured. His bike instantly went into a wild zigzag, Paddy pitched into the air, shot over the handlebars, hit the ground at about 30 mph, rolled several times, arms flailing and came to rest in a ditch. He grunted a few times, got up out of the ditch, picked up his bike and swore profusely. Did I learn from this incident?

No I did not.

I became a fan of dirt track racing. I had watched a bit of speedway with my Dad in earlier years but couldn’t really get excited about that version of motor cycle racing. The dirt track on the other hand, known locally as “miniature TT” involved finding a block of vacant bushland, grading a track, ideally with a few humps and water hazards, and charging around on smaller 250cc and 350cc bikes. I had a go at it myself a few times but lacked the courage and the talent to ever be a serious competitor.

One of the most supported venues in North Queensland was at Brandon, a small town outside of Ayr and today home of the Ayr Motorcycle Club. There were numerous riders from Cairns heading south for one of the major events held over Easter in 1963 including Ray (Pancho) Fapani, who worked at McGregor Motors and was the widely envied owner of a very fast BSA 650 Big Valve. Pancho would go on to become a well-known North Queensland motor-cycling identity who specialised in motorcycle sidecar racing. Pancho always referred to me as Womipilli, which was not an Indigenous name meaning “cool guy who rides a mean machine” but his Spoonerism for Pommy Willy. I seriously thought of having the word sewn on to my leather jacket.

There will be a large contingent from Cairns heading there for the weekend. A few mates head off early on bikes or in cars for the six-hour journey south. I make a last minute decision to join them as soon as I finish work that Friday night. I put the saddle bags on the Norton, throw in a change of clothes and a toothbrush and I am on my way just before sunset.

I am travelling alone and, in a rare flash of good judgement have donned leather jacket and gloves, helmet and goggles.

I am less than an hour out of Cairns when it happens. For the first 15 or 20 miles, the road runs parallel to the main north-south railway line. At the small township of Aloomba, one of those “this is a nice place, wasn’t it” destinations, the road takes a sharp S turn, crosses the line and continues to parallel the railway track, but this time on the opposite side.

It may be because I am wearing goggles and less able to judge my speed, or the condition of the road or, (and this is the most likely reason), because I am an inexperienced 18-year old who should not be allowed out alone after dark, but when the road takes a sudden turn to the left to cross the railway track, I do not.

I can see it coming, but unhappily I am about 3 or 4 seconds too late. I try desperately to slow down to take the turn but run out of highway and continue instead across the shoulder of the road, leap a small ditch, and carry on into a fence which alas, is a good deal sturdier than me or my machine. The Norton comes to a halt, while I on the other hand, continue my forward motion – over the handlebars, over the fence, performing a faultless half somersault before coming to rest head down, and backside in the air, against what is possibly the only tree within cooee of my landing zone. Very slowly, my body slides sideways as gravity reasserts itself. I am in a small foetal heap at the base of the tree. I can hear the bike’s engine slowly trying to turn over, then it quits with nothing left to show that a disturbance has taken place other than the steady beam of a headlight, now pointing upwards into the branches of the eucalypt beneath which I lie. Everything is still and intensely quiet for what seems like an eternity but is probably no more than a few seconds. Then I let out a loud and long roar. I try to move and nothing happens. I have an agonising pain in my lower back, and it feels as though I am pinned beneath a huge pile of giant boulders.

I lay there for ten minutes wishing I could sleep, but the pain is too intense. Very slowly, I begin to move and with effort raise myself into a sitting position. Painfully, I rise to my feet. Gratefully, I’m not paralysed but the pain in my back is awful. I take a few steps towards where my bike is laying on its side. It is wrecked. As I struggle to pick it up, the headlight falls off and the light goes out throwing my world into darkness.

I see a pair of headlights coming toward me, I raise my hand hoping that he slows down for the bend. The car slows and pulls over to the side of the road. It’s a black FJ Holden and as it comes to a stop, I recognise it as being driven by Finchy, one of the guys who regularly hangs around McGregor Motors.

It turns out that Finchy and his two passengers who I also recognise from our McGregor Motors Saturday morning get togethers, are also on their way to Brandon for the weekend.

