Roger Grimstead

Roger Grimstead commenced working for cousin Eddy at his bicycle and moped shop in Burdett Road, Limehouse, London E17 in 1958. Eddy had previously opened this shop with the help of his father, using money saved from his time in National Service.

Sharing the same grandfather, Roger and Eddy were following in the footsteps of their joint grandfather and Eddy’s own father in running a bicycle shop. Eddy worked on the bikes and Roger focused on the mopeds (Note: at the expense of causing confusion and for the sake of clarity, both Eddy’s father and his grandfather had the same Christian name).

Here’s Roger’s abbreviated story:

THE FIRST GRIMSTEAD SCOOTER

“One day a bloke came in the shop and asked Eddy if he wanted to buy his 125 Vespa scooter? ‘Interested in scooters? Don’t know?’ said Eddie, who was mixing cement at the time. ‘No, we don’t sell scooters.’ I overheard this, interrupted and said to the customer: ‘We might not buy it, but we could sell it for you.’ He agreed, so I stuck it outside the shop on the kerb, put a ticket on it for £25 and sold it the same day. We gave the original customer £12, so he was happy. We were happy with the 100% profit. That’s how it’s done. Yippee! We then started looking for more used scooters and mopeds, most purchased from other dealers who didn’t want the aggravation of used motorised bikes.

“The rest is history and we later became avid scooter dealers, but didn’t forget our roots, as we were still selling tons of bicycles and used motorised m machines up to 250cc.

“Later that year we took on our first Lambretta agency. Eddy also obtained the lease for the next door shop (once a butchers). It was opposite Abbot's coal yard, about 100 yards from the Eastern pub in East India Dock Road. I gutted it, put a new front in, built a big workshop at the rear, and knocked the wall down between the two shops (after fitting an RSJ) to open it out.”

After all Roger’s efforts of knocking down walls and wielding a paint brush, it was unfortunate that