On October 5 1957, to the surprise and horror of the western world, the USSR successfully launched the first satellite into space. Sputnik 1 was tiny – less than two feet in diameter and 183 lbs in weight – but it was a landmark in the space race. The Americans had no idea that the Soviets had such a capability, and were further startled less than a month latter when Sputnik 2 was launched – this time with a live dog on board. The space race had begun.
Now I suppose I can own up. More than thirty years have passed, the shame has faded and neither my old mum nor my children are likely to read this. So here goes. In 1975 I bought a Bond Bug and ran it for about six months. Look, I was young; we all do silly things at some point in our lives. It was a weird time – the first series of The Sweeney was on TV and Typically Tropical was at number one with that song about going to Barbados. My Bond Bug was tiny. It was noisy. It wobbled about a lot. It was the silliest car I’ve ever owned. It scared the life out of me on several occasions. And I loved it.
Now here’s a word that I’ve never used in Classic Bike Guide’s 21-year history; Beatniks. There, said it. And it’s possible, after this feature, that I’ll never use it again. I’ve never mentioned them before, but the Beatniks can’t be overlooked when considering the youth culture of the Fifties.
What set rockers apart from other teenagers of the time wasn’t just the bikes, the leather jackets, or the rock ‘n roll – what mattered was attitude. If you were a rocker you were part of the best tribe in town, and you wanted everyone to know it.
How would you answer if a Martian appeared in your shed one night, and asked, ‘This Elvis Presley guy, what did he do for a living?’ Well, chances are you’d put down the three-quarter inch Whitworth, take a sip of cold tea, and assure the friendly alien that Elvis was a rock ‘n roll singer. A good enough reply, but there is another possible answer.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but rock ‘n roll tended to be resolutely male orientated. That’s not exactly surprising; it was very much a male preserve, but there was a small number of female performers in the late Fifties and early Sixties, both in the UK and the States. One of the most successful of our native girl rockers was a London schoolgirl who became a star before she had even taken her O-levels.
Imagine, if you will, the office of Jim Hacker on Yes, Prime Minister, but with far nicer furniture and a selection of the smaller paintings that a cultured m’lord might have acquired on his Grand Tour. In the bay window is an elegant double-sided ‘partners’ desk, and to one side stands a domestic dining table and eight chairs, serving as a board room table. By the fireplace there are two easy chairs and a sofa which, I can confirm, is soft and comfortable. The overall impression is of a middling-sized country house, sitting in two hundred acres somewhere in the shires; a feeling which is reinforced by the fact that, although we are in fact in London’s West End, there is no clatter of human voices outside, no hum of traffic noise and no cacophony of sirens.
All of these articles to date have been about very famous rock ‘n rollers, but this one is a bit different. It’s about Elle Greenwich, of whom you might well say ‘who?’ Well, Elle Greenwich is, in rock ‘n roll terms, the most famous person you’ve never heard of.
Think of the actor Edward Fox and though a perfect picture of his very distinctive features pops up immediately, it’s hard to say which of the many roles he’s played over the last fifty years or so first comes to mind. Without reference to any crib sheets I thought of him in films such as The Dresser, The Importance Of Being Earnest, Oh! What A Lovely War, A Bridge Too Far, The Breaking Of Bumbo – and, of course, The Day Of the Jackal and A Bridge Too Far. Oh yes, and utterly peerless as King Edward VIII in Edward And Mrs Simpson on television … Is there no end to the list?
Sir Christopher Meyer is undeniably the most distinguished and highest-profile British diplomat of his generation. He had a meteoric career in the Foreign office, ending with six years as the British ambassador in Washington. He retired six years ago, aged sixty, and since then has been chair of the Press Complaints Commission and has written and broadcast extensively. His is also a non-executive director of the Arbuthnot Group.
Put the word ‘movie’ and the name ‘Harley-Davidson’ together in the same sentence and the odds are heavily in favour of the words ‘Easy Rider’ also ending up in there too.
