“I’ve jist hed a letter come through the post,” said Albie, “summonin’ me to the Mile Cross Testin’ Centre for me bike test!”

www.albiestales.co.uk part three

EDNESDAY, THE SIXTH OF JUNE, promised to be the moment of truth for our Albie. The ‘Man-from-the-Ministry had summoned the lad to present himself for duty on that fateful day, or rather for his motorcycle test, as stated in the letter from the Ministry of Transport Testing Centre in Norwich. For the lad it was to be his first journey of any real distance on his Zundapp – a round trip of just under sixty miles – and he just hoped he, and his machine, were ‘up to it’! Feverishly studying his well-thumbed copy of The Highway Code into the early hours, Albie was up bright and early on that glorious June morning to give his motorcycle a final ‘once-over’ for the journey, before donning his motorcycling gear and waving goodbye to his parents...

WHEN ALBIE ARRIVED FOR WORK that morning he was shivering from the cold. Although it was a lovely warm and sunny day his journey on two wheels, instead of ‘letting the train take the strain’, had left him unable to feel his fingers and the first thing he did was to plunge them into hot water in the ‘gents’– which was to prove a big mistake!

“What on earth’s up with you, Albie?” Tony Mullins asked, as his fellow designer stood with hands immersed in the washbasin, tears streaming down his face. Then, seeing he was still wearing his crash helmet: “You surely didn’t come all that way on your motorbike, did you?”

Between sobs of excruciating pain Albie nodded that, indeed, he had.

“I just had to, Tony,” he eventually replied, as the pain lessened and he began to feel his fingers again, “you see, I’ve gotta take my motorcycle test just after eleven!”

“Why you ever wanted a motorbike beats me,” Tony replied, as they made their way to the Design department, “after all, you’ll never keep a young lady happy on a bike – but, if you had a car, well, take it from me...”

“I’d rather not,” laughed Albie, knowing what his friend was like with the ladies, “besides, I can’t afford one at present – anyway, I’m perfectly happy with my Zundapp and feeling the sun on my face and the wind in my hair...”

“And frostbite in your fingers!” laughed Tony. “Never mind, you’ll learn the hard way, I suppose.”

Mike had already arrived as Albie made his way to his desk and, noticing the lad was still wearing his crash helmet and goggles, went over to have a chat with him.

“So, today’s the day, then?” he said, having had prior warning of Albie’s impending bike test. “You should sail through it – I did! But if you fail... don’t think you can ever show your face here again!”

“But, if you pass,” chipped in Ivan, one of the other designers, “that means drinks all round this lunchtime in the Red Lion!”

It seemed he was on a hiding for nothing and just couldn’t win, Albie thought, as he began calculating the cost if he passed! However, the alternative was just unthinkable, he had to pass, whatever the cost!

ALBIE DISOBEYS ORDERS

When Albie arrived at the Ministry of Transport Testing Centre he parked his Zundapp in the space provided for learner drivers and riders, then, nervously, made his way towards the large, unfriendly-looking building next door to the Corona Works, just off Mile Cross Lane.

He was about to enter the building when a man armed with clipboard and pencil, who turned out to be the Examiner, burst out of a side door.

“You’re late!” he declared, looking down at his wristwatch. “ I just cannot abide lateness – I should fail you, here and now! Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

Not a very good start, thought Albie, and tried to explain he was held up at some temporary traffic lights halfway along Aylsham Road, but the Examiner merely brushed aside his protests.

“Can you read a number-plate at twenty-five yards?” he snapped irritably. “What’s the number on that bike behind you?”

Albie’s luck was in as the only motorcycle there was his own!

“Two...double-one... A... A... Aitch,” he declared confidently, with his back to the machine.

Snorting to himself, the Examiner paused for a moment to write some comment or other on the form on his clipboard, before barking out a string of orders.

“Set off in your own time,” he instructed Albie, “then turn right onto the main road and head for the roundabout. Then, turn left and go down Aylsham Road, stopping at the red postbox, then come back up again – I’ll be watching you all the way, and, somewhere, I’ll step out and you will execute an Emergency Stop! Understood?”

Why stop at the postbox if he hadn’t a letter to post, wondered Albie? However, he decided it best to do as he was told and not question orders.

“Be quick about it!” yelled the Examiner, “I haven’t got all day!”

