Tuesday, 11 August 2009

Soul Survivor


Sent to France to fight the Hun in the first World War, as a sunny faced school boy, my Grandfather's classmates were all killed.
He didn't talk about it when he returned home to Blighty. He became an engineer, and even when he became sick he insisted that that my Grandmother take the damn grapes away and bring him instead a boat engine to fettle. I never met the great man, he died years before I was born. Here's a shot of him on his beloved mo' bi' (as he called it) near Cantaing-sur-Escaut (or environs), France, 1917. I think it's a BSA???
BP
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6 comments:

  1. Skylar11 August 2009 at 01:52

    Sounds like a lovely chap, looks like it runs in the family

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  2. Mick P11 August 2009 at 08:10

    Great pic. It's a Triumph and probably a Model H, tens of thousands of which were used by the British army in the First World War, so there will have been plenty around in France.

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  3. Chris11 August 2009 at 08:17

    Spotters Badge to Mick!

    http://www.vintagebike.co.uk/Bike%20Directories/Triumph%20Bikes/images/Triumph%20Model%20H%201921.jpg

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrb4k7BomVw

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  4. Mick P11 August 2009 at 08:37

    Thanks for the links Chris. I was hoping that the buffer in the YouTube clip was going to clunk it into gear and lurch off out of control through the guinea pig enclosure and into an ice cream van. Pity, really.

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  5. Sideburn Magazine11 August 2009 at 16:47

    Thank you Gents
    a model H then; do they always sound like a bang of nails or is that just unlubricated rheumatism?
    BP

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  6. McQmoto12 August 2009 at 13:57

    Ah yes - it's an old Trumpet all right. I've got a shot of my grandaddys two brothers on one (if I can dig it out I'll post it), the elder of whom was a despatch rider - neither of them survived WWI. The bike was the first motorised vehicle in their village!!!

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