JACK SHEMANS Meriden's unheralded hero
JACK SHEMANS WAS A PIVOTAL FIGURE IN THE glory days of the Triumph Meriden factory's racing team - a backroom boy who shunned publicity and had one hell of a pedigree that stretched back to the early days of one the greatest companies in British motorcycle history. I sat and talked to jack about 25 years ago and don't know to this day why the story wasn't written up at the time. It's too good a tale not to be told...
Jack's father George joined Triumph in 1910 as Seigfried Betjeman's chauffeur and progressed to become a tester, riding for the company in the TT in 1913, 1914 and finally 1921, when he logged his best finish, 11th in the Senior race.
"I remember father telling me they had to open Keppel Gate and close it after them in the early days," said Jack. "In one race he crashed up on the Mountain, hit a telegraph pole and lay there for a quarter of an hour, got up and finished the race!" They were tough old boys racing over Snaefell in those days.
"He rode in the Continental Circus, travelling by train to the big European races in the 1920s and he won a gold medal in the 1920 International Six Days trial as a member of the factory team. Nine Triumphs started and nine won gold. He also did a 500 mile race at Brooklands and had a diploma signed by AV Hepplewhite (long-term timekeeper at the track). He went on to the Triumph car factory and won the International Alpine Rally three times in a Southern Cross model with a Coventry Climax inlet-overhead and side-exhaust valve engine.
"When the Triumph company went bust, the car side was sold to Standard and the motorcycle business to Jack Sangster. Dad remained with them, at Dale
