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From Cyril's memoirs dated 21 January 2006

When an office junior at Ariel Motorcycles in the 1950s, it was decided I should be sent to investigate one of our dealers in nearby Solihull in Birmingham. They were suspected of rum shenanigans and I was to apply for the post of trainee mechanic, a position which, if I got it (I did), would enable me to report back to head office. I had my misgivings and didn't want to be what might now be termed a 'grass', but I had little choice if I was to keep my job.

JL Morris was a long-established dealer set in crumbling Victorian buildings in a dingy back street. JL 'Jimmy' Morris himself stayed mainly in the ramshackle office at the side of the showroom floor. My immediate boss, in fact the only other employee, was Charlie Hake, a 50-something mechanic of dubious morals and questionable hygiene. My introduction to Charlie came on my first morning. I was in need of the toilet and was directed by Jimmy Morris to the privy in the yard. I opened the door and there was Mr Hake, boiler suit around his ankles, hunched over his manhood in furious activity. I must have stood there for a couple of shocked seconds, long enough to prompt Charlie to say, 'Look kidda, either come in and gimme a hand or shut the bloody door.' I shut the door.

Over the coming weeks it became clear why the motorcycles being sold at JL Morris were ill-prepared and often displayed a bewildering array of faults and bodges. Charlie Hake simply couldn't keep his hands off his wedding tackle long enough to get any work done. His trips to the toilet were frequent and when not actually pleasuring himself he'd be talking about sex in all its forms while tweaking feverishly at his overalls. It was certainly an education for me and while it was many years before I learned the correct names for certain depraved acts, I soon became well versed in the vernacular.

Now, Jimmy Morris had a tan boxer bitch called Honey, which was allowed to roam freely throughout the workshop. On too many occasions to put down to chance, the dog would be missing at the same time as Charlie Hake. It was decided that the clinching evidence needed to get rid of Charlie was to catch him on camera in flagrante delicto with Honey the dog. So HQ supplied me with a Kodak Brownie and a flash cube.

Over the next few days I watched carefully when Charlie and Honey disappeared. It turned out he was leading the dog to a store room at the back of the workshop. What puzzled me was why this poor creature followed so willingly.

It was a Friday afternoon when I decided to take the plunge. I'd already planned my photo-assault, greasing the hinges of the store room door so I could ease it open without a tell-tale creak. Indeed, when the time came it opened silently and with the door ajar I could hear vigorous licking and slurping and already my mind was several steps ahead, awash with images of strange congress. On top of that there was a sickening smell of what I can only describe as warm meat. My stomach churned as I eased the door further open and carefully peeped inside. The scene before me was beyond anything I'd imagined. There lay Charlie Hake, flat on his back, overalls around his ankles, eyes closed in rapture as his arms reached back to grip the forks of a 1951 Square Four. Honey was paying close attention to his John Thomas with her big pink tongue, and why? It was smeared liberally with dog food. Suddenly there was a groan, Honey's lick rate increased, I pressed the shutter, scarpered, jumped on my Red Hunter and high-tailed it back to HQ.

The picture proved enough to get Charlie Hake the sack, and I believe the original print hung around at the Ariel offices for many years, being brought out at Christmas parties and the like. In retrospect, I do feel a little sorry for Charlie as his only wrongdoing, in my eyes, was the bodging of the bikes. I mean, who hasn't, at one time or another when feeding Tiddles or Fido, glanced at that marrowbone jelly and felt a flicker of mischief? Have I said too much?

Invention and insanity make cosy bedfellows

From Cyril's memoirs dated 27 August 2005

Ah, innovation! Motorcycles have often led the way in the search for more power, less weight and greater efficiency and the man in the street is lucky enough to be presented with the polished result of many years' research (there are some dishonourable exceptions, of course, such as Morbidelli's hilarious V8 and poor old Bimota's ill-judged V-Due). But over the years I've seen great men brought to their knees by the immense strain of research and development, and I’ve witnessed projects which, frankly, can only have been the fruit of troubled minds.

