A
big hearty welcome to you from Heart of England country. The AJS and
Matchless owners club is a great organisation to belong to and we think we are
the best section in it!
Welcome
Page HoE Happenings
Page 3 girls Forthcoming
Events Rallies Technical
Help The Bikes The
Characters Last
Month at HoE HoE
History STOP PRESS
Last month at Heart of England
All our antics are written up in our national magazine
'Jampot', posted to all members monthly. It is worth the club membership
subscription just for the Heart of England notes. Everything
is written up without any exaggeration. Our reporter, Mr. Bob Nunn, is renowned
for his accuracy and verity.
April 2010
April sees the beginning of the Heart
of England's riding season and this year it got off to a cracking start. First
up was an evening run to `The Old Mill Burnt Down' for a skittles evening. With
a clear, mild evening the 10 mile ride through country lanes was just the
ticket to whet the appetite for club runs again though it did land us in a
little trouble. Choosing a venue with no car park meant parking in the street -
outside somebody's window in fact - and apparently the lady of the house had
been trying for ages to get the baby to sleep. Oh well! As with most
competitions and quizzes John was first as usual but in this case first to be
knocked out of this distinctly Northamptonshire game. After a long battle it
was Lawrence
that emerged victorious though when it came to clubbing together to buy the
winner a half everyone had suddenly run out of change. The first Sunday run
took us to Bletchley park, the home of WWII
code-breaking. Although not the best attended event, those of us that did turn
out enjoyed a glorious sunny day's ride through country lanes, an afternoon
exploring the fascinating history of the place including an entertaining and
informative two hour guided tour then a pleasant pint or two at the pub to
round things off. The following Thursday evening's run to the Star Rowing Club
tempted Bryan out on his new toy, the gleaming 650 twin that we'd teased him so
cruelly about the month before. It is beautiful, it truly is, and it sounds
glorious. Looks like we'll be eating humble pie for quite
some time - and deservedly so - providing, of course, the crankpins stay
attached. Lastly came the run to the Stafford show, a nifty little 150 mile jaunt and always a
favourite of mine. I rang around to see who was joining me. You wouldn't credit
the lame excuses. Having a broken leg (Steve); being in Florida when an
Icelandic volcano decided to blow up (Barry); having to aid a distressed friend
(Elaine); being skint (various); the list went on and
on. I d'know, just no commitment! Well, for the
honour of the section my AJS made it, there and back without missing a beat.
They'll just have to take my word on it concerning the blond on the Honda stand
in the black hot pants and knee-length suede boots.
March 2010
March brought the Heart of
England's quiet season to a close but not before we got to enjoy this year's
round of Conway's
famous TT board game. Every year the selection of chance cards drawn for
landing on a pink square gets added to featuring characters and notorious
events from the section and this year was no exception. Barry's infamous wellies made an appearance this time, entitling the player
to move forward three places though it isn't always the advantage it would
appear to be. With rules that exhibit a certain fluidic quality and the number
of dice in play sort of negotiable you can guarantee it's never boring. Jon
Martin, John Bolton and Peter took first, second and third respectively whilst
Conway and Richie brought up the rear. A great night, though we'll have to wait
for next winter for a re-match. The second meeting was scheduled as a `noggin
and natter' and uncharacteristically for us we spent it talking almost entirely
about bikes! To be precise one bike, the twin Bryan has purchased from Kettering but not yet
taken delivery of. Despite copious advice to buy a single he has bravely gone
where a lot of us fear to tread although whether he'll make it back under his
own steam remains to be seen. We teased him mercilessly, coaching him on how to
identify which crankshafts to buy at autojumbles and where to get magneto
rebuilds. As the old adage goes - a friend in need is a friend with an AMC twin
- we assured him we'd always be there for him, mostly to help him get home. I
do hope he knows us well enough by now, I'm sure it will be a wonderful,
reliable bike and he'll enjoy many happy hours riding it, possibly even a whole
day. Don't forget Bryan, Kettering
Classic Motorcycles do offer a three year guarantee.
What they guarantee it will do in those three years is buried in the very small
print but at least you know it's guaranteed to do it!
February 2010
For the Heart of England
February began with what will probably be hailed as the best quiz of the year.
After what must have amounted to a huge amount of work, Mick presented us with
his own version of Call My Bluff. OK, so maybe that doesn't sound wildly
exciting on the face of it until you consider that when it's played by four
teams of three it means that at any one point two of you have got to sit there
and lie to all but one of the other section members with a perfectly straight
face. Statements like "Henry Cooper - the boxer - was a builder when the
foundations for the third floor canteen (at Plumstead) were laid." seemed
improbable enough yet strangely turned out to be true. The model H was so
called because it was the first Heavyweight, because it followed the model G or
because it was named for Harry Stevens. Can you spot which are the bare-faced
lies? We all thought the `dark traders' would con us all but in the end it was
our sweet innocent primary school teacher, aided and abetted by the `butter
wouldn't melt in his mouth' jeweller and the now ex-BT man that fooled us all.
