A crashed sport bike, the failed gambling system, some dodgy legal work and a torrid love affair with a local fashion model

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‘Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise,’ should have been stamped on my birth certificate. Spinning down into my hometown on a beautiful late summer’s morn, around the crack of eleven, on a new 1983 Honda CBX550F, all in the world was well. August in South Devon, England is charming, and my friend was waiting at our local café on the terrace to share his latest horse racing system that was going to make us rich. Having found the joy of credit, credit cards, bank loans and financing, we were basking in the joy of fast motorcycles, pockets full of drugs, and the other accoutrements of our newfound wealth.

We just hadn’t figured out how to pay it back yet.  

With the Honda CBX550 being quoted as the ‘top middleweight’ of the year, with double overhead cams, twin ventilated, inboard discs and Unitrak suspension, it was also blessed with some sort of mechanical anti-dive. Unbeknownst to this hapless Nit Wit at the time, it was actually going to save me: Even if it didn’t save me from tucking the front end, narrowly avoiding the dump truck and stuffing it into the front of an oncoming car.

Thankfully, the abrupt early morning flight managed to clear the car, so most of the damage was done hitting the pavement and the resultant barrel rolls. Picking myself up, the blood spots forming around my knees weren’t looking good, but everything else seemed to be working. Thanks Bell Helmet, leather jacket and gloves.

What weren’t working were the car I hit and my Honda.

As we all waited impatiently for the Old Bill to arrive (police in English), I realized that something was radically wrong with the brochure. I certainly wasn’t meeting the nicest people on a Honda. In fact, the red-faced man and his unpleasant looking wife were doing a lot of yelling and using all sorts of words my Mother would have frowned upon. Apparently it was their first day on holiday (vacation in English) and now their car was a bit second hand. Certainly it wasn’t going to buff out, but I actually do think he took it a little hard. Anyway, paper work done, carnage removed, an impending fine for dangerous driving added to the bank loan on my new motorcycle that wasn’t quite new anymore, I took off for tea.

Dickie was waiting over a prawn torpedo (a weird English sandwich) and a steaming hot cuppa so we began to strategize. Well, Dickie began to strategize as I was still in a bit of a haze about the whole incident to be honest. We didn’t call him “Dickie Debt” for nothing. As our fearless leader who had led us into various bank loans, credit card applications, money making schemes and more, he was studying the ticket I had been given by PC Plod.

Suddenly changing the subject he started to tell me about his new horse racing system. He had scrounged up a pile of money, and I had managed to pull about six hundred quid from my various banks as instructed through local ATMs. This was it. My Waterloo. I now had no money, no credit left, no job, no motorcycle, massive debt and only a weekly dole check (unemployment benefits in England). So hobbling on my damaged legs, we made for the local book keepers destined to begin our journey to riches.

Fast forward two hours and we were back in Hoopers, the café, scraping together the money for another cup of tea. No need to belabor the point, save to say all the money was gone, as clearly the system wasn’t working. Of course, Dickie was convinced with another few thousand quid, and one of the three-legged nags we bet on actually winning, it might have turned out better. Of course in those days we hadn’t learned about depression, or anti-depressants, so I just drank my tea, realized that I was totally screwed and decided to limp home and go to bed. No amount of tea was going to fix this one.

Cue the choir of angels, everything going into soft focus and a bright light filling the scene. Right as our hero is about to fall off the cliff of despair, into the dark raging tempest of doom a super heroine appears. Enter Miss Ruth Tarrent, a stunning, tall brunette with olive skin, long hair and deep, soulful brown eyes. A local fashion model in her spare time, she was at work at her legal secretary job across the road from the café. Seeing me hobbling out in my blood stained jeans, she left her post, rushed over in slow motion, and with the angels chorus hitting a crescendo she swept me into her ample and comforting bosom. Well that part wasn’t till later, and I made up the bit about the music, the light and the slow motion. She did take me home though, and even though I clearly didn’t need mouth to mouth resuscitation, and it seemed perfectly natural to take my ripped and bloodied jeans off as she seemed to know what she was doing, so who was I to argue?

The actual once-lovely Honda CBX550 I owned, until my mishap.

With what could have been seen as a bit of a bad day actually not turning out quite so badly, more good news was on the horizon when Dickie stopped by the following morning waving the Honda CBX 550 brochure. Having carefully read the police report of the accident he had found something interesting! The witnesses said they saw the front end of the motorcycle diving heavily under braking, which clearly indicated excess speed and dangerous driving. Dickie was excitedly pointing to the paragraph in the brochure explaining the Honda’s new Anti-dive mechanism. “Voila.” It all became crystal clear, well as clear as anything can be after sparking up a fat joint with some nice, black hashish from Afghanistan.

You see he’d already been back to the scene of the crime, noticed some irregularities in the concrete road surface and had an idea. Pulling out a twelve-inch school ruler he laid out the plan. All we needed was his parent’s dodgy lawyer in the next town, some deft photography, and a faulty road service defense so I could somewhat hit the rewind button on the day.

Now just between you and I, we took a hacksaw to the ruler, removed a couple of inches from the end, photographed it in the holes in the road and sent the photos to the local Solicitor. Armed with the “damning” evidence, the photos and the Honda brochure, my ticket was eventually dropped, the fines removed, and the bank loan paid off. A small amount of compensation was added for my pain and suffering and the holidaymaker’s car was fixed. Ruth promptly came to her senses, found a boyfriend with a job, a car and some direction in life and I made a pact with myself to never gamble again. Not even a lottery ticket. Thankfully, I came to my own senses, got some roofing work, paid back all my loans in the seat of a practical Honda XL185 and was able to make ready for my first trip to America.
But that’s another story.

Neale

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Wellspring International Outreach