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  • The Classic MotorCycle

    Ship-shape!

    Jan 01, 2020 7 minutes
    Words: STEVE WILSON
    Photographs:
    GARY CHAPMAN

    Len Page’s WD M20 was supplied to the Royal Navy in mid-June 1944, a time of intense activity for the Senior Service in supporting the Normandy landings.

    The sidevalve 500cc single is in remarkably original condition, with the many brass fittings dictated by wartime steel shortages, the correct handlebar levers, and the canvas handlebar grips, as rubber had become in short supply soon after the Japanese entered the war in December 1941.

    The light fittings and switch are correct for the year, though a dipswitch is now fitted, since the wartime headlamp black-out mask has been set aside – Len explained how originally the main bulb behind it had been wired to operate on one filament only, and if that failed, the wiring would be changed to bring the other filament into action.

    This is a ridden-not-hidden bike, one of four of the BSA side-valves Len owns. There’s another, Army, WD M20 from 1939, in bits. There’s Len’s 600cc M21 sidecar outfit, on which, one fierce January day in Holland for the ironically-named Hot Rod rally, he drove me and

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