The Things We Remember.
I’ve been to a funeral today. My brother’s. I say this not to elicit sympathy but rather to set the scene, as something said in the funeral service about him brought back a long-forgotten memory.
I am the youngest of four brothers – two surviving, and in our youthful years all four of us had motorcycles. Sometimes two or three of us at the same time. Our father taught us all the rudiments of maintenance, and part-dismembered motorcycles in the garden were a common sight for many years.
The house where we lived did not have a garage, so routine maintenance was carried out in the garden during periods of good weather. Emergency maintenance, which could not wait for fine weather, was carried out in the kitchen and our long-suffering mother had got used to having to step over motorcycle parts in order to to access the various parts of the kitchen when she was preparing a meal.
The brother who has just died had a Francis-Barnett 88 Twin which was mis-firing. It was winter and the rain was torrential, so the motorcycle was in the kitchen with its engine removed and dismantled with the pieces being spread over the kitchen table. He and I were trying to trace the electrics believing that to be the root of the problem. Our mother had asked us more than once to move so that she could finish preparing dinner, and had we been less single-minded in our task we might have noticed the rising tension in her voice. But we didn’t. We were young men, and incapable of noticing such things.
Eventually and inevitably, she reached her limit. She slammed the saucepan she was holding down on the table and shouted for our father in the hope that he would use his authority to resolve the situation – “TREVOR – COME AND SORT THIS OUT”. Our father wandered into the kitchen and looked around him assessing the situation. He looked at our mother, then he looked at us, then he looked at the engine partly dismantled and said “Check the flywheel bearings, because if the flywheel is out of balance it could be affecting the magneto”.
Happy memories!
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Brilliant. You paint a very vivid scene. Such typical family nonsense. Id love to know how your Mum responded? It is such lovely memories that get us through the sad days. Im so sorry you have lost your second brother 💔
What a great memory. Intrigued about the bike as well. I’m not a biker and never was – unfortunately. I quickly learned from the age of sixteen that I would need at least four wheels to be anything like road safe. I’ve heard of many bikes though, but not this one. I’ll have to look it up. Thanks for the great post.
What a wonderful surprise it is while sitting in our grief, a memory pops to the surface to give us comfort. So sorry for your loss and thank you for sharing.
I did that once when I was younger.
The lesson I learnt was that the frying pan was far harder on my head than fixing the motorbike was !!