You may remember me telling you of Peter Cartwright, he of shaven dog and V5 lawnmower infamy. Well, on release from psychiatric hospital Peter was, for many years, shunned by the motorcycle industry and he hit rock bottom, his considerable engineering skills pitifully wasted in the sewage industry. However, in 1986 Peter won a Guild of Mechanical Engineers competition to develop an alternatively-fuelled power unit, the winning engine to be fitted in a new Honda-designed road bike. This was an exciting project for Peter, but I’m sorry to say that the results were predictably disastrous.

Things seemed to start well enough, but when no one had heard from him for a month, and following complaints from neighbours about the smell, police broke down the door to Peter's semi-detached house in Crawley. They were driven back by the stench and flies. Years in the sewage industry had influenced Peter’s thinking in a shockingly direct manner and, convinced he could create an engine to run on gases produced by composting human faeces, he’d got himself into
rather a mess.

Never the tidiest of workers, much of Peter’s carpets and walls were smeared in his ‘wonder fuel’. His own body’s production being insufficient for his experiments, health inspectors found what can only be described as an innovative but ultimately rather disturbing ‘turd catcher’ installed in the manhole in his garden so as to harvest his neighbours' motions. Dear oh dear. Peter still writes to me from his secure accommodation, but I've always handled the letters carefully since he will insist on using a distinctive brown ink.

And Yamaha's Deltabox chassis, now deservedly an icon, had a painful development. Though the history books show the preliminary Alphabox and Gammabox frames, we never hear of the mysterious Betabox. And with good reason. The Betabox shunned early work on a perimeter frame in aluminium and instead looked to do away with metals altogether, favouring modern plastics (though we're talking modern by early 1980s standards). Barry Sheene, a skilled mechanic and development rider, was involved in the first serious tests of the Betabox chassis at a secret session at Pau in France. When the engine reached full working temperature the plastic frame, while not exactly melting, certainly became worryingly pliable, bending alarmingly. By the time the bike returned to the pits it resembled a pregnant sow, its midriff sagging until the belly pan was almost on the floor. Sheene dismounted and summed up the future of the Betabox in his beautifully direct style, saying, "The Betabox? It’s not even stiff enough to f*** the designer up the arse with it." Barry had a great way with words.

Then there was the time a certain German manufacturer experimented with a new type of seat foam for extra comfort over long distances. However, it turned out that this foam, a by product of the sap of the South American quilombo tree, gave the 20-strong team of test riders such a fearful rash and inflammation 'down below' that it was branded the sitzenscrotenscratchenbloten (how do those Germans keep it so succinct?). Once the testers were released from the clinic they made a ceremonial bonfire out of all the known saddles and topped it off with an effigy of the seat’s chief designer. However, the intended celebratory atmosphere was rather tempered by the fact that everyone was still rather sore and those not hobbling about with an exaggerated John Wayne gait were sat on medical rings filled with cooling gel. Add to that a blaring soundtrack of the finest German heavy metal and I have to say it’s not the best barbecue I’ve ever been to.

Finally, I must mention the ill-fated Ariel Aqua-Skoot. Oh yes, wet bikes and jet skis are now commonplace, but when Edward Jones took to Coniston Water on a June morning in 1955 he was breaking new ground. Unfortunately, he also broke his neck in an effort to control the 500lb monster as, taking on water at a disastrous rate and the 600cc four-stroke twin revving to the heavens, it careered towards a family picnicking on the shore. His shrieks warned them in time, but the impact of his face with the family-sized pork pie was such that he had to be formerly identified by a tattoo of Norman Wisdom on his right buttock. Mind you, a by-product of the research into the Aqua-Skoot can be found today in the weather-proof seal used under the starter button on Suzuki’s GSX-R1000. So old Eddy’s death wasn’t completely in vain.

The anti-lock brakes debate takes Cyril back to his involvement with two very different development projects 40 years apart

From Cyril's memoirs dated 21 May 2005

Anti-lock braking is becoming a contentious issue as companies such as Honda fit it as standard. To some it’s a comfort, yet others consider that it robs them of ultimate control. My personal involvement with ABS brings back rather bad memories.

However, before I begin, I’d like to say that development work wasn’t always traumatic. In the summer of 1951 I was just 15 and an office lad at Ariel. Final testing was underway for a double-adult sidecar developed in conjunction with Watsonian and when the chance arose to attend a session at the test track I seized it with both hands. My duties involved no more than acting as ballast in the sidecar during laps of the course. Riding the 1000cc Square Four was chief tester Bill Jenkins and I was in the fully-enclosed chair with development engineer Stan Chesterton, a large man in his late 50s with a bushy, grizzled moustache stained by snuff.