Slightly flustered, Albie flicked out the kickstart and gave it a prod.

“Please, please, start first time!” he pleaded under his breath, but his Zundapp quickly roared into life and soon he was off on his test.

Giving the necessary hand signals, each preceded by a glance over his right shoulder, Albie made his way along Mile Cross Lane to the Boundary roundabout. There, at an oddly-named coffee bar called the Boundary Buttery, scores of hardened motorcyclists were congregating, viewing his efforts with a high degree of mirth.

“Here comes another poor b****r!” laughed one of the greasy-looking bikers, sitting aside an even greasier-looking Matchless 500. “What a squitty little bike,” he guffawed, as he cast eyes on Albie’s Zundapp, “British bike not good enough for ya then?”

Quickly turning left, with the jeers of the other motorcyclists still ringing in his ears, Albie made his way down Aylsham Road into the city – looking out for a postbox.

“At last,” he declared, as the little red box came into view almost next to the Territorial Army Centre. “This must be the one!”

But, as he throttled back and applied his brakes, he noticed the NO WAITING signs, either side of the postbox!

“I don’t care what that Examiner bloke told me,” Albie muttered to himself, “I en’t arguing with a ‘No Waiting’ sign ever again! Besides, I hen’t got no letters to post!” And, with that, he opened the throttle and sailed straight past, stopping a good hundred yards further down the road.

Then, looking back over his shoulder to make sure the road behind was clear, he indicated his intentions, moved off, and made his way back up the road towards the Boundary where the Examiner stood waiting, clipboard in hand.

Just before the roundabout, the Examiner stepped out and waved Albie to stop.

“This hatta be the emergency stop!” said Albie, applying the brakes hard and pulling in the clutch – and, with that, his Zundapp, the very best of German engineering, squealed to a halt with the lad totally in control.

Sitting in the saddle, Albie awaited the congratulatory words that he was sure would follow – but none came!

Instead, after a minute or two scribbling on his clipboard, the Examiner said in a most officious tone: “You didn’t do as you were told, did you? When I said ‘STOP at the postbox’ I meant just that! So, why did you choose to ignore my orders?”

Albie was absolutely gutted; through his folly of disobeying orders it seemed he’d blown his chances – what was he going to tell Mike and his friends back in the Design department?

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

When Albie eventually returned to work all his friends and colleagues from the Design department had gone to lunch, some upstairs to the Works’ canteen, whilst others congregated in the Red Lion on Palace Plain looking forward to a free round of drinks as agreed!

“No sign of Albie yet?” asked Ivan, peering out of the bay window, “looks like he’s let us all down, doesn’t it Mike?”

“Looks like it,” Mike nodded. “It’s a shame really, ’cause Albie seemed so keen to pass.”

“I gave him such good advice too,” replied Ivan, looking down into his half-empty glass of best bitter.

“So did I,” said Mike, “what was yours?”

“I thought you’d never ask!” laughed Ivan, “same again, please, pint o’ bitter!”

Meanwhile Albie, having been faced with a lengthy delay at the temporary traffic lights on Aylsham Road, made his way back to work after paying a visit to the Licensing Office on Lower Clarence Road, adjacent to the railway station. What should have only taken a short time in the office, discussing this and that, was prolonged somewhat as they were short staffed – it being lunchtime – and he was told to ‘sit down and wait his turn’!

When he arrived back in the Design department Mike, Ivan and all the others were hard at work.

“Sorry, I’m late,” he said, sitting down at his desk and getting on with retouching some photographs, “but that all took a lot more time than I thought it would.”

“Now look here, Albie,” said Mike, unable to contain his curiosity a moment longer, “did you pass – or not?”

“Well, tha’s like this,” the lad replied, chewing the end of his paintbrush, “that examiner bloke told me to stop at a postbox on Aylsham Road.”

Ivan laughed at the top of his voice. “Tha’s an old ’un, that,” he said, “but what did you do?”

“Wuh – I jist kept gorn, o’ course,” Albie replied, “an stopped further down – but the bloke wuz hoolly raw, he wuz!”

“There wasn’t a No Waiting sign there, by any chance?” Mike asked him.

“Yis, that there wuz,” replied Albie, leaning back on his chair and folding his arms in front of him,“but, as I told that there Examiner I steer well clear o’ them I do, ’speshully arter that do outside the butcher’s shop in Sheringham.”

