PUB TALK

In a recent column about 1950s cyclemotors (RC208, August 2021) the homebuilt Busy Bee was mentioned. By pure coincidence, what should appear for sale in Old Bike Mart but one of those exact machines - PUB was sorely tempted to ring up and buy it, just for the rarity value (it wouldn’t even take up very much space). Fortunately she resisted.

Then at one of the of the Sunday meets she was offered copies of those build plans from Model Engineering by regular visitor ‘Merv’(PUB is not good at learning people’s names). It may provide interesting material for a future column perhaps. Sadly these meetings at Jacks Hill Cafe are no more, for the owner has closed the venue. It may not have the cachet of The Ace Cafe, due to its rural location and absence of legendary juke box racing (and death) on the North Circular for the journalists to sensationalise, but Jacks has as long (and more continuous) a history as a transport cafe and motorcyclists’haunt as its famous London counterpart.

In recent times it has been a very popular Sunday venue especially to PUB because it is suitably near for a morning ride, even on a veteran or cyclemotor, and then guaranteed company, especially when at a loose end or the winter weather was cold and miserable (it had to be very wet to