I'll never trust them again! The summer planning evening revealed that most of
the really interesting events all fall on the same weekend which coincides with
the holidays abroad that everybody's booked but I'm certain that Barry with his
inspired organisational skills will manage to wring them out as he usually does
so most of us will manage to get to a good number of them. Finally on the 27th
the Heart of England had its AGM - A Good Meal - which is as close to
organisation as we get, thank goodness. Minutes were taken, but only to
appreciate the good food, good drink and good company. Speeches were eloquently
made by Lawrence and Pam and John was presented with a pair of rubber gloves.
(No, I don't get it either.) From the moment Bryan saw the book `motorcycle apprentice'
amongst Susi's beautifully laid out raffle prizes his heart was set on it.
Rumours that he glued the counterfoil of his ticket to Bonnie's (his wife's)
fingers when she drew the first ticket are, I'm assured, totally unfounded.
Never the less he went home a happy man. Eventually the last stragglers were kicked
out at midnight to wend their way home though I have had eye-witness reports
concerning kissing in the street outside. I worry about them sometimes, I truly
do.
January 2010
Alas the Heart of England's first
meeting of the year fell just a day too late to hold the section's second
annual snow sculpting competition. The event has been postponed until later in
the year, possibly June. Instead my music quiz had to be pressed into service
to provide the entertainment for the evening. Despite the fog
and slush members turned out in droves (or their cars anyway) to attend.
With forty ten-second snippets of music to not recognise and their forty
associated artist's to not know it gave them an hour of intense head
scratching. Even Landlady Angela and her team of locals entered into the spirit
of things but were no match for the expertise of our
members. Peter won the evening with just eleven faults on his otherwise
pristine score sheet with Conway coming a close second with a mere fifteen and
Brian third. Barry, Mick and the Hawkes' duo held the middle ground in the
forty to fifty bracket followed by Lawrence and Susie. Languishing in joint
last place were Angela's bar team and John with only ten untarnished places
left out of eighty. Unfortunately due to problems with the printer cartridge
the rules on the back of some answer sheets were a little faint but as nobody
mentioned it I can only assume they all managed to read them OK. As luck would
have it Chris, our resident expert on not recognising music from the seventies was
unable to attend the meeting which generously gave the rest a chance.
The second meeting of the month
was scheduled as simply a `noggin & natter' event until Steve came to the
rescue with the digital slide show of his two wheeled trip across (or should it
be down, or up?) New Zealand.
This was altogether more successful than the photo evening of a few months back
as, unlike Conway,
he (a) turned up and (b) remembered to bring his laptop to view them on.
Although it wasn't on a bike of the marque I don't think any of us didn't
suffer at least a twinge of jealousy. An epic adventure where
apparently it didn't rain the entire time. Maybe we could have a section
weekend away.....
December 2009
December brought the Heart of
England pre-Christmas lunch run as it has for some years now which, as
usual, was conducted to HoE time. Unfortunately due to
an oversight on our part we'd failed to stress the significance of this to our
newest recruit John McVie. (hope
I've got the name right this time!) HoE time I should point out is the inverse
of BST, running approximately one hour behind traditional time to allow for
Chris putting his gloves on, ie. a
run published as leaving at 10.30 will in fact leave about 11.30 so no one will
bother turning up until about quarter past to avoid the wait. Consequently poor
John gave us up for lost and pressed on alone which was a shame because he
missed the amusement as our run crossed with a VMCC one following a similar
route in the opposite direction. When we arrived at The Lamb we found we'd
gained a Norton and had to explain to the bemused rider that his group were at
least ten miles west and getting further away by the minute. He's probably
still wandering the Northamptonshire lanes searching for them. The Sunday lunch
lived up to our best expectations and we all rolled home replete in the watery
December sunshine well please with the day. By the 10th - the only evening
meeting this month - we'd lost the will to quiz and spent a relaxed evening by
a roaring log fire at the White Horse simply chatting and admiring the neat row
of staples in Chris's scalp. We did feel it was a rather drastic step to
prevent ones hairline receding any further but it just goes to show how far
some people will go to stem the march of time. We certainly didn't believe the
cover story about playing rugby! I mean, who'd be stupid enough to chase a mis-shapen ball around a muddy field at this time of year? I
know we're mad but there are limits! Lawrence
was the only one daft enough to turn up on a bike though it did look pretty
with the frost on the saddle twinkling in the starlight as we left. Now it just
remains to be seen if Santa turns up with that shiny G15 we'd all like and
prepare for a new year of riding ahead.