“You certainly told him, Albie,” laughed Mike, “but, what did he say to that?”

“He din’t say nuffin’, he jist gev me a slip o’ paper,” Albie replied, proudly showing off his new Full Motorcycle Driving Licence, “an’ I got this from Clarence Road!”

“An’, it says here, I can ride any motorcycle, with or without a sidecar,” he continued, reading the small print on his new licence. “But I’m quite happy with my Zundapp, only I reckon that could do with a decoke pretty soon – after all I hev done over three hundred miles...!”

THE THRILL OF SPEED

Having passed his motorcycle test, Albie felt as free as the wind – however hard it blew in off the North Sea. Once out on his Zundapp, without the embarrassing red and white L-plates flapping in the breeze, it was as though he was reborn to the freedom of the road.

From his parents’ house in Regis Place, Sheringham, he would venture to places at all points of the compass – well, almost! – with the only constraint to the North being the sea itself!

Go West, young man – and this he did to Salthouse, Cley and Blakeney, and even as far as Wells-Next-The-Sea and a visit to Abraham’s Bosom with its popular, smelly boating-lake!

NOT-SO ‘DIVINE’ INTERVENTION! BY FELIX BERNASCONI

Easterly winds never bothered our lad from Sheringham as he rode the highways and byways of Cromer, Overstrand and Mundesley-On-Sea, possibly the best-loved of all his scenic routes.

However, he took little comfort in riding south, as Aylsham led to Norwich – his place of work – and besides, past Daniel’s roundabout was ‘furrin’ parts to him, to be ventured into at his peril! Not every journey went without mishap, of course, and of those there were plenty!

Albie was the first to admit that he was a boy-racer at heart with a thirst for speed, and he would complete each and every outing on his Zundapp in the fastest time possible – woe betide anyone who ever got in his way! Many a Sunday morning, he would tear down Station Road, interrupting the Salvation Army, as they held their open-air meeting near the Town Clock, throwing their ranks into disarray!

ALBIE IS DEFLATED

One Saturday afternoon, late in June, he was speeding along the coast road near Sidestrand, having left Mundesley a mere five minutes earlier.

“For goodness sake, get a move on – DO!” he shouted at a line of slow-moving cars in front of him, looking for a chance to overtake.

As Albie passed Sidestrand church, the road ahead, under a panoply of trees, began to dip away and, rounding a right-hand bend, he seized his chance. Opening the throttle wide and taking advantage of a downhill stretch he zoomed past the snail-like convoy, leaving the drivers eating his oily exhaust and gawping at the rear number-plate of his Zundapp.

Just as he cut in front of the last car Albie sensed his motorbike beginning a tail-end wobble, which worsened into a violent lashing of the handlebars threatening to dismount him. As he struggled to control his machine, throttling back and gingerly applying the front brake, the Zundapp began swerving from side to side with the motorists doing their best to avoid him.

Eventually, as Albie pulled in to the side of the road, all the motorists passed him again – laughing as they drove by! Glancing down at his bike it only took one look to realise the problem – the rear tyre was punctured!

“Blimmin’ thing!” said Albie, giving the rear wheel an almighty kick. “S’poose I’ll hatta walk all the way home now!”

Luckily, as he trudged along the road into Overstrand, pushing his stricken bike beside him, the local garage was still open.

“Wha’s up, boy, gotta punsher?” asked the man at the garage. “Wheel ut in hare, an’ I’ll see wut I can do.”

After topping-up a car with petrol, the garage man looked at Albie’s motorbike, then scratched his head.

“Punsher I can mend,” he said, looking at the rear wheel, “if o’ny I could git the chain guard orf... do yew know, boy? Hev ya gotta handbook?”

Albie shook his head, apart from not being terribly ‘mechanically-minded’, he’d left his handbook at home!

“No idea,” he replied, kneeling down to look at the chain-guard and all the nuts and bolts. “Do that wheel hev to come off? I mean, can’t you mend it where it is?”

“Blust me, boy,” replied the garage man, grabbing an adjustable spanner and undoing several bolts, “yew dorn’t know nourthin’, do ya? Here – do yew cop holda this.”

Albie took one half of the chain-guard from him, and soon, after much cursing and swearing on the account of ‘it being Jarman’, the back wheel was out and the puncture quickly mended. All that remained now was for the bike to be rebuilt...

