Fetch the family album…

Just before Father’s Day, Noel Clegg’s collection of motorcycle photographs, which were taken at his father Tom’s side as a young boy at race meetings of the 1950s and 1960s, were examined by his daughter, Rachael.

- RACHAEL CLEGG

It’s one thing to understand the past through its contemporaries, its commentators and even its heroes, it’s quite another to observe a period through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy.

And thanks to Covid-19 and its infinite restrictions, my attention was turned to a special photographic collection – and one that was very close to home: that of my father, Noel Clegg.

As a boy, dad would travel to various racing circuits and trials events with his father, Tom, a motorcycle hobbyist and some-time Clubman’s TT competitor. Whenever Tom could escape from running the family haulage firm, Clegg Transport, he’d be off to inhale Castrol R and shatter his eardrums. And all with his son, Noel, at his side.

Granddad was the sort of man who was always prepared, with ready-made tarpaulin shelters, an infinite supply of butties and enormous flasks of tea at hand. While dad–a budding photographer at 12 years old – was seldom without a Kodak Brownie, borrowed from the neighbours on Phyllis Street, Rochdale.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Before we move on, let’s start at the start, with my granddad Tom riding an ex Roland Pike Rudge at Rhyydymohen in Wales, around 1936. “That’s my dad there, I’m not entirely certain of the exact date but it will be around 1936 before I was born. He loved the Rudge but later switched to a BSA Gold Star, which he raced at the Clubman’s TT in 1950. Dad had stopped racing by the time I was a toddler (dad was born in 1949) but was always massively keen on going to motorbike races and trials events.”