There used to be a
proper square metal chewing gum machine on the wall between Wilson Cycles and
Mr & Mrs BB's Bread and bucthers shop...a big penny for a big chunk of
green gum
yes i would have been
glad of a bat in our loo when i was 5 yearsold at night time for a bit of
company...mind you the candle used to make 4 or 5 shadows on the crumbling
white wash wall with the wind that blew under the bog door, so you never felt
completely alone...
It was a pleasure at a young age, when it had snowed deep to plunge each slippered foot into its silence...to go to the out side toilet; candle in hand, covering the flame by the other...but knowing there was a damp box of matches somewhere inside that brick house tardis should it fail on the way...
It was a pleasure at a young age, when it had snowed deep to plunge each slippered foot into its silence...to go to the out side toilet; candle in hand, covering the flame by the other...but knowing there was a damp box of matches somewhere inside that brick house tardis should it fail on the way...
Hi there put all your
stories of Jim on here....they are very very precious....i've a lot to put on
with the sporting side of Jim that the music side gets a bit neglected...more
the the merrier....2 channels are better than one...
As Jim's son i will never forget the night time listening to Jim play the Hammond organ and singing the blues down stairs in the bike shop, being carried off to sleep by it...Jim played regularly with Jack Dupree for a period....no wonder today i sing gospel to the guitar and Morrissey/Smith songs to the bass!...I have pictures of me at 5 or so years old in Jacks arms out side his house in Bradford, and next to his car with Champion Jack Dupree on the doors next to Jim all of us standing in the snow...
Olive (my mum) had an ladies hairdressing salon across from my bedroom...the ladies used to walk through Wilson cycles, climb the stairs, pass my bedroom on their right, say “hello Nigel” (when i was a little lad) and enter Olive's salon on their left.
In the day time looking back at the hubub of life there at 220 City road it was an incredible atmosphere...with the smell and noises of ladies hair spray, customers' happy laughter & chat, bike building, tyre rubber, cardboard boxes, brazing smells, and grandma's home made cooking lasting all day in to late evening...
To Jim this was his dream lifestyle... after Dunkirk it was never really considered as work or a job...open 8.30 till 6pm every day, even 'serving' on Christmas day if a customer called in.
I have been there 47 years, and I'm 47.
Yes it has changed in line with society...there has to be shutters everywhere now...but they don't keep out the marvelous memories of those times, on the contrary they keep them in.
As Jim's son i will never forget the night time listening to Jim play the Hammond organ and singing the blues down stairs in the bike shop, being carried off to sleep by it...Jim played regularly with Jack Dupree for a period....no wonder today i sing gospel to the guitar and Morrissey/Smith songs to the bass!...I have pictures of me at 5 or so years old in Jacks arms out side his house in Bradford, and next to his car with Champion Jack Dupree on the doors next to Jim all of us standing in the snow...
Olive (my mum) had an ladies hairdressing salon across from my bedroom...the ladies used to walk through Wilson cycles, climb the stairs, pass my bedroom on their right, say “hello Nigel” (when i was a little lad) and enter Olive's salon on their left.
In the day time looking back at the hubub of life there at 220 City road it was an incredible atmosphere...with the smell and noises of ladies hair spray, customers' happy laughter & chat, bike building, tyre rubber, cardboard boxes, brazing smells, and grandma's home made cooking lasting all day in to late evening...
To Jim this was his dream lifestyle... after Dunkirk it was never really considered as work or a job...open 8.30 till 6pm every day, even 'serving' on Christmas day if a customer called in.
I have been there 47 years, and I'm 47.
Yes it has changed in line with society...there has to be shutters everywhere now...but they don't keep out the marvelous memories of those times, on the contrary they keep them in.
Story: We was out in Derbyshire on a Sunday run when a bloke on a
rusty old Wilson came flying past and we all said the same thing. That’s Syds
bike! so we followed him to a house on Windy House Lane and next day Syd
fetched it back .
It had been pinched from outside the shop and was instantly recognizable as the frame was unsprayed and red rusty.
This would have been about 1959.
It had been pinched from outside the shop and was instantly recognizable as the frame was unsprayed and red rusty.
This would have been about 1959.
Epilogue; This ties in
very well with a true story that Syd crashed in a road race a week before going
to ride the 1959 Manx Premier Professional Road Race on the IOM with his
brother Jim's team...well Jim repaired the tubes and did not have time to re
stove enamel it,
So syd started a new trend...no paint, less weight!...and you could see the craftsmanship of the brazed lug work...there's a picture of Syd riding up Snaefel with the legend Fausto Coppi on the same BIKE / frame!....imagine that today...the riders would cry in shame...
i guess Syd kept riding it after...no worries my father's frames were made to last and be used...unlike the disposable Carbonfire rubbish they PAY the pros to ride and thus promote today...
click on link and go to W...click Wilson...
http://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/builders.html
also
http://www.wilsoncycles.co.uk/shop/aboutus.php
www.wilsoncycles.co.uk
Hi, i have, they are marvellous memories and have inspired me along with the other contributers found here to write again now there is time in the Christmas holidays...
what a coincidence, i only obtained that 1959 Manx Race Programme last week, relating to the Coppi / Syd photo on our website (and confirming the date!) and neepsendlane posted the story of Syds un painted bike being stolen with the date 1959!