“That’ll be ten bob,” said the man, “an’ dorn’t yew come back here if yew git another punsher – tearke ut back to where yew bought ut – Jarmans, I ax yew!”

Delving deep into his pockets, Albie managed to rustle up the ten shillings required to pay the man, then, climbing back in the saddle, continued on his homeward journey.

A BUMP NEAR BEESTON

By the time he arrived in Cromer it had started spit with rain. At first it only spotted his goggles, but soon it turned into a sudden downpour and looked as if it had set in for the day. Albie, lacking suitable waterproof clothing, began to feel rather wet and soggy, with even his shoes squelching with water.

It was the first time he’d been out on his motorcycle in the rain and he soon began to realise its shortcomings, and the lack of brakes in the wet!

Rounding the bend into West Runton, opposite the Village Inn, a large car, a Vauxhall Cresta on garage plates, pulled out in front of him without warning.

“Blitherin’ idiot!” yelled Albie, applying the brakes, which worked after a fashion, and tooting his horn, which didn’t! “You watta look where you’re goin’!”

His words were lost on the car driver, unable to hear him cocooned, as he was, in his nice, new car, oblivious to all around him – and unable to see much of the road in front, or behind, through his steamed-up windows!

ALBIE – THE BOY RACER BY FELIX BERNASCONI

As they passed West Runton church, Albie lowered his head and shoulders into the racing position in an attempt to overtake, only to be thwarted by an oncoming car.

Too close to the Cresta, the inevitable was sure to happen!

The Vauxhall, from Hill’s Garage, Sheringham, was being taken on a test drive for a would-be buyer and the garage salesman, sitting in the passenger seat, was extolling its virtues.

“Light steering and good roadholding,” he said, as they drove towards the railway bridge at West Runton, “and first-class brakes, even in the wet – go on, give them a try!”

The driver did, of course, and the brakes were good stoppers, which Albie’s weren’t and, in a flash, the rear of the car rapidly closed on the front mudguard of his bike, sending him over the handlebars to land, in a crumpled heap, on the bulbous boot lid!

“You stupid b****r!” shouted the car salesman, leaping out his shop-soiled car, now resplendent with a large dent on the boot lid.

“What the h**l do you think you’re playing at?” With that a big fist appeared close to Albie’s face, as he was held in a vice-like grip by the irate salesman.

“Just look what you’ve done to my car!” he continued, as Albie climbed, unhurt, off the boot lid.

“Just look what you’ve done to my bike!” Albie replied, pointing at his mudguard, bent backwards by the impact, and the front tyre which was punctured as well and looking in a sorry state. “That’ll hatta be repaired, that will!”

The scene then began to turn nasty with neither side prepared to admit liability, or give an inch.

Just then, Albie noticed the village policeman wheeling his bicycle over West Runton railway bridge in their direction.

“Tha’s YOUR fault,” he told the driver of the car, “you just stopped, without warning, an’ you didn’t look behind you! And, even if you did, you couldn’t have seen me through steamed up windows!”

“Anyway,” he continued, pointing up the road to the long arm of the law, “let’s ask this policeman...”

“Let’s not be too hasty, son,” choked the garage salesman, “after all, you’re not hurt are you so there’s no real harm done – no need to bother the policeman, is there?”

“But, what about me bike?” replied Albie, pointing to his sad-looking Zundapp. “Who’ll put that right?”

“Bring it along to our garage,” the salesman told him, “we’ll put it right for you – at our expense, of course.”

“Everything all right?” asked PC ‘Copper’ Smith, standing by his bicycle and looking at the damaged vehicles.

“Oh, yes, Officer,” replied the man from the garage, “a slight misunderstanding, that’s all – but, it’s all sorted now!”

With that, a soggy, hapless, Albie began pushing his Zundapp for the second time that day.

“Goodness knows, what I’m gonna tell Mum and Dad when I get home,” he sighed!

NEXT: Albie the ‘mechanic’ discovers he has much to learn!

SOME OF ALBIE’S FAVOURITE WEBSITES A Norfolk Entertainer A Moment in Time Enjoy North Norfolk Enjoy Norwich Flint Holiday Cottages Norfolk Churches Norfolk Dialect Norfolk Village Signs Norwich City Hall and the Lions Picture Norfolk Remember Norfolk Sculthorpe Spyplanes

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