It’s one of the less well-known facts of the classic bike world, but as Steven Myatt has discovered, there was an Irish-made motorcycle – made in County Tipperary for about two years in the mid-Twenties. But who’s got a FM & O’C 200?
In 1958 Cliff Richard recorded what is arguably the first genuine, mass-appeal British rock ‘n roll song. It was a big hit, it made him a star, and this is the story of that song.
Now I suppose I can own up. More than thirty years have passed, the shame has faded and neither my old mum nor my children are likely to read this. So here goes. In 1975 I bought a Bond Bug and ran it for about six months. Look, I was young; we all do silly things at some point in our lives. It was a weird time...
Asked about his New Year resolutions, Steven Myatt said, ‘Change my name to Jerry Lee Myatt, spill less of my beer and stop kicking the cat’. Then he got more sensible…
June 1968 – I was sixteen on the eighth – and though the first wave of Mod had been around in the south for several years and was starting to wane, in the southern suburbs of Manchester it was a strong as could be. Thanks to the fact that I had no problems getting up really early in those days (how times have changed) and had a weekend job working on a milk round, I had already saved up as much as I needed for a really good scooter. I knew just what I wanted; it had to be either a TV or an SX.
It’s not quite true to say that every front room had one, but many did. Sometimes bought for cash, sometimes on hire purchase, a house wasn’t a home without a radiogram.
Despite having been keeping a lookout for 44 years, I have never seen a Nardi Blue Ray Coupé. Not once. I know that it was a design exercise by Vignale, based on a Lancia, and I could tell you everything about its technical specification, from its compression ratio (8•4:1) to its kerb weight (1,050kg).
Sid Vicious; icon, victim or real jerk? You choose (and a here’s a hint, it can be all three).
Rock ’n roll giveth, and rock ‘n roll taketh away. So it is with many, and a sad case in particular was that of Jeanine Deckers, The Singing Nun. She was one of only two Belgian nationals to chart in the UK, the other being Plastic Bertrand, who, in an act unworthy of an otherwise friendly foreigner, inserted two offensive and inalienably stupid records into the charts in 1978. That about sums up Belgium, rock-wise.
George Gibson’s shop, just down the street a door or two, was an end-terraced house which had been converted into a shop and had its small front garden tarmaced over. And that came alive on Saturdays, and was also were the wild young men on their terrifying bikes came to look at each other’s machines – and spend as little money as possible.
Was there anyone ever so Mod as Patrick Macnee playing John Steed? Was there ever any man who dressed so perfectly and so stylishly? Who just looked so right every single day of his imaginary life?
There never was a band like The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band – nor a rock ‘n roll god like Viv Stanshall. Nor did anyone else ever write hit songs about drainpipes … Mind you, there was never anyone quite like Tiny Tim, either.
Whatever happened to hubcaps? Or at least, whatever happened to hubcaps in modern mainstream motoring? For classic car enthusiasts the issue of hubcaps is pretty damn critical, but for the majority of car owners it’s simply disappeared off the radar.
Roy Orbison was the king of the juke box 45. He knew how to put raw teenage emotion onto two and a half minutes-worth of vinyl – whether that emotion was elation or despair. Steven Myatt tunes in …
Spinning around Cumbria in the latest Chevorlet Corvette coupe not only won Steve Myatt the adulation of his daughter, it made him feel young again...
Titles that Steven Myatt has written for include:
Octane, Hot Car, Specials, Sportscar, Pet Dogs, 4x4 Mart, Technics, The Biker, Scootering, Total BMW, The Sixties, Mini World, Road Racer, American-V, Custom Car, Country Car, Which Bike?, Streetfighters, Street Machine, Silver Machine, The Mod Years, The Royal Year, Princess Diana, What’s Brewing, Mods & Rockers, Classic Car Mart, Used Bike Guide, Classic American, The Rocker Years, Practical Classics, HOG International, Classic Bike Guide, Back Street Heroes, The Daily Telegraph, All-American Heroes, Classic & Sports Car, Motorcycle Illustrated, The Manchester Flash, Classic Military Vehicle