The Solent City Scooter Club-Marten Holdway

the solent city scooter club dave tooley mallory park 1970

Tales of adventure, stupidness, teenage sex desires, friendships a great time was had by all and I remember it just

Marten Holdway

By Dave Tooley

Marten Holdway joined the Solent City club only a few weeks after me, and because he was one of the few members who lived in Fareham we tended to leave the weekly pub social gathering together and return home in convoy.

Our concept of speed limits in our youth was limited to ‘how fast can you go without actually dropping your bike’ and those trips home I remember as being rather quick affairs. Especially since Marten owned a Gp 225 Wildcat Dykes , which without putting too fine a point on it was ruddy quick. I learned to ride my bike to the limits of its adhesion just to stay anywhere near him, this stood me in good stead for my racing later on.

Marten acquired the unfortunate reputation of never actually selling any bike he owned. He preferred to destroy them in some spectacular fashion on the road, normally involving putting himself in hospital at the same time.

To my knowledge he did this to his Wal Philips injected Tv200, his Wildcat Gp225 and his Vega 125. (There may be others, I’m sure Marten can update this article)

marten at mallory park

The resultant carnage left him with dodgy legs that only Barry Sheene would have been proud of.
To my eternal shame, I spent the vast proportion of my misspent youth hanging around Martens house, garage and bedroom. (we don’t like to talk about that much, it involved much reading of Spider Man comics, ploughing our way through mountains of battered faggots and chips, and watching Rowan and Martins Laugh In late into the night.) We should have been out chasing girls, but it just involved too much mostly wasted effort.

So much for my teenage years…Marten was my best mate during that period, he saved me a fortune which I could have just wasted on wine, women and song.

However, I made up for it later in spades.
Thinking about it, we rarely had an alcoholic drink apart from Club night.
After working on our bikes, we would normally end the evening in a Fareham coffee shop. Maybe it’s because booze seemed a lot dearer then than now, relative to wages

marten holdway

● Solent City Scooter Club

□ The Clubs Formation
□ My First Scooter
□ The Weekly Meetings
□ Trips to Stoney Cross
□ The Meeting Places of the Club
□ The Club Warehouse
□ The Thorngate Halls Disco
□ The Club Newsletter
□ Miss Solent City
□ Grumpy Old Man Blog have some fun

● Scooter Picture Gallery

● Contact Us

● The Member List

□ Members Tales Then and Now
□ Angela Twigg
□ Dermot Omalley
□ David Seymour
□ John Coles Metalflake SX
□ Keith Champion
□ Muriel Rowe
□ Kenny Erridge
□ Mick Estlick
□ Colin Fry and Debbie
□ Dave Tooley
□ Trevor Aspden
□ Phil Blatch
□ Terry Langridge
□ Pete Boyle
□ John Searle and Jackie Catchpole
□ Pete Thomas
□ Marten Holdway
□ John Olde
□ Chris Bracey
□ Mick Platts (Digger)
□ Ken Jackson
□ Colin Thompson

● Articles on Scooter Racing

□ Scooter Racing
□ Crystal Palace
□ Mallory Park
□ Thruxton
□ Lydden Hill
□ Castle Combe
□ Black Death
□ Les Rafferty

● Scooter Rallys

□ The Southend Scooter Rally 1970
□ The Isle of Wight Rally 1970
□ The Comax Rally

● Other Tales to Tell

□ Tales from the River Bank
□ Suzuki Stinger
□ Speed Cop
□ Ned Newman
□ Taking the Mick
□ Memories from Daves garage
□ First Blood
□ Club Party
□ Martens Wildcat Gp225
□ Such a Teaser
□ Braggers and Bullshitters
□ End of an Era

● Other Websites of Interest

Solent City Scooter Club The Clubs Formation Grumpy Old Man Blog have some fun Articles on Scooter Racing Scooter Rallys Other Tales to Tell Other Websites of Interest