Bury St Edmunds historian Martyn Taylor takes a look back to the wartime days when a bike was a valuable commodity
American serviceman John Appleby, in his delightful book A Suffolk Summer, recounts riding around the local countryside on a Green Hornet bicycle . . . here is another such tale on this mode of transport.
My father could turn his hand to carrying out repairs to furniture, tools etc and was a dab-hand at repairing bicycles.
During the latter part of World War Two he would cannibalise two or three old bikes and make a reasonably good usable machine and my older brother Eddy, who would have been 14 or 15 then, would take these ‘rejuvenated’ modes of transport over to Rougham airfield base where they were highly prized by the ‘Yanks’. Their worth would be whatever they were prepared to pay.
They were popular because they could cycle into town, have a beer, enjoy jitterbugging, and be back at base as their comrades were just arriving in the town having walked there. The bikes became known by the American military as ASPs – ASP standing for All Spare Parts!
Cycling has taken off in the last few years, with dedicated cycle lanes appearing here, there and everywhere – though not all of them successful, as a coned-off section of Risbygate Street has proven.
As an alternative to the motor vehicle, bicycles are not only cheaper to run but also good for your health, we are told, fitness an important part of today’s society. And in Bury we have been well catered for even from the earliest days: Thomas Henry Nice at 34 Buttermarket, Ray Minns in St Andrew’s Street North, Scotts in Brentgovel Street to become Halfords (now in Robert Boby Way) and Cycle King on Angel Hill.
- Martyn Taylor is a local historian, author and Bury Tour Guide. His latest book, Going Underground: Bury St Edmunds, is widely available.