Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126801
The first Triumph Saint police model, with designer (and sener) Neale Shilton, in Copenhagen, Denmark. By Neale Shilton The Cathedrals of Coventry in England and Cologne in West Germany are probably the best known of all the famous churches in the world, thanks to the bombers which destroyed the first one but failed to wreck the other. Legend ha it that Allied aircraft spared the cathedral when they flattened Cologn~ 26 but the rruth is that the bombs which hit that vast Gothic edifice were not powerful enough to do more than superficial damage, though there was plenty of that. In 1940 with Teutonic thoroughnes the Heinkels and Dorniers saturated the center of Covenrry, them came back two nights later with fire bombs. Of the cathedral where I had ' sung Christmas carols with my school companions, only the shell remained. It still stands as it did then, and with a new cathedral built around it. Two hundred yards away a modern shopping center covers the deep-down debris of the old Triumph factory which shared the holocau t of November 1940. Many years later as I was riding through Covenrry on my way to the new Triumph plant at Meriden. the thought came to me that there could bea publicity story in a ridefrom one cathedral to the other on the new police machine which I had created :md to which I had given the name Saint - a conrrived abbreviation of the words Stop Anything In No Time which suited its image and which certainly fitted the publicity aim of a fa t ride between two famoL! churches. The idea was born in August and the International Motorcycle Exhibition wa to be staged the following month in Cologne. Arrival at the press preview the day before the show opening should ensure a paragraph or two, but only if [ ould make the journey in a few hours. An overnight trip involving a crosschannel boat would have no news value at all. I checked on air freight services over the channel and only one was suitable. It was scheduled from the small airport of Lydd on tile outh coast at 10:00 a.m. and timed to arrive at Liege in Belgium an hour-and-ahalf later, Liege to Aachen on the German border and then to Cologne along the two-lane autobahn would take around two hours so I should make the Press bar before it closed. The slow part of the journey would be through the sprawl of London from north to outh which takes as long as from Liege to Cologne. Total riding time from Coventry to destination I calculated at six-and-a-half hours so adding on the flight time meant that I would have to leave Coventry at6:ooa.m.to be in Cologne by 2:00 p.m. I went ahead with the plans accordingly, began preparation of the Saint and booked our places on the Bristol Freighter. A few evenings later I was in a village pub near my Stratford-on-Avon hOl1le and one of the local propping up the bar asked me about the Saint which was parked outside. I told him where it was going and he a ked if he could cover the tory for his newspaper. It was the Daily Mail, one of the big circulation English nationals. Not a big enough tory for the Mail I thought, but I did his journalistic ability an injustice. He and a photographer would be on the London road outside Coventry when I left, another picture man would be at Lydd airport, and one at Cologne. The simple story of a ride to Germany was built up to a headlined half 'page which appeared on the morning the exhibition opened. The hour in the village pub produced more ideas. I would carry a leuer of greetings from the Lord Mayor of Coventry to the Burgomaster oL Col gne and maybe the British.radio network would be interested in an interview to be put on the air the morning of my departure. This was to cau e me problem at Liege. The journey time schedule was a tight one and I was apprehensive about the London mile 0 I telephoned a friend at Scotland Yard and asked for the best route. That marked the beginning of a valuable service which the Yard gave to me many time on my rides through London to destinations on the Continent: a pilot es ort from theelite staff of the Police Driving School. The evening before my departure I had a recorded interview with the national radio corporation and appropriately enough it took place in their studio underneath Coventry Cathedral. It ended with the exhaust note of the Saint accelerating away through the center of the city. The tape was to be heard the next morning on a popular program "Today" hosted by a famous personality named Jack DiManiowhoaddeda few words of hi own about the pleasure of motorcycling at the middle age of man. The program went out at 7:00 a.m. and was repeated an hour later so that the sound of the Saint leaving Covenrry was first heard when I was in north London, and again when I wa beyond the tunnel under the Thames. The pre-dawn morning was dark and wet as I pushed the machine away from my home to the end of the lane where it joined the road to Warwick by the village war memorial. It was 5:00 a.m. and the residents in this quiet backwater of Shakespeare's England, retired lawyers and bank manager, had frowned when a motorcyc1istfirst moved into their peaceful rerreat. Neighborly relations were not improved when the Army Motorcycle Display Team of 20 riders came to my home a£Ler a performance at the County Fair. TwentyTriumphs without silencers sounded impressive. but at 5:00 a.m., which was the normal time for my long distance journey departures, it was desirable to leave quietly. I rode through the sleeping town of Warwick, past the old castle to Ken iIworth and a long the treelined road to Coventry. As I stopped at the foot of the cathedral steps two Police officers emerged from the shadows and handed me the envelope from the Lord Mayor. impressive with its embossed seal of the City Coat of Arms. We chaued for a while and the elder one talked of the night 18 years before when he was on duty as thefirst bomb fell. The clock in the bell tower chnned the hour of six as I kicked the Saint and started the 500mile journey. Ten miles out, as I slowed for the motorway junction, two figures stepped to the side of the road and a camera bulb flashed. My Daily Mail friend was at work. Water from the wheels of Londonbound trucks was blowing across the fast lane and I was glad I had fitLed a fuJI fairing. The lights of Northampton and Bedford came and faded behind and a dawn filtered through the rain clouds I turned off the motorway for my rendezvous with the Police escort. The blue lamp of his Triumph was f1a hing by the Wagon and Horses pub at a London suburb called Colney Hatch and this was to be the meeting point for future escorted rides. He was an old friend named Len Fariner who had ridden with distinction in International events and it was an education in riding skill to follow him. He waved farewell at the tunnel under the Thames and I headed south for Maidstone. the county town of Kent. It was on the three-lane road approaching the town that the ride came near to ending. An approaching car driver either misjudged my speed or did not see me at all unwthe La t moment. He pulled across the middle lane to LUrn into a side road and as I swerved to go outside him he turned back again directly into my path. I used all the road to miss him and a couple of other cars which left very Ii ule room to get by. [ knocked off my speed until the' pul e rate returned to normal. Atthe lillie grass infield airport of Lydd I had half an hour in hand for coffee whil t the Saint was .being loaded behind a Jaguar and [ had an interesting conversatipn with its driver. Would [ be interested in working for him? He was looking for an adventurous type to join him in his business of selling guns to African countries in general and the Congo territories in particular. His journey was to Bru sels to fix a big deal in automatic rifles and he gave me his business card. A year or two laler [ checked it against a newspaper report of a man on trial for illegal arms deal. [t was the same man. The Bristol freighter landed at Leige on time and I pushed the machine towards the Customs building where the document we;e cleared quickly. I was about to ask which way I should go to find the road to Aachen when I heard my name called, and I saw standing at the exit gate a group of motorcyc1i ts headed by my friend Max Noe the Triumph dealer in Leige. My rusty French was good enough to ask him how did heand the reception commiuee know that I was coming, and I apologizt'd for my discourtesy 'in not telling him. Max was the Belgian representative of The Triumph Owners Club of which I was President and one of the Liege members had hearq the morning radio program from England. Any ideas I had of gelling away quickly to Aachen were promptly altered by Max who insisted that the nearest bistro was the proper place to celebrate my arrival. The time was II :50 a.m. and I estimated that allowing 10 minutes in the bisrro I could make Cologne by 2:00 p.m. which would not be too late to find a few Press' friends in the bar. As far as I knew I was not expected by anyone but the photographer who was to take pictures for theMail so I was not on a deadline. I was wrong. In all of my travels in many counrries the company I have most enjoyed has been that of' motorcyclists. The comradery is international and bikes