Cobwebs and coalsheds ...

‘If memory serves me right, says my mate Brian, ‘it was around February or March in 1956 when I first learned of a motorcycle tucked away in a shed about half a mile from my home in Aughton. Armed with this info, me and my pal Cyril decided to try and track it down and set off under cover of darkness. When we arrived at the place we were confronted with about 12 or 14 chicken sheds in a small paddock away behind the house.

‘We crept past and entered the first one – no torch as we didn’t want to be discovered. After much stumbling around in the darkness what we found were endless heavy cobwebs, lots of dust, and angry cockerels defending their harems. We searched every shed and all to no avail apart from getting filthy.

‘The next time I saw our milkman (it was him that had told me about the supposed bike), I said “You’ve been having us on, we searched all those sheds and there was no blinking bike.” He laughed his head off. “It’s not in the hen sheds, it’s in the coal shed.”

‘The next night me and Cyril returned to check