Shooting Starr!
It’s quite a road that leads from comprehensive school and technical college in Coventry, England, during the late 1950s and early 60s, through to making motorcycle films in, of all places, Hollywood – I mean, just ask Peter Starr!
“If I ever wanted to point a finger and say ‘it’s all your fault’, it would be at R.G. ‘Bob’ Gallon, my art class teacher at Caludon Castle Comprehensive School,” reflects Peter. We will let him go on without any further hindrance from me…
Yes, Mr Gallon raced a 350cc Clubman Gold Star, which he transported to races aboard a 1950 16H Norton with a sidecar platform carrying the revered Goldie. He would occasionally bring the outfit to school on a Friday before leaving for a racetrack. I, and others who had been bitten by the beauty of that beast, would drool as we gawked at it through the schoolroom window.
It was his fault that I would doodle images of Manx Nortons and MV Agustas while in my English literature class. The seed that led to a lifetime of enthusiasm for road-racing motorcycles was sown at age 14 and sprouted two years later when schoolmate Barry Eccles got a 125cc BSA Bantam at age 16. I
