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 1st 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.
THE NEXT YEAR
Having established ourselves as a genuine scooter club and not just and not just a crowd of Mods 1969 saw more and more scooter enthusiasts join the club. The club was getting bigger, and each week there seemed to be more and more bikes show up for club meetings at the drill hall. Early that year at the suggestion of Ned Newman of Rafferty Newman, we got together with Colin Harris, The Solent Motorcycle Clubs President to arrange some social events , Social events with motorcyclist and scooterist was something unheard of at that time and some members were not to thrilled at the idea, but we went ahead anyway, and one Thursday evening a group of about twelve scooters went to one of there meetings at a bar in Warsash and lined up our bikes next to theirs. Well this must have got someone’s attention, within five minuets several police cars arrived at the bar, after a brief explanation they left somewhat bewildered that we were just socializing , we all had a great evening and formed a good bond with the Motor Cycle club members.
LIGHTS, CAMERA , ACTION.
A small article appeared in the Southampton Evening Echo concerning this event which caught the eye of Southern Television, who wanted to do a segment about the scooter club for their Day by Day news program which aired every night at 6pm and presented by Chris Peacock . Arrangements were made and those who could get the time off work, and some who couldn’t but came anyway, (about fourteen bikes ), met at the TV Studio in Southampton., We did lose a bike on the way, I believe Dave Seymour’s exhaust fell off and the bike was left on the side of the road. After a short meeting with Chris Peacock and the camera crew we made our way to a café in Lyndhurst for interviews, then following the TV van with the cameraman on top we roamed around the New Forrest ending up at Stony Cross doing takes and retakes. A week later it aired as the days top story.
THE STUBBINGTON CARNIVAL
After the airing of the TV. segment the club was contacted by the Stubbington social club carnival committee and asked if we would provide a scooter escort for the Carnival queen in the parade. At the time we thought this rather strange as the Hampshire Union met at the social club. However we accepted and eight members volunteered, but it was not until we showed up we found out that we would be escorting the queen in a horse drawn carriage. Four large dray horses escorted by eight scooters was rather scary as we did not want to freak the horses out, but the everything turned out OK.
SOUTHEND
As a club we attended as many rallies as we could that year, Southend-on -Sea was the big one, we had more members attend that rally than any other. We had more bikes attend than any other club and it was made official that The Solent City Scooter Club was the largest club in Great Britain with 142 registered members. Looking back I’m glad they did not all show up on a club night at the same time.
To Be continued.
Some rare Photo's and Press cuttings from Mike that havent seen the light of day for around 40 years
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