Dominating decades

Cliff Rees, born into a motorcycle family in 1938, Norton Dominator 88 purchased in 1959. He’s riding the same bike in 2016…you do the numbers!

A chance meeting at the Waterlooville Motorcycle Club run in Hampshire unravelled a motorcycle legacy nearly a century in the making.

It would be my privilege documenting the full story; two biking characters that have been together for 57 years. A tale of the era when if something was broken you fixed it, you didn’t throw it away, a motto Cliff Rees has lived by – it was a case of having to make do in wartime New Malden, Surrey.

“My earliest memories were of my parents with the Indian Scout my father bought in 1918. Both he and my mother rode it. Unfortunately, I didn’t aid its longevity when I put sand into the crankcase as a toddler and it was sold for half a crown.”

Cliff’s first job post-school meant passing the Villiers Showroom in Regent Street, where display models from both Francis Barnet and James cemented his decision to head for two wheels, the rest was just a question of savings.