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.
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