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LETTER OF THE ISSUE
The lost overland
The SBS documentary The Last Overland recreating the 1955 Oxford & Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition in a Land Rover got me thinking about the similar journey my uncle Johnny and his mate Albert Cannon from Seymour did on their motorbikes in the same year.
Their plan was to ride across the continent to London then ship the bikes to the USA, visit my aunty in Texas before returning home to Australia. My uncle was riding his 500cc Norton Dominator, not sure what Albert was riding. Unfortunately, their trip was cut short in central France around Gennes when they were hit by a truck while repairing a puncture – my uncle was tragically killed and Albert was hospitalised with injuries.
There is very little information in my family about the journey, just a couple of stories my father told me: one about them hitting a cow in India and having to sneak out of town to cross the
