Meeting up with a police officer on a bike once meant Myatt would be contributing a shilling or two to the system. This time it was a happier set of circumstances…

The vast majority of us, it has to be said, nowadays use our bikes for what is sadly best described by that terrible phrase ‘leisure pursuits’. I know, I know, there are those who commute to and from work on their classic bikes, but most of us only wheel out the bike on sunny weekends and the occasional summer evening, and happily pootle off… just for the fun of it.
There’s nothing wrong with that, not for a minute, but for a lot of working men their motorcycle was – and in many cases still is – the tool of their trade. If you’d asked me to name a few, RAC and AA patrolmen would have come to mind first; I used to see them occasionally at the end of our lane when I was a nipper, and I thought they looked so smart. My dad was in the AA, and I loved the way that their patrolmen saluted him, no matter what the weather or road conditions. Because I was brought up in the 50s and 60s, when telegram boys on li’l Bantams were a regular sight, I would probably have mentioned them secondly. But the biggest group, of course – guys who were on their bikes for virtually every moment of their working day – were policemen.
In my memory, at least, they always sat bolt upright in the saddle, wore those old, black, fabric-covered helmets with leather pieces covering the ears and going round the back of the neck – and huge gauntlets. They would smile at youngsters like myself but, heaven’s above, you didn’t half treat them with respect and deference.
Think of the bike itself for a minute now; what comes to mind? My first mental image is of a black Velocette LE with a huge Bakelite telephone on the back, but it could as easily be a Triumph to your mind – or, if you’re a bit younger (and who on this earth isn’t a bit younger than me, apart from Ol’ Jim Reynolds?), a BMW or a rotary Norton.
I got to meet a lot of policemen when I started riding bikes – usually at the side of the road with a blue light still flashing across the puddles. I did find that the bike cops were very reasonable. They understood the problems of riding a bike and never hassled you for the sake of it. In fact, I’ve never heard a motorcyclist with a bad word to say about bike cops. I got a speeding ticket from one once, which was deserved, though by the time the summons came through my alleged speed had gone up considerably. I did go to court to argue that I was guilty – but not that guilty – only to be told that there’s no gradation of guilt under the law. I was either in excess of 30mph or I wasn’t. It meant that the fine was twice what it might otherwise have been, though; and those were the days when a few extra quid for the magistrates’ beer fund took a lot of finding.
I have one particularly fond memory of a policeman on a Triumph Saint, though: It was a bitter January day in the early 70s, and I was riding an ironhead Thunderbird down near Rudyard Lake, where Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire meet – and, of course, it wasn’t 100 per cent legal. The policeman pulled me over, stopped ahead of me and walked back, and I was shivering away – and wondering exactly what was going to happen. I was expecting his opening words to be: “Is this your bike, sonny?" but in fact he said: “God, you look cold. If you turn left at the next crossroads there’s a farm down there that does teas and snacks. If you want to want a nice hot cup of tea you can get one there." I was ever so grateful, and the mug of tea (and home-made scone) was a life-saver.
Heaven only knows how many motorcycles the British police have worked their way through over the years, but the enthusiasts at The Historic Police Motorcycle Group are interested in absolutely all of them. Mind you, they don’t just stop with the UK; show them a police bike from anywhere in the world and they’re itching to get their hands on it, restore it where necessary, and check that the blue lights still work.