Earlier, in issue 13, I wrote about biking on the dole and life with a CZ125. Still unemployed and wondering why I'm living through the Thatcher nightmare I decided to take the plunge. No, not suicide or diving off Ramsgate pier, but to leave my fellow UB40 dole friends and become a despatch rider. After all, the ads in the Jobcentre pointed the way to £40 a week and aspirations of the brave new world - a world where you had money every day, not one day in fourteen if you were lucky. Up for sale went the CZ, first stage of the great restructure of my life.
Down to the Jobcentre, enthusiasm brimming over from nights of careful planning. Obstacle one, Jobcentre show no interest cos I’m a biker not a designer dumbo with a Filofax. On to the man at the Enterprise Agency. A right 18 carat Jeremy. Raise £1000 he quips. Oh yeah, dead easy that when you're unemployed. credit rating minus zero. Thanks Jerry, I'll be in touch. Maybe I ought to try the Listening Bank, they seem pretty good on TV. Oh, they listened, sniggered and then said no.
Enter a brainwave one night after several cans of Special Brew. And it came to pass... Shoestring Enterprises was born. After the sale of the CZ, I acquired a Honda 550/4 Super Sports with slight cosmetic damage after it fell over in last year’s hurricane. It ran, it looked OK and it was the main asset of Shoestring Enterprises. Indicators, points cover and bars were fitted from a CB400/4, with a little help from Hammerite the bike looked fairly respectable again.
The 550, although a little heavy, was perfect for despatch work, with fuel consumption around the mid forties. The front disc was a little suspect but it worked. The growl from the 4-1 proved too much for the MOT man - bribery, more bribery and more bribery still saw me with a failure ticket. Enter the UMG and the Free Ads - one quick phone call and Hey Presto one nearly new Marshall 4-1.
Armed with MOT, tax and insurance it was time to put the Shoestring Enterprise theory the test. Oh, bloody hell, what have I done? One weeks beer money on an advert and not a single phone call. Told you so, came the reply from the barflies when I finally managed to scrape enough dosh to get to actually go into said watering hole.
The 550 began to misfire, which turned out to be the air filter, itself a freer flowing pattern part - the jets hadn't been changed to suit and in certain weather conditions the mixture was too weak. It took some thought to figure that out which filled up some of the time waiting for the telephone to ring. The first time it rang it was a wrong number. What a let down. Back to reading the UMG. At last I had my first job, two small packages to an engineering works. I was like the cat that got the cream. Drinks all round, I’m a success. No way, the guy gave me a rubber cheque.
Disaster would be an inadequate word to describe the next chain of events. After parking to deliver a package at a ferry terminal, I emerged to see the bike half flattened and a French lorry driver gesticulating to customs men. You fucking wanker, I thought. A short lesson on insurance follows. Once the Old Bill let said FW drive onto the homeward bound ferry, I was immersed in much legal wrangling. Nine months later my 550 is still in the shed, written off unless a frame, two wheels and forks are suddenly imported from France.
I was determined to carry on with Shoestring Enterprises and purchased a Puch Maxi from a redundant YTS (young trainee slave) who was embarking on a career as a lager lout - he said "I'll drink ‘til I drop now it’s all day opening.” I was sorely tempted to join him, especially after being reduced to a Puch Maxi.
Remarkably, the little Puch was a tough old heap, hauling my 16 stone and a brass flywheel strapped on the carrier, all the way from Ramsgate to Ashford - nothing short of a minor miracle. A long round trip on one gallon of fuel was incredible. That little 49cc engine never missed a beat. It struggled on hills, it shuddered, it shook, but it carried on pulling me along. The handling left a lot to be desired, what with two inches of tread on slippery city roundabouts, but you can’t have it all, can you?
From Dial-A-Pizza to court case papers, I carried them all. But all good things come to an end and mine was in classic shoestring style. The faithful little Puch expired in a short fanfare of grinding alloy as the piston parted from the con-rod five miles from home.
Hitching a lift in a Reliant Robin van was bad enough for an upwardly immobile executive such as I was, but on the mat of my penthouse council flat was a letter from the Jobcentre, because I had signed off as I wasn’t moonlighting, honest. I swear on my faith in frog lorry drivers that I would've declared all earnings made by Shoestring Enterprises; after all, I was hoping for an eventual stock exchange listing.
Anyway, I managed to escape a public flogging or being made to clean Maggie's boots because the Jobcentre simply couldn't believe that anyone would embark on such a venture with a £19.50 Puch Maxi, But I did and Shoestring Enterprises will be back soon with a whole new fleet. Anyone out there got a Honda 50 or, better still, a frame, forks and wheels - and a pair of specs for a certain FW across the water
G.D. Bellamy