Hi Nick and the rest,


My first memory was standing in the paddock in 1947 with my Dad and an International Norton fired up right next to me...
The megaphone exhaust was angled so the "draught" of the pipe hit me full in the face..I did not like that !!
Do you know, I hated bikes that first year, and I spent more time on the beach than at the bikes.

However I quickly grew to love everything about the Island and the TT and the other races.

What a difference now ! That's why we don't use the trams, we are the biking people who stay in a huge group based on the grandstand area and none of us go down into Douglas for our candy floss, rock and kippers any more.

My favourite year was spending a lot of time with Jack Ahearn in 1963..

I felt he would do well that year but we never anticipated that he would split up the MV and Gileras in practice, doing a magnificent ton lap which was faster than the Gileras and not far behind Mike on the MV.

1966 was my other favourite year, when the TT was postponed until August because of a seamens strike.
I made three visits to the Island that year, practice week by plane, the middle weekend by car and then to the 50cc and Senior on the Friday by motorcycle club bus trip.

Now that's being keen and NO Mistake..

Every other year has one or more special memories, for instance I could mention Doug Randall and the chinese takeaways, or him doing the fosbury flop over a hedge at Kirk Michael with his Yamaha !!

I have boxes of slides , negatives, photographs and now Cds...

I could write a book..................................................................