大象传媒

It was in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, I first learned to ride a motorcycle. As a conscript soldier I drove camouflaged trucks from a RASC base at Enniskillen. We took part in the great training exercises covering all six counties.
Leaving the breakfast hall one morning I encountered Sgt Johnson, thickset and phlegmatic. He took me to a Matchless 350 cc leaning against a hedge. Laconic and casual he told me "That's yours for two days. Take it where you want. Get used to it. Draw yer gear from the stores."
I was taken aback. I had never sat on a motorcycle and felt apprehensive. A friendly DR showed me how to kick-start it and use the foot gears. And soon, wearing breeches, jersey, a leather jacket, lace-up boots, a helmet, goggles and gauntlets I was signing out at the guardroom. Hesitantly I wobbled on to the outside lane, crunching through frozen puddles, trying to keep upright.
Throughout that first day I throttled back, negotiating slippery ruts and snowdrifts. Gradually I got the hang of it. Three tiny villages in County Fermanagh are still happy memories. Kesh, Lack and Ederny, grey streets in a grey, nebulous world. All too often I slithered and came off, cautiously speeding up, gaining confidence, enjoying a great new experience. At the end of the day, bruised but content I slept soundly.
Next day brought more progress with fewer spills. I relished the freedom and thrills of a metal steed and welcomed the vibrating roars as I kick-started it to growling life. I bestrode power and it was heady fun.
Driving in convoy was a dull, sedentary business. Riding a motorbike became a spirited, dynamic activity. When I had DR duties it seemed a sparkling change. I helped shepherding the trucks, ensuring they took correct turnings, often standing at crossroads, counting them go by. Our wagons rumbled through countless towns. I was free to speed ahead or cruise behind and appreciated a new liberty. Armagh and Downpatrick, Antrim and Ballynahinch, Derry and Strabane, Omagh and Ballymena and over the Mourne Mountains, familiar mainstreets, friendly people. It was common practice to buy buns and doughnuts for our drivers and hand them up to a cab whilst on the move.
Belfast, big and bustling was less popular among us 'bikers because the profusion of rails and tramlines crossing and criss-crossing around the dock area was a snare, a lurking hazard we found unpleasantly widespread. I was at the docks when the first American troops disembarked, close enough to hear their colonel turning to soldiers behind him, "Let's go bud." They marched, gaiters and round helmets to our waiting trucks.
With daily riding I became more adept, but there were accidents in waiting. The first came when I sped down a long straight road between parked army vehicles south of Craigavon. Way ahead I saw a motorcyclist wheeling to one side. What happened remains a mystery. I lay on a grass verge, aware of hands on my body, a vast blue canopy. A medical major tapped my shoulder. "You're a lucky lad" he said and stood up leaving me dazed. A soldier helped me sit up. "You hit our DR." he told me. "You both flew yards, he over that hedge, you into this one. He landed OK, you were knocked out." Even my motorcycle was intact. I had no recollection of our collision, just bewilderment and a sense of relief to emerge unscathed.
Similarly bizarre was a night experience weeks later. Through slashing rain I was hugging the rear of a small army truck belting along deserted, vaporous roads. The captain at the wheel was eager to get back, out of wild wet weather. I kept very close, matching his speed. He couldn't take a sharp bend and saved himself by swerving into a gap - an open farm gate. I turned with him, grimly, limpet-like, braking hard and hopeful. As in a trance I watched my headlamp and mudguard crumple gently into my stomach and I sat in pelting rain, feet steady in high grass, starkly aware of a lucky escape. We bundled the wreckage into the back of the truck and he resumed headlong progress while I sat beside him soaking wet, no longer caring, wrapped in a dreamy inertia.
Early in 1944 I was an officer in Llandrindod Wells. For qualified motorcyclists there was a crash course in cross-country riding. We rode Norton 500 macjines, heavy and rugged, learning to ride over rough ground, through deep mud and manure, up steep quarry sides, across water and most natural hazards. The Norton was a tiring beast. We watched our instructors come to grief much like ourselves. My own pet hate was having to ride up those quarry walls, front wheel scrabbling at the brink, failing to grip, when I'd leap away to get clear. It was reckless and bruising, daredevil attempts to copy our instructors in surmounting every obstacle.
Back at the garage we played hoses on our mucky machines, aiming powerful jets of water to clean them up, and sometimes swishing eachother by way of a change. That was an enjoyable end to our rough-riding cross-country work.

Clear beyond the mo'bikes, the convoys, our traversings of Northern Ireland I retain one permanent memory of a hillside farm, KILNALOO above Loch Erne where Steve Colebrook and I were befriended by two girls, a boy and their parents.
A lonely, spartan homestead with thick stone walls, there was no furniture or chairs, just a big log to sit on and a flat piece of wood hinged to the wall and swung down to a post, this their meal table. A peat fire against one blackened wall and glowing under a huge suspended pot let smoke curl and wreathe to find an outlet in cracks above.
Steve had a glittering Frontalini accordion and as he played the children sat enchanted, faces glowing in the lamplight. His repertoire included Irish airs and Italian melodies: Carnival of Venice, Sorrento, Black Eyes, O Sole Mio, Czardas, Rose of Tralee and Greensleeves. Steve was their wonderful wizard.
Rita was the oldest (Queenie to one and all), a spirited 17 year old. She taught us to milk Fergy, one of two cows. Hardly a word from the parents but some quiet sense of peace and belonging that we found deeply comforting.
When we had to move on I called to say farewell. There were tears and sobs. Queenie sat on my pillion and wouldn't budge. It was a sad and difficult goodbye.

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