I’ve always respected the impenetrable methods employed by these men of mathematics and on this occasion, however strange it may have seemed to my young mind, Mr Chesterton required weight distribution to be shifted each lap just before crossing the rippled, eyeball-shaking pavé section. I had to rise from my seat and sit squarely on his lap facing away from him while he gripped my waist tightly for stability. I recall it being vaguely uncomfortable because of the small torch in Mr Chesterton's trouser pocket, which, he told me, he always carried 'just in case'.

This methodology, and the fact that I was required to wear nothing more than swimming trunks, may seem unconventional in today’s computer-driven world and as a naive teenager I could only guess at the good I was doing. But, as a breathless Mr Chesterton explained, he was receiving a lot of extremely satisfying feedback and a mere 212 laps later our work at the track was complete. Mr Chesterton seemed utterly spent, such, I imagined, were the complex calculations he'd been working on in his mind. It was good to know that, in a small way, I had helped in the birth of what became the best-selling sidecar of 1952 – the Intruder Senior.

But back to braking. Many years later, in the early 1990s, I worked for a major bike firm that was experimenting with ABS (my lawyers insist that the company remains nameless). BMW and Honda had ABS-equipped bikes on the market and we were keen to get on the bandwagon with a tourer based on a bike not unlike the GSX1100F.

We took the prototype to the Lucas research department’s skid-pan near Coventry and present that day was myself, chief engineer Keith Armstrong, the test rider Chris Allworth and, to record his observations, Keith Armstrong's secretary Marjorie Priors. It was an open secret that Keith and Marjorie enjoyed a little extra-curricular activity, and common knowledge that Keith and chief test rider Chris Allworth hated each other's guts.

For some reason, Chris decided that outriggers – to prevent the bike flipping onto its side on the slippery surface – were unnecessary. I think his exact words were, ‘Are you suggesting I’m some sort of poof?’ It seems daft now, but none of us realised just how slippery a wet skid-pan could be.

I heard Chris in the distance, counted up three gears and remember thinking that it would surely set him far too fast. He must have been doing 70mph when, as per correct procedure, he slammed on the front and rear brakes simultaneously and pulled in the clutch. The GSX hit the floor like a wet kipper. Bike and rider separated and slid on for 100 yards, coming to rest 25 feet from where we stood. Marjorie let out a scream and we all rushed to help Chris, lying flat on his back and very still, like a giant leathery starfish.

I’m sure you all know the frozen pond scene in Bambi. Well, Keith and I were in leather-soled shoes and Marjorie in heels, so none of us were suited to running on a surface with a friction co-efficient less than ice. Marjorie went down first, lurching forward, then back, arms flailing before landing with an almighty thud on her well-padded rump. The jolt was enough to dislodge her false teeth uppers, which skittered across the skidpan. Mortified, and desperate to get up, she grasped at Keith’s trousers, pulling them to his knees as his braces twanged and sending him into a crazy dance that ended in him landing on all fours, trousers like manacles around his ankles. I have to say, we were all rather surprised, except perhaps for Marjorie, to see a 52-year-old man wearing tight black satin briefs.

Chris sat up, pointing and laughing uncontrollably. Years of bad feeling came to the surface and a furious Keith lunged for the doubled-up Chris, who was struggling for breath between sobs of mirth. At that point, I was still standing and felt that I had to step in, but immediately trod on Marjorie’s top set, which snapped in two. I completely lost my footing, fell on my face and, rather appropriately, knocked out both my front teeth, one of which I must have swallowed as we never found it.

Still, my misfortune seemed to diffuse the situation. Chris, now uncontrollably amused by my gap-toothed expression, was in a panic to relieve himself and left the skidpan on hands and knees, guffawing like a braying donkey. Keith retrieved his trousers and poor Marjorie, broken choppers wrapped in a tissue in her handbag, left the bottom set in place, giving her a strange look reminiscent of that scrawny dog on That’s Life which said ‘sausages’*.

All of which is perhaps why to me the letters ABS have never signified anything more than A Buggering Shitstorm.

*Prince the dog on That's Life