Readers’ Letters
Post Office Bantams
I read the April 2019 edition of The Classic MotorCycle with interest, particularly the article about the Post Office Bantam.
I started as a Post Office Telegram boy in 1966 and after a brief spell delivering telegrams on a push bike, I passed my driving test and progressed on to riding Bantams.
In those days they were the plunger framed versions but they were phasing in the bigger engine, swinging arm versions when I moved on to adult duties. This was supposed to happen when you reached 18 but because of changes in the minimum age to ride motorcycles, the Post Office didn’t recruit any 16 year olds and those like myself who had reached 18 were kept on for a further year until the matter was resolved.
It is perfectly true what is said in the article that there is no such thing as an original spec Post Office bike.
In Brighton where I was based, the bikes were thrashed relentlessly and the single sprung saddles wore out and were replaced by unsprung dual seats designed for the swinging arm bikes.
On the bikes we rode, the bracket holding the legshield did not loop back to the front downtube as on the bike in the article, but carried on down and rearwards and bolted on to the end of the footrest. Great delight was had by scraping