“Bloody hell, Will” he says, “you won’t be riding that for a while. Do you want a lift?”

For a bloke who ten minutes earlier thought he was never going to walk again, I found this offer very generous, and ludicrously, I accepted it.

The Norton was wheeled somewhere safe and out of sight. I climbed into the back of Finchy’s car, and we were on our way.

By way of First Aid, we stopped twenty minutes down the road at Babinda where there was a QATB ambulance station. The local ambulance officer on duty took a quick look and said he was pretty sure that I would live. He thought I should reconsider the plan to spend the next five hours in a car and recommended I go home, get some rest and an X-Ray as soon as possible. Did I follow this advice?  

No I did not!

I continued down to Brandon with Finchy and his mates. I watched a lot of races and drank a lot of beer. The pain troubled me all that weekend and for several weeks following, making me realise that perhaps I wasn’t so immortal after all.  

Later, after an x-ray I was to learn that I had cracked two lumbar vertebrae. It healed of course, but I would be troubled with lower back pain for the rest of my life.

If you were to think that I would now reconsider my love affair with motorcycles, you would be mistaken. 

What was left of the Norton was recovered from its hiding place in Aloomba. I had considered repairing it, but the frame and the forks were badly damaged, and its future lay in its scrap value. McGregor Motors had recently acquired a 1961 Triumph Tiger 110 and after some negotiations with the wonderful Bill McGregor, he accepted the wrecked Norton as a trade-in, and I became the owner of the most beautiful and elegant motorcycle I was ever going to own.

 If I thought that the Norton was the answer to my prayers, I soon came to realise that it was nothing compared to this gorgeous piece of machinery. I personalised it a little by chroming the front nacelle and replacing the wrap around front mudguard with a Bonneville slimline type. I changed the slightly tarnished exhaust system for newly chromed Siamese pipes and finally in elegant calligraphy on the front number plate I had the word “Savage” in homage to the classic Shadows instrumental. It was little wonder that I was always broke.

I had some magnificent times on that Trumpy – it even smelled good (sorry, I can’t even begin to explain that).

There are a couple of events that took place during this period which I have agonised over whether or not to share. I could simply relate them as they happened, or I could let them slide into the past – and no one will ever know.

In different ways, both stories involve activities which are unlikely to enhance my CV – but perhaps the time for losing sleep about that is behind me.

To be honest there were more than just these two instances of anti-social behaviour, but it is not my place to tarnish the good names of others. Their reputations are safe with me. I will stick to stories which serve only to darken my own character.

The first story began one summer evening with a small group of riders and pillion passengers on four or five bikes enjoying the pleasure of a Saturday afternoon ride to Port Douglas beach. This was followed by a few hours in the bar of the Yorkeys Knob pub around a dart board playing a noisy game of killer. Later that evening, someone mentioned a craving for watermelon. Before long we were all talking about how nice it would be on such a warm evening to be down on the beach with a couple of cold beers sitting around eating watermelon.

One of the intellectuals in our group mentioned a watermelon farm he knew of a few miles away along the Lake Placid road. At this time of night no one would know if we were to sneak up to the farm, help ourselves to a couple of juicy specimens, and head back to the beach.

Do you see what I mean about managing first impulses?

Within a few minutes we were on our way. We parked the bikes about a hundred yards or so from the entrance to the farm, walked along the edge of the road, and one at a time carefully climbed over the barbed wire fence which circled the farm.  After a while we were scattered in various parts of the field each of us hoping not to step on a snake as we searched in the dark for a ripe and succulent gourd.

I really have not the slightest idea what possessed us to think that a half dozen motor cycles could sneak up anywhere in the dead of night on a country road. The farmer probably heard us arriving from five miles away. The first and very explicit sign that our presence had been detected was the sudden glare of a search light and the sound of a very loud gun.

“Get the f**k out of my field, you little bastards!” was the roar, followed by another shotgun blast.

All thoughts of pleasant evenings on the beach were abandoned. The teenage poachers took to their heels and fled like hares for the fence. This time there was nothing careful about how we clambered over the fence. A few pieces of skin and clothing, were much less to fear than an arse full of 12-gauge buckshot.

