How the Club was formed

Hi all in June 2008 whilst I was in Tampa, Florida attending the wedding of my new wife's niece I received an e-mail from Mick Estlick who is alive and well and living in the U.S.A.

He has found the site and has agreed to donate some articles into the early days of the club.

This article was written by him with the help of Lord Ken Jackson. Read and Enjoy.

A very brief account of how the club was formed.

Fareham late1967, A quite Market Town situated between Portsmouth and Southampton, That is how it was described, a town with two cinemas a Market every Monday and a pub on nearly every street corner whose landlords did not take to much interest in the drinking age laws of the time. “Oh” and a Wimpy Bar situated more or less next to Trinity Church in the West street. Well the Wimpy bar was the hangout of the time and this is where I met Mike Dehavilland, who shall be known as Mike “D” for the rest of the story, Rick Forte, of forte’s café at the other end of town, Nigel Rawson and a few other scooter riders. With nothing else to do but to see who could squirt ketchup the furthest from the tomato shaped plastic containers. We got banned from there at least once a week but always returned the next evening. Well after a while the number of scooters parked out front of the wimpy bar grew to sometimes five or six, then the local plod’ s would come into the Wimpy bar and tell us to move them, reciting some gumbo jumbo thing about parking.

It was now early 1968 and one evening on exiting the Wimpy Bar under the above circumstances Mike D. mumbled those now famous words ‘God we have enough bikes here to start a Club’, we all stared at Mike in amazement, even the two plod’ s were speechless for a few minutes then Nigel Rawson stated that there was already a Scooter club in Fareham, that remark bought a few choice remarks of which will not be repeated. Then one of the plods told us a dirty joke, and in a somewhat sterner voice ordered we move our bikes, which of course we did under protest.

We continued to meet at the wimpy bar and more and more interest grew in forming a club, meanwhile attending as many scooter events as we could.

One night that major decision was made and a club we would form. A suggestion was made to meet at the Hoeford Inn, right on the Gosport, Fareham boarder as they had a room we could use and most importantly it was a pub. With no club name, no agenda, but to have a few pints, a Wednesday meeting was scheduled

. Getting the word out in those days was not easy, no internet, no cell phones, you were god dam lucky if your parents had a house phone. Mike D. and myself contacted as many

potential members as we could, but the Wednesday night meetings did not hold up to our expectations and a search was on for a new location. To make a long story short Mike and myself went to see the Connought Drill Hall in Gosport. It was the perfect location,

we could actually take the bikes inside, upstairs was a lounge area with a pool table and a snack bar. We grabbed the opportunity and quickly made arrangements for our first meeting there. The first night there we were surprised at the number of potential members who showed up. There were about fourteen bikes in the hall when someone suddenly declared “ It’s a bloody Vespa” as we all stared in disbelief. An explanation was given by the driver Chris Bracey, its not my bike, it belongs to Ken, ‘who was riding pillion and got banned for a while’. This of course was Ken Jackson, and if my memory serves me right he was the one of the first to sign up as a member at the connought drill hall.

At the next meeting there were two important items to take care off, one to form a committee and the second being to pick a date for the official opening of the club . Mike D. and myself had discussed the name of the club and settled on Solent City Scooter Club. If I remember correctly, and I stand to be corrected, Mike and myself picked the first committee as nobody really new each other that well. I elected my good friend and cohort Mike ‘D’ as club president, I took on the position of Chairman and Club Sec., Ken Jackson was Vice President, Ian Strugnall was treasurer. The committee members were,

Chic Warburton, Pete Roberts, Nigel Fielder, Pete Thomas and Keith Cooper. If I missed anyone please forgive.

The official opening was planed for August 1^st 1968 which gave us three weeks to get everything organized, including the first Miss Solent City Contest. Forty three bikes turned up that evening as did Peter Smith, a reporter, with photographer in tow from the Portsmouth Evening News, and reporters from the Southampton Echo. We all worked hard behind the scene to make that happen, especially Ken Jackson who scrounged a large amount of flags and banners from tire company’s and hung them wherever there was a space. The evening was a tremendous success and Miss Jackie Rowe won the Miss Solent City Contest, Terry Jurd was second and I cant remember who was third. From that point on the club never looked back.