One of the first crappy jobs I had after I left school was working in a factory making commercial catering equipment . Like most manufacturing jobs , it was tedious to the extreme . The only plus point was , I had a nice sideline getting mine and my mates bike parts polished and chromed , the plating was much better quality than the stuff you got on off the shelf parts . They also had a huge machine shop , with a lot of engineers who would do `homers `.
This was around the time when the craze for buying Oast Houses was in full swing . Builders would buy up farm buildings cheaply , do them up a little and sell at a massive profit . One of the draughtsmen from the factory drawing office bought such a property and I can remember him coming into work saying he had found an old bike in one of the untouched outhouses on the property.
Sure enough , a few months later , he rode into the factory car park on a freshly restored Panther sloper . I can still remember the lazy beat of the engine , the smell of the thing and just how fucking cool it was .
Anyway , here`s some more from my mate Rowan . In the pictures , we see a nice little plunger BSA , which Rowan acquired from a farmer for a very modest sum . The farmer even lent him a lawnmower fuel tank and temporary seat padding . After a little tinkering with the carb , he was able to ride the thing home !
