Memories of Kippax Scooter Club 1974

Kippax Scooter Club 1974.

I was lucky enough to be a member of the original KSC in 1974. There were quite a lot of scooters around then and it just seemed the logical thing to do was to get a scooter.

Phil Varley, Mick Adams and a few others already had scooters and the first thing I did when I turned 16 was to buy a Lambretta TV 175, actually I say ‘buy’ -  this lad at Horbury, Wakefield, actually gave me it. To be honest it hardly ever ran, but I’d bet it would bring in a few bob these days. My first proper scooter was a velvet blue SX 150 reg no WWU 107G. I paid £68 to a bloke from Scholes, Leeds who’d advertised it in the Yorkshire Evening Post Classified.

I adored it. I would sit on my doorstep when it was getting dark, start it up, put the lights on and then just sit and look at it. Of course I added a million mirrors, front and rear crash bars, a fishing rod for an aerial, couple of little flags  and the obligatory tassels hanging from the handlebars. I passed my test on this scooter.

It was inevitable that a scooter club would be formed in Kippax and when that happened it just grew from strength to strength.

The sound of scooters was everywhere.

There isn’t a finer sight anywhere in the world even to this day, than a long line of scooters cruising to their next destination. I would ride in line as proud as punch in my Stadium or Centurion helmet, Elvis type chrome sunglasses and black and white checked racing gloves. And of course the Parka.

The furthest we ever went to was Scarborough, but there were regular rides to York, Knaresborough, Stamford Bridge and Tadcaster where a lot of our members met girls that they are still with today, Les and Viv etc.

The club was always growing and our ‘club mechanic’ Derek (Chazzle) Chaplin was always kept busy as scooters needing a bit of TLC would pull into the garages at the bottom of our estate - this was our ‘den’. Derek is still with the thriving KSC today.

Cheekily every now and again a car owner would pip his horn to get into his own garage, so a dozen or so scooters would have to begrudgingly move. 

Every other Wednesday night there would be a disco at the Old Tree in Kippax and we would be joined by the Red Lion Scooter club from Leeds city centre.

The following week we would ride out to their pub, although the pub these days has changed clientele somewhat and these days is known as the ‘Pink Pussy’.

Other clubs at the time were of course the Central, the Gemini and many others including Emanon (no name spelt backwards).

There was a lot of rivalry between bikers and scooters in those days and in the summer of 1976, the KSC visited the famous bikers haunt Sherburn Coffee Bar. Around 100 scooters left the Royal Oak in Kippax and headed for Sherburn.

To be honest, scooters outnumbered bikes by at least 4 to 1 and there wasn’t any trouble, that was until we decided to leave and then the back dozen or so scooters got a clout, including me! I received a black eye and my beautiful LI 150 was nursing a badly dented panel. Next day it was on all the regional television news programmes.

I later got myself a nice SX 200, it rattled a bit, but by, could it shift.

There then followed an influx of hundreds of yellow Jet 200 Lambrettas with black stripes, whizzing up and down.

For some unknown reason other than you could drive it on a bike license, I bought myself a Reliant. But that tipped over on a bend, then it later blew over, so I got myself something safer and open top - another scooter – a black and chrome GP 200.

Over 30 years down the line I still miss my scooters.

One day. ( Gary Edwards ) Author of Paint it White etc, Leeds United No 1 Fan. (buy it here)