Old Cotton

Spartan 'waxed' cotton jacket. I guess Barbor or Belstaff didn't make any intellectual property claims on their famous trials jackets in the olden days, so this copies exactly the same pattern with a wonky breast pocket - and being nigh on useless at keeping water out even when it is properly waxed. Mine was as waterproof as a tea bag. Can't remember where I got it from. It already had the Norton and BSA patches on so along with its purple corduroy collar, I deemed it to have pedigree.

The back was painted, and repainted, with various 'freak-the-squares' symbols and then painted out all together as I matured. Funny that the manufacturer bothered to put in three brass mesh breathing vents under the arms. One thing that this jacket was not short of was fresh air.
Road Rocket across the bum was in honour of the magazine rather than the BSA of the same name. I wore this flimsy thing on my first foreign bike trip to Spain in 1989 with my brother, me on a Honda CM250T, he on a C15 BSA. So it brings back a lot of memories.
My first leather jacket came later. A Blake's 7-style burgundy number I bought at the Dock Road sunday market in Liverpool for 80p. It was hideous but functioned. I gave it to my flatmate who lusted after it.

When I moved to London, U-turning black cabbies were a daily threat to life, hence the flipped taxi pin badge.

The DIY 99 patch was a poke at the regressive 59 club. 1999 was still 8 years into the future. It was made from real 59 cloth patch as I was briefly a signed-up member until I realised I was a Mocker not a Rocker. The Nuffield pin badge pre-empted any tea hut jibes about my Moto Guzzi being a tractor. BP