A brief chat with... Colin Washbourne
How many young lads went in through BSA’s doors to begin an apprenticeship with the engineering giant? There must have been a goodly number and it seems like a dream job for any young motorcycle enthusiast; to be employed in the industry by what was, in the 1950s, the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer and be paid to learn about motorcycles.
It was in to such a world Colin Washbourne entered in August 1953.
Colin remembers well his life as an apprentice: “Essentially at the start you were a ‘gofer’. All sorts of things were a test to see what you’d learnt or picked up until you started doing work on various projects, or more correctly being with whoever it was
