Peter's facination with motorcycles was some "forbidden fruit" that I couldn't fail to carry away from our intense teenage friendship.

Wheras - at the time - for Peter it was an obvious addiction, for me with my mother's fears and trepidation; motor bikes meant instant death (like sex or flying). Peter approached riding a motorbike with all the foolish bravado of a WW2 Spitfire pilot - flying their first solo circuit at Northolt.

As I watched him revving up Alan's Norton Commando on the centre stand on the driveway of the old family home in Highfield Road - something in me knew that one day, I too would rev the engine and some how become 'leader of a pack with only one member'.

It took me a bit longer to get started. I was maybe 25 when I bought and NVT (Norton/Villiers/Triumph) 125 c.c. trials bike from Sid Moram's shop in Slough. This WAS the last of the ungreat 'British bikes' that were losing the war against Japan who were invading with Hondas, "Kwackers" (Kawaskis) and "Suzies" (Suzukis). No accident that some had girls names.

Because Peter's (imaginary ?) girlfriend - he told us - was nick-named 'Spannah' because she 'tightened up his nuts' 

So, I'm just reading in Jack Cardiff's autobiography - how he cast a German girl in this role for 'Girl On A Motorcycle' but she overdosed on the drug that IS motorcycling and so Marianne Faithfull stood in her place when flming started.

Enjoy this film clip in memory of the teenager whose girlfreind 'Spannah' may or may not have really existed outside Peter's fertile imagination ?

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsFZf9rc7XM

Poignantly.. anybody under 16 was not allowed in to see this film (despite them being old enough to marry and make babies ?) and old enough - as Peter Hart did in Beacon Avenue - to buy and ride a 650 c.c. motorbike - so long as it had a sidecar attached - a 'combo'.

I have been a 'late starter' in the motorcyling game.. but I ended up astide a Honda 500 V twin with just a whiff of Marianne Faithful about (in my dreams !).