Dedication. To all the wonderful friends I ve met along life s highway. CONTENTS

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1 Dedication To all the wonderful friends I ve met along life s highway. CONTENTS FOREWORD by tim britton...6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...6 JOHN AVERY HIGH FLYER...8 LEW COFFIN GRASS GREAT...14 COLIN DOMMETT A STUDY IN LONGEVITY...20 BOB RAY ARIEL ACE...27 BRIAN CURTIS...33 RON LANGSTON GREAT ALL-ROUNDER...39 TERRY COX FOUR-STROKE FAN...46 DEREK AND DON RICKMAN...52 MARY DRIVER AT THE TOP LEVEL...62 ARTHUR AND LYN PULMAN PRIZE PAIR...68 BILL BROOKER COMPETITIVE BUSINESS...74 CHRIS CULLEN CULLEN TIME...80 BILL GWYNNE OFF-ROAD PRINCE...86 MIKE GUILFORD GUILFORD S GUILE...92 KEN SEDGLEY TWO-STROKE STALWART...98 VIC EASTWOOD MULTITASKER NEIL & PAUL JARMAN PAT LAMPER MASTER OF THE MUD INDEX...127

2 With tongue-out concentration on the Cotton in the 1967 Kickham. (Courtesy Gordon Francis) Chapter 3 In a long and varied career, Colin Dommett has spent over 50 years competing in off-road sport and still retains his enthusiasm. Colin Dommett A study in longevity A Motorcycle News reporter when he was barely out of short trousers, a works Cotton trials rider by the age of 20, an expert scrambler, ISDT gold medallist and British and European sidecar trials champion... Colin Dommett was them all. Over 50 years after he rode in his first event he is still able to show the younger brigade a trials trick or two, and it was great to meet up with him at his West Country home to relive some of those halcyon days. Today, Colin is a regular sight and sound around the pre- 65 scrambles and trials scene, but as he recalled, if it hadn t been for summer holidays spent on his cousin s farm at Axminster he might never have become a motorcyclist. My father was a farmer and never had any interest in bikes, but as a lad I used to spend all six weeks of the summer holidays at my uncle s farm near Axminster in Devon. My cousins John and George Rutter both had motorcycles, and one summer evening when I was about eleven John asked me if I wanted to go and watch Exeter speedway on the back of his BSA Star twin. I jumped at the chance, and remember vividly the thrill of tearing around a sweeping left-hand bend. It was great, and I decided there and then that when I was old enough I was going to get a bike. John had ridden a bit in trials and scrambles, so they started taking me to watch both scrambles and road racing at places like Blandford and Castle Combe, and I absolutely loved the sights, smells and excitement of it all. Of course in those days there was no schoolboy sport so I couldn t get to compete myself, but when I was aged about fourteen Cyril Quantrill started Motorcycle News and somehow I managed to get the position of their sports reporter for Cornwall. We were then living near Truro, so to get to the events I either cycled or stood out on the A30 until I hitched a ride from someone like Ally Clift driving past on his way to compete. When Colin started riding himself he would often be pictured in the Blue un and Green un, but he recalled that his photo first appeared in print in the November of Because it was Remembrance Sunday there was no sport that weekend, so to fill space MCN ran a feature on all of its contributors, including both me and photographer Gordon Francis, who was also just getting started. Colin would continue to write his reports for MCN until 1964, but by then he was an established trials rider himself, having started in the autumn of On leaving school I d worked for a while on a farm and then got 20

3 Colin, feet up on the rare Cotton-Villiers Starmaker in the mid- 60s. (Courtesy Gordon Francis) Colin travelled to events the length and breadth of the country, although sometime he drove with too much vigour for the local police

ISDT, Llandrindod Wells, 1954. One bump that hurt.

4 ISDT, Llandrindod Wells, One bump that hurt. Chapter 10 Arthur and Lyn Pulman were among Britain s top sidecar crews, winning the 1959 and 1960 British Championship before a dramatic change of motorcycle heralded a new direction for the sport. Arthur and Lyn Pulman Prize pair Arthur Pulman was undoubtedly one of the best sidecar trials riders of his generation, and with his then-girlfriend, Lyn Britton, in the chair, he piloted his factory-supported 500cc Matchless to the British Championship title in This was repeated in 1960, and with the newlyweds now almost invincible it was naturally assumed that the same bike would be used to defend their crown in 61. However, Arthur had his own radical ideas, and in a friend s garage in north London a new outfit gradually took shape. With Lyn perched on a wooden box, a lightweight sidecar chassis was built around her, and compared to what was considered normal at the time the finished result was undeniably different. Up until then, virtually all trials outfits were powered by either a snappy single or a rasping four-stroke twin, so Arthur s choice of a lightweight 250cc two-stroke Dot was, to say the least, an unusual one. However, the Dot hadn t been his first choice: at that year s motorcycle show he d approached AMC competition manager Hugh Viney to see if he could have one of the new 250cc model G2 lightweights to develop as a trials iron, but the idea drew a blank. Arthur and Lyn were at their peak and almost unbeatable on the 500cc Matchless single, so Viney couldn t see the need for a personal challenge one that would jeopardise their chances of winning on an untried machine and turned the idea down flat. The AMC boss clearly meant no offence, but Arthur was not going to give up on the idea of using a small capacity machine, and later a chance encounter with Burnard Scott-Wade saw him leave the show as an official works Dot rider. At that time Pulman was working for accessory maker Doherty, and as he made his way back to its stall his eye caught the new trials model on the Dot stand. Could you ride one like that? asked a voice behind him, to which he replied I m sure it would be a real challenge. The voice belonged to Dot owner Burnard Scott-Wade, and within a few minutes Arthur was convinced of the bike s potential, and found himself signed as an official works rider on the Mancunian two-strokes. He soon set to making a lightweight sidecar chassis, but when the outfit first appeared there were plenty of doubters who questioned his judgement You won t win anything on that was a typical remark but as the results soon proved it was an inspired choice, and one that during the next two seasons would bring the Pulmans plenty of wins and first-class awards. The trendsetting outfit was also a magnet for period photographers, and during 61 and 62 many images of the pair and the little two-stroke appeared in the weekly motorcycle papers, 68

5 On John Catchpole s unusual side-valve Norton special.

6 KEN KENDALL 1964 Dutch three-day international. Bill won gold. with some spirited riding on the final special test he managed to accrue enough bonus points for a well deserved gold medal 79

To my big brother, Rod, who in the summer of 1961 started it all, and to my wife, Jill, for her wonderful support and encouragement.

Dedication To my big brother, Rod, who in the summer of 1961 started it all, and to my wife, Jill, for her wonderful support and encouragement. CONTENTS Bibliography...5 Foreword by MIke Jackson...6 Acknowledgements...6