THAT COMMANDO Life

They say that you never forget your first kiss. Your first ... well, let's not go there. It seems to be some great myth that we remember our first times at most pleasurable activities. And I certainly do remember my first ride on a Norton Commando. Oh yes. It was late 1971, maybe 72. And it took place in Uxbridge, motorcycling capital of absolutely nowhere.

I'd read about them. Of course I had. I'd stared for what felt like centuries at the shiny red Fastback in Taunton's Norton dealer - which may have been Vincent & Jerrom, although I'm not sure. Someone will know. But the first Commando I rode belonged to a nice student - a decently affluent student for the time - who for no remembered reason let me ride his own shiny red Fastback. I'd stepped straight from an elderly Ariel Huntmaster, and there was no comparison at all. I was in fact stunned, and have honestly never forgotten the experience.

Fast forward a few years. Maybe 1977. I was wrestling with the ownership of a T140V Bonneville - the motorcycle which put me seriously off 750 Bonnies for decades, and in the end answered an ad from a chap in the Lake District who wanted to swap his 1972 Norton Commando 750 Interstate for a UKT140. Madman. We did the deal. I rode the Bonnie up to Wherever-In-The-Hills, and rode the Norton home. It was yellow. Never in my most alcoholic of reveries had I suspected that one day I would own a yellow motorcycle. It was the first. And indeed the last. I vowed to repaint, because I was going to keep it