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.

It was a British bike shop. Not a main dealership; far from it. It was a genuine, old-style bike shop – with a bell over the door and a funny, unwelcoming look reserved for unfamiliar faces.

There was room on the front, where the garden had been, for maybe four bikes at most - so long as they were parked close together and anyone actually wanting to get to the door was prepared to do so sideways. You had to go up a couple of high stone steps to get in, which meant that every time a bike had to be brought in or out a plank – the plank – had to found and a lot of effort had to be expended. There would be another three or four bikes inside, parked on the diagonal, handlebar lever to handlebar lever. The floor was bare boards, but there was no hint of their original colour left anywhere. The finish was a sort of blotchy matt black with a few areas of blue-grey. Oil had been leaking onto those boards for over thirty years, and if some industrial process could have separated them out, then every slick could have told a story.

There were all sorts of accessories hanging from the walls, from screw-type tax disc holders to obscure factory-approved tools for performing all sorts of curious, motorcycle-related acts – like holding the pushrods in place while you slid the cylinders over the pistons, or extracting primary sprockets. The stock he kept was an eccentric collection, but if it was for a British bike George could either come up with what was needed immediately, or he would disappear ‘into the back’ – often for disturbingly long periods of time, or he knew someone who could get it. Nothing fazed him – apart from the coming of the big Honda 4s.

On a counter there’d be cans of Swarfega, Redex and, of course, Castrol R. There was a till which looked as if it had originally belonged in a Nineteenth century Co-Op, and I soon noticed that coins went in there but bank notes slipped into his trouser pockets. He was a gruff and forbidding man, but once he’d decided that he liked you, or that you’d simply been around for long enough and were almost part of the scenery, he was very kind. He would do anything to help you keep your bike on the road. The prices tended to be rounded down too. If he was in a particularly good mood he’d say ‘Oh you can have that’, or ‘We’ll sort it when I see you next’. Given that my only income was from my weekend milk round that was a great help, and much appreciated. He was bemused when I turned up with the middle of a Sprunghub and told him I wanted it spoking up to a 500 by 16 rim, but fine, if that was I wanted he’d have it ready for me on Tuesday.

I knew that I was especially honoured when I was allowed ‘in the back’. Although the shop was only about twelve or thirty feet wide, it went back miles. Various extensions had been added on at different times, and you would cross a back yard – littered with half-built bikes left out in all weathers, an – and then there was another building, a workshop. The door fastened with a length of string and there were no windows, just a sheet of plastic taped into the corrugated iron roof. And there were asbestos panels everywhere. This was like my dad’s garage, but to the power of ten. There was everything you could want in there, lathes, vertical drills, welding gear – and all of looked at least forty years old then. I could have believed that some of the equipment was Victorian. The only slightly newer stuff was ex-military and doubtless been liberated, along with mainland Europe, in 1945. My dad had stuff like that, with a little arrow and ‘RAF Property’ stamped on it.