One piece at a time
In 1934, the writer Roald Dahl, aged 17 and in his last year at Repton public school in Derbyshire, owned a second-hand sporting twin-port Ariel 500cc single; these had been known as Red Hunters since 1932.
“The Ariel was first registered in 1948, and up to the early 1960s its creator enjoyed it, until the Ariel went into a shed, where it remained until the owner passed away in the late 1990s.”
It was kept at his home during term-time, but after Roald’s half-brother took it out, unauthorised, and broke its mascot, the future author hid the machine and his riding gear in a garage he had located near the school. Swathed in a helmet, goggles, scarf and old raincoat, Dahl had fun roaring through Repton town, once riding right past the sadistic headmaster, who glared at the noisy rider but never dreamed it was one of his pupils. So Dahl, a future Second World War fighter pilot as well as a world-famous children’s author, avoided a flogging and expulsion.
It had to be a Hunter, as these Ariels were the quintessential sporty singles of the mid-1930s. Edward Turner had visually tweaked Val Page’s soundly designed machines with high-level pipe (or pipes if the twin-port head was fitted),
