Blinkered vision

When I was a youth, one of our local scout leaders pitched up punctually every Monday on his ageing big single and we motorcycle-mad lads waited to hear him throttle back, accompanied by the backfire or two, as he arrived. Listening for the familiar racket one evening, we ignored the sound of a revvy twin slowing and were stunned to see ‘Edward’ (pseudonym, as blushes must be spared…) beaming, astride a smart two-tone painted twin.

Although they’d been in production a couple of years, by the time Edward bought his Norton Jubilee, we’d never seen one, and wrote it off as ‘some Japanese machine,’ until we spotted ‘Norton’ on its petrol tank. But it was like no other Norton we’d seen. Many of us knew family friends or relatives with ‘proper’ Nortons – you know, ES2s, Dominators, 16Hs – and we’d watched stacks of Manxes and race-fettled Inters hustle round Snetterton. Somehow, we felt cheated by Edward’s purchase, but he wasted no time in extolling its virtues – looks, performance, lack of rust and grease – and we lapped it up.

All went well for a few months, with the Jubilee transporting Ed the eight miles to scout meetings, and much more to work and socialising, notably to ‘The Dot’ in Cambridge – nothing to do with the Mancunian motorcycle, but premises correctly named The Dorothy Dance Hall, where girls were to be found – not a pleasant thought to us smelly 11 year olds, that would