While we were there, I commented on the state of the paintwork. Uncle Norm’’ eyes twinkled and he asked me if I could paint.
The next week, I would be return to paint a door. I would stay for nearly 25 years!!!
Uncle Norm had between 20 and 30 classic British motorcycles that he had taken in part exchange. Bridport was full of bikers, most of whom were about to get a wonderful surprise.
After completing the painting job, my next task was to prepare the shop and workshop. It was to become home to 30 British motorbikes.
Word got around swiftly and in no time I was the darling of the Bridport biker set. I shifted classic motorbikes like they were going out of fashion. Well, they were! And they were highly sought by any self respecting biker.
The experience made me new friends instantly, en masse and soon I had a completely new social life.
By 1978, I had moved into a little one up, one down flat opposite the coal yard in town. By this time I was barman in Bridport’s busiest and most popular pub. The top bar of the Greyhound Hotel.
Aside from the Greyhound, I had discovered one other pub of worth.
I had been using The Hope and Anchor pub since 1979. It was a classic hard drinking cider den full of raw atmosphere, raw characters and the hub of Bridport’s “party” scene.
Worthy of a book of its own, the adventures that spilled from that bar formed the core of what I understood to be real fun, happiness and the place where most of my long standing friendships first developed.
With the fashionable and smart customers I had befriended from The Greyhound and the individual free spirits I met in The Hope and Anchor, I felt I held a monopoly on just about every soul that lived in the town.
I was a gregarious, friendly and popular addition to the social life I adopted and presented myself as hedonist, comedian but loyal defender of my friends lifestyles. Able to take control of a situation, my companions welcomed the steel I brought to the occasional altercations that ignited in such an environment.
Late to fully appreciate the fairer sex, I had only lost my virginity at 22 so the fertile watering holes of both The Greyhound and The Hope and Anchor were wonderful locations to further my romantic apprenticeship.
I spent 2 fine years enjoying life, parties, girls and friends in general. A time spent mostly unemployed aside from my role serving evenings at The Greyhound top bar.
But soon my life would change dramatically. Soon I would discover a happiness that would shoot the gauge off the scale. More poignantly, that change would include an element of fate that would burn an entirely new set of experiences deep into my character.
Tim Stocker and I had been sitting in the 1 st floor window of Liptons, a local store. We would drink coffee watch the world go by. We had made the restaurant our base so that I could continue my conversations with “The Mad Major”.
He was a unique Bridport character fond of darting into the busy high street, stopping cars by waving a soiled handkerchief at bemused drivers. Wearing a huge, Charlie Piece style overcoat, hands on hips, he would stride up and down the stationary line of vehicles, head turning left to right and back, surveying the situation.
I had never ridiculed or been disrespectful to the Major. I was more fascinated in trying to unlock the torment he obviously held in his mind. Over the previous months, I had actively sought his attention, either by attempting small talk, taking an opportunity to return a dropped pen or simply by sitting opposite him while he chatted to himself at machine gun speed.
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