Way back, way way back.
November 7, 2013
Combination Play
Promoting companionship on the open road for the bairns are fun looking sidecar toys…
Back in the past when engines were a novel device on vehicles the cast iron and painted tin toys were the norm. Latter day examples have plastic parts but are nonetheless as fun for the kids of today. A pair of raccoons dressed the part on this cream and red
They even still have the pressed metal examples …
Lastly but not leastly here’s the great Postman Pat and Jess (his black and white cat). Not in his delivery van but a suitably red motorcycle sidecar.
October 24, 2013
Crystal Years
A combination chairs occupant needs a captain to travel and explore the highway ahead: and I have The Best! It’s our fifteenth anniversary today and we’re enjoying our ‘motorcycle and sidecar’ trip of life.. miles and miles behind and so many more ahead.
January 27, 2013
The open road
Honey! Let’s pack the bags and hit the road! A combination and caravan in tow. The highway can be our home. I can’t see speed being important; it’s the journey that counts. But I’d bet there’d be a hefty tailback.
Adventure lies ahead to those who dare…
May 23, 2012
A Moto made for Two
My work colleague, Asha, sent me this fun card of her sister and brother-in-law, Shobha and Rahul, photoshopped on a bright yellow combination as the chair occupant and driver respectfully. It celebrates his ‘early forties’ birthday.
April 10, 2012
Of canvas and a primus stove
Pack the tent, food hamper and don’t forget the missus. Enjoy life on the open road with: fresh air, countryside and nature as your companions. As well as a dripping canvas fly sheet. “pass the pork pie pet and crack open the bottle of stout will you?”
February 15, 2012
Automobile Association Combi
A tiny three wheeled combination in yellow and black. This midget amongst small things has been sitting waiting to be painted and assembled (all three pieces of it!) Well I finally got around to it with as delicate a hand as I could muster. This is of course a miniature of the AA’s BSA sidecar outfit used in the forties and fifties to aid broken down vehicles. Probably the very same model my Grandfather rode whilst an officer in the Association. Indeed it was his experience with traffic and vehicles that directed him to the Military Police in WWII.
January 14, 2012
Europe in a Chair
A couple from Hollywood CA, Mr & Mrs Nelson, wished to take an adventurous tour of Europe, so they arrived in the UK in the summer of ’52. After taking both delivery and instruction of a beautiful Thunderbird and Swallow sidecar from the Meriden factory they set of on a three month exploration. I bet that photo album is work looking through!
November 3, 2011
Slap a Sloper
Whilst searching for the M21 outfit information I happened upon this item needing much TLC. It’s the earlier M33 ‘sloper’; the early thirties model with distinctive engine angle. About 6 hp thumping from the single pint sized jug just enough low end to haul around a chair. Suitable for the country lanes of England at the time for sure!
Here’s a happy owner on their BSA enjoying the delights of a countryside jaunt.
n.b. “slapping slopers” is a climbing move practised in the rounded but rough gritstone edges of the Peak District. Here’s a climber craggin’ on a Stanage Edge classic: Congo Corner HVS 5b stretching out on a long reach sloper. “Slap it youth!”
November 2, 2011
Pull a Chair up and have a sit down!
The combination wartime ride was the enlarged BSA single, the 600cc M21. Again my grandfather George Lawrie is seen atop this machine during traffic control and other MP duties in Egypt, through Tunisia and Libya. No doubt shadowing Monty’s Eighth Army as they chased Rommel ‘The Desert Fox’ back through El Alamein into Tunisia. Amongst his medals and cap badge is a cloth badge of the Jerboa, used as the Desert Rats insignia of the 7th Armoured.
Here’s a recently restored hack with sidecar trunk in lieu of the chair; also emblazoned with the AA (Automobile Association) emblem. George was an AA man both before and after the war, the roadside assistance skills being useful for MP work; and, indeed many AA men ended up in that branch of service.
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