Pillion passengers did not stop to ask whether the rider had held his licence for 12 months. As soon as a bike engine started, a passenger jumped on and within moments we were all racing down Lake Placid Road as though our lives depended on it – which at that moment, it did.

Later, when we were able to reassemble and assess the damage, we found no serious injuries. Someone had lost a shoe, we all had scratches from the barbed wire, but no one had been hit. To this day, I’d like to think that the owner was firing into the air – but I’m not sure. The thing is, I don’t even actually like watermelon.

The second incident took place on a date which is memorable for more reasons than my own.

It was late November 1963 and like many other Friday evenings, a small group of us were sitting on stools by the louvred windows in the Public Bar of the Impy Hotel on the corner of Abbott and Shields Streets watching the passing parade of young ladies as they strolled around the Block. Someone came up with the idea of going to Townsville for the weekend to see what was happening on the Strand.

There goes that prefrontal cortex again.

Who cared that it was a good five to six hours away by road, through Innisfail, Tully and Ingham. It sounded like a good idea.

Griffo, whose Dad owned and operated a used car yard in town, was the proud owner of a recent model Ford Falcon and offered to drive anyone who was up for the trip. Mindful of my earlier effort on the Norton, I wasn’t as keen to ride the Triumph all the way, so it was agreed that we would meet at Griffo’s place, on the south side of the city near White Rock in an hour. This gave me time to go home, pick up some extra cash, a change of clothes and of course, a toothbrush.

I headed home and did exactly that. It took a little longer than I expected. For some reason, completely unintelligible to the mind of an 18-year old genius, my parents thought it less of a great idea than I did. Determined as I was to ignore advice from my naive parents, I headed into the night, not wanting to keep Griffo and the others waiting.

As I sped along Mulgrave Road, I saw a pair of fast approaching headlights in my rear view mirrors. I glanced over my shoulder and could see the unmistakeable grill of a Ford Falcon. I grinned, dropped into third gear and left them in my wake. About a mile or so down the road, with the Falcon nowhere to be seen, I pulled up just near the Drive-In theatre, parked the bike on the centre stand, felt for a cigarette and waited for Griffo to catch up.

It wasn’t Griffo. The Falcon came up alongside of me, and this time I saw what I had missed last time. A pair of loud speakers on the front of the car, and a light on the roof. It was the police. The car skidded to a stop, and both policemen got out. “You’re under arrest son, get in the car”.

At that was the end of my weekend Townsville trip. In fact it was soon to be the end of my motorcycling days.

I was escorted to the Cairns Watch House at the back of the Cairns Police Station on the Esplanade. The same place where I had received my licence only two years earlier.

The night was long and uncomfortable. The next morning, a young constable let me out at six o’clock and informed me that I would be in court later that day, and if I wished I could call someone to bail me out. “

By the way,” he said, conversationally, "President Kennedy has been shot.”

The call to my father was not easy. He didn’t say much, he didn’t need to. He came down to the Police Station, paid my bail and took me home to get cleaned up for my visit to the Magistrate’s Court later that day.

My court appearance was brief. The magistrate, Mr Gardiner was not the sort of person who looked remotely interested in listening to mitigating statements from me. He’d had enough of these young fellows on bikes.

“I’m going to make an example of you.”

Forty pounds might not seem like a lot today, but in 1963 it was more than a month’s wages – almost the equivalent of $2,000 in 2025.

It was back to the Malvern Star for the next few months.

As I was leaving the court room, my Dad alongside me, Senior Police Constable Zupp put his hand on my shoulder and said,

“Son, I have just one piece of advice for you – get rid of that bike because we are always going to be watching you. Cross a double line, park a couple of feet too close to the corner, forget to indicate as you make a turn, whatever it is, we’ll be on your tail, and you’ll be back here again.”

The notice which appeared in The Cairns Post the following Monday, said it all.

Did I learn anything from this? 

Well, yes, this time I did!

And did Senior Constable Zupp give me good advice or was it police intimidation?

Well, I was definitely intimidated, but yes, it was good advice and within six months, I said goodbye to The Savage and became the proud owner of a 1957 FE Holden. 

Stay tuned...