David Seymour

By Dave Tooley

Seaweed

Now this is a guy who I could write an entire book about.

Everyone knew him as Seaweed, but his actual name was Dave Seymour.

A more affable bloke you’d struggle to find anywhere.  He would do anything for anybody, and was a very handy tool to have in a crisis.  The down side to this was his tendency to bodge things up.  Considering he was a Plessey time served apprentice, this came as a bit of a surprise.  But I mustn’t knock him, cos his heart was in the right place.  He actually was the feller who got me my position at Plesseys in the Machine Shop as a trainee Capstan Lathe Setter Operator. (Although I discovered later he’d been rewarded handsomely for recruiting me.)  There was full employment in those days, and there was a bounty on finding people to work in an establishment.

He (like Dermot) had a habit of telling porkies, mostly revolving around his fantasies of top speed of his bikes.  He made a career out of obtaining some of the most spurious Scooters we’d never heard of, like the outrageous Bella Zundapp he would ride around on.  It was more like a tank than a scooter, and often sounded like one when the exhaust fell off it, which happened often.

Unfortunately, because of his flaky nature everyone used to take the mick out of him, which was a little unfair because basically he was a very friendly chap.  I distinctly remember going to one of Marten’s ‘dodgy’ parties when his parents were away on holiday, and Seaweed made a guest appearance on his bike.  Someone who shall remain nameless thought it would be a right royal wheeze to squat over his fuel tank and dump something unmentionable into it.  Of course, the next morning the bike wouldn’t start because of a fuel ‘blockage’  When Dave removed the fuel cap to discover the nature of the foreign object inside his tank, everyone came out to witness the event.  Needless to say he nearly threw up when he peered inside and spotted the cause of his problem.  I really felt sorry for him at that moment.  I’ve never seen a guy look so crestfallen when he realised how low someone could stoop to hurt him. (no pun intended)  I don’t think we ever saw him again after that incident, and to be quite honest I don’t blame him.  I believe he joined the R.A.F. and went off to Germany.

Note From Marten:

 I saw his Dad a few years ago He was Gosports Pearly King, and he told me that Dave had gone to South Africa.