By the way Syd used to have other eccentric finishes on his JF.Wilson frame's over the years, as well as no paint!
such as the barbers pole design ...not just red and white but for example Powder blue and pink....Gold and Metallic Red...if there was one mass production company with an ouce of imagination they'd make millions selling bike frames with finishes like that today...and be remembered for something!
but no its got to be Carbonfire Black, Canonfodder dale red...plain, bland and characterless...notice too that this has rubbed off on today's cycling society...and they even ware the clothes and the attitudes to match.
But thankfully there are always through backs to bygone eras...I'm one..but my pal Mark Hudson for example had a frame unpainted like Syd's but we went one better and applied the Wilson transfers to the bare tubes and then powder coated over it all in clear powder coat...so people could see the brazing workmanship and the frame's well protected too..
So syd started a new trend...no paint, less weight!...and you could see the craftsmanship of the brazed lug work...there's a picture of Syd riding up Snaefel with the legend Fausto Coppi on the same BIKE / frame!....imagine that today...the riders would cry in shame...
i guess Syd kept riding it after...no worries my father's frames were made to last and be used...unlike the disposable Carbonfire rubbish they PAY the pros to ride and thus promote today...
click on link and go to W...click Wilson...
http://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/builders.html
also
http://www.wilsoncycles.co.uk/shop/aboutus.php
www.wilsoncycles.co.uk
Hi, i have, they are marvellous memories and have inspired me along with the other contributers found here to write again now there is time in the Christmas holidays...
what a coincidence, i only obtained that 1959 Manx Race Programme last week, relating to the Coppi / Syd photo on our website (and confirming the date!) and neepsendlane posted the story of Syds un painted bike being stolen with the date 1959!
By the way Syd used to have other eccentric finishes on his JF.Wilson frame's over the years, as well as no paint!
such as the barbers pole design ...not just red and white but for example Powder blue and pink....Gold and Metallic Red...if there was one mass production company with an ouce of imagination they'd make millions selling bike frames with finishes like that today...and be remembered for something!
but no its got to be Carbonfire Black, Canonfodder dale red...plain, bland and characterless...notice too that this has rubbed off on today's cycling society...and they even ware the clothes and the attitudes to match.
But thankfully there are always through backs to bygone eras...I'm one..but my pal Mark Hudson for example had a frame unpainted like Syd's but we went one better and applied the Wilson transfers to the bare tubes and then powder coated over it all in clear powder coat...so people could see the brazing workmanship and the frame's well protected too..
Hi again
Nigel, you refurbed my old Wilson about 7 years ago with all the new
gismo,s.And a smashing job it was But! i soon started to miss my old down tube
changers and centre pull brakes so now they are back on old habits die hard.
Are you still building frames the last i heard was that you and a lad at clowne were the last two proper frame builders left in the area[by that i mean useing Renolds tube].
Did your dad ever tel lyou about a frame builder called Thomson who had a shop near Heeley Bridge ,Him and his wife also had the Pewitt cafe at Owler Bar and that is where all the clubs used to end up after the Sunday run.
I remember your dad pushing me up Baslow Hill on the race to be first to the Pewitt[ my age about 13 or 14] as i have said before not many blokes stick in your mind throughout life but Jim is one i will never forget he and his team where hero,s to me as a kid. I could go on all day!
Are you still building frames the last i heard was that you and a lad at clowne were the last two proper frame builders left in the area[by that i mean useing Renolds tube].
Did your dad ever tel lyou about a frame builder called Thomson who had a shop near Heeley Bridge ,Him and his wife also had the Pewitt cafe at Owler Bar and that is where all the clubs used to end up after the Sunday run.
I remember your dad pushing me up Baslow Hill on the race to be first to the Pewitt[ my age about 13 or 14] as i have said before not many blokes stick in your mind throughout life but Jim is one i will never forget he and his team where hero,s to me as a kid. I could go on all day!
Hi yes, still building
frames using the proper stuff, built my first frame on my own at 19, Jim kept
an eye on me even so, he was pleased with the end result...it took 5 years
though to get that approval!...and i raced on it for years...
http://www.wilsoncycles.co.uk/shop/double_diamond.php
http://www.wilsoncycles.co.uk/shop/double_diamond.php
Don't recall Thomson
mentioned but there was a lot going off...i remember Pewitt cafe though, like
something out of a dream scape, a little shack out there near the top of Owlar
Bar....10p for a cup of tea and a penguin buscuit...that was the first step to
Derbyshire for a young lad or lass riding a bike from Sheffield...
the mobile phone media
culture & its society...would never be able to relate to that lifestyle...happily
for me they can't harm that memory...there's a grand house there now with its
own stables and clock tower marking the spot of little Pewitt cafe...the new
mansion is probably owned by some media moguls....who no doubt will be
miserable enough in their collective ignorance ; )...today's society has lost a
lot of its real gems for fake ones...and what they don't know of, is infact
hurting them.
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