Back In The Saddle

Meet CMM staffer Mike Cowton and read about how a grizzled old Rocker suddenly became all mod(ern) and bought an old Bandit!

- Michael Cowton

I remember fondly the days when the family was living in married quarters at Hendon Aerodrome.

The perimeter track was the perfect proving ground for a novice motorcyclist, with zero traffic, potholes for roundabouts and the occasional rabbit a disconcerting presence. Whilst my father would commute to his post at the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall, I had been shipped off to boarding school.

Returning home on the occasional weekend, I would change from coat-tails and straw boater to ice-blue jeans and chunky boots, white T-shirt and white silk scarf, the archetypical rebel with a cause. I had acquired my leather jacket from a friend. Black, with ripped red silk lining, I adorned it with metal studs and chains. Flipping the collar up and coughing profusely as I hung a No.6 cigarette from the corner of my mouth, I reckoned I was a dead-ringer for my anti-heroes Marlon Brando and James Dean.

At weekends my friends and I would straddle our motley collection of Bantams, Commandos, and Bonneville. The main concern for injury was to our ankles when kick-starting our machines, as some had a tendency to spring back with such force as to damage the ankle bone.

We would head along the Edgware Road, ‘accidentally’ knocking over any scooters that were parked up, especially hunting down those resplendent with multiple lights and rear-view mirrors. What was that all about? Whilst the Mods would flog to clubs to watch The Who and The Small Faces, we would OD on The Rolling Stones and The Grateful Dead.

Breaking ranks from the establishment was de rigueur. It was fun to be a part of the Rocker fraternity, that curious British youth subculture, within which its long-haired, arrogant, brutalist members reveled in being perceived as unruly troublemakers, cruising through the underbelly of society where morality was a dirty word.