Keith Langley
2005-02-17 20:27:01 UTC
How old are you? Me, i'm 43 this year. Who had a moped & then got a 250 on
their 17th birthday.
Best years of my life i think, I lived in Dartford before moving to
Canterbury street Gillingham bed-sit land with my best pal Sean, we both
worked on the new (now old) Chatham ring road taking home about £85, more if
you did a Saturday morning. That was good money for a 17yr old. I had my
Suzuki GT250 & passed my test a week after my 17th birthday at Gravesend. I
wore the outfit of cowboy boots, Levi's & a black leather jacket with the
quilted red lining. We used to drink all over the Medway towns, pubs like
The Star at the top of Canterbury street, the weirdo pub halfway down,
Chatham chest, that poxy nightclub in the pentagon, Scamps i think it was
called. We often got into fights as you do but never really got seriously
hurt, part of growing up really. We shared a bedsit at 515 Canterbury street
which cost £24 a week in rent, we were nearly always skint by Monday after
spending all our cash over the weekend, we were soulmates, me & Sean went
everywhere together on my 250, i remember sawing the money box off the back
of the TV to pay the service bill on my bike which used to go into i think
Elliot Brothers down Canterbury Street. There we were two seventeen year
olds with no bothersome peers to interfere in our lives, a set of wheels &
cash on hip. We often used to go somewhere on the bike for the weekend or we
would just blast around the Medway towns or go up to Farthing corner
services for a 2am fry-up or rip down to the Little Chef on the A2 at
Cobham. Sometimes we would go for a cruise with the "Luton Bikers* who hung
out around er...Luton arches. I used to thrash that bike, not un-necessarily
though, she was looked after & i was a competent mechanic & into my 2-stroke
engines, i regularly had the engine out for another "mod" She died in the
end, i was racing another bike up the A2 & accelerating hard i missed a gear
& over revved & blew a hole in a piston, all the crap went into he crankcase
& scored everything making it scrap. Fortunately somebody stole it after i
left it in an un-lit car park so i could claim off the insurance & get
another one...every cloud has a silver lining as they say! Someone was
stealing undies off the lines around where our bedsit was, it was a maze of
little alleys. One day i saw a theft in progress & chased & caught the
knicker thief, i was gobsmacked when i saw he was about 14, i let him go,
until then i thought it was an old mans game. We shagged quite a few of the
local sorts, i knobbed the bird whose dad owned the sausage shop down
Canterbury St & some old biker bird whose violent boyfriend was doing 5
years, she was about 24 so it was quite a victory. We could often be found
in the Wimpy bar nr Gillingham train station, tucking into a Baconburger
special grill with beans, if flush then it would be the Prince of Wales in
Chatham for a Steak & chips, the rest of the week we would eat chips n beans
with bread but no butter, then payday would come.
Sean & i saved a few hundred pounds up, quit our jobs, gave up the bedsit &
set off for the giddy highs of Blackpool, we eventually ended up in Devon &
spending the summer there. After that i went to live in Manchester for 5
years & Sean went on to travel most of the world ....I got the bum deal!
Regards, K.
their 17th birthday.
Best years of my life i think, I lived in Dartford before moving to
Canterbury street Gillingham bed-sit land with my best pal Sean, we both
worked on the new (now old) Chatham ring road taking home about £85, more if
you did a Saturday morning. That was good money for a 17yr old. I had my
Suzuki GT250 & passed my test a week after my 17th birthday at Gravesend. I
wore the outfit of cowboy boots, Levi's & a black leather jacket with the
quilted red lining. We used to drink all over the Medway towns, pubs like
The Star at the top of Canterbury street, the weirdo pub halfway down,
Chatham chest, that poxy nightclub in the pentagon, Scamps i think it was
called. We often got into fights as you do but never really got seriously
hurt, part of growing up really. We shared a bedsit at 515 Canterbury street
which cost £24 a week in rent, we were nearly always skint by Monday after
spending all our cash over the weekend, we were soulmates, me & Sean went
everywhere together on my 250, i remember sawing the money box off the back
of the TV to pay the service bill on my bike which used to go into i think
Elliot Brothers down Canterbury Street. There we were two seventeen year
olds with no bothersome peers to interfere in our lives, a set of wheels &
cash on hip. We often used to go somewhere on the bike for the weekend or we
would just blast around the Medway towns or go up to Farthing corner
services for a 2am fry-up or rip down to the Little Chef on the A2 at
Cobham. Sometimes we would go for a cruise with the "Luton Bikers* who hung
out around er...Luton arches. I used to thrash that bike, not un-necessarily
though, she was looked after & i was a competent mechanic & into my 2-stroke
engines, i regularly had the engine out for another "mod" She died in the
end, i was racing another bike up the A2 & accelerating hard i missed a gear
& over revved & blew a hole in a piston, all the crap went into he crankcase
& scored everything making it scrap. Fortunately somebody stole it after i
left it in an un-lit car park so i could claim off the insurance & get
another one...every cloud has a silver lining as they say! Someone was
stealing undies off the lines around where our bedsit was, it was a maze of
little alleys. One day i saw a theft in progress & chased & caught the
knicker thief, i was gobsmacked when i saw he was about 14, i let him go,
until then i thought it was an old mans game. We shagged quite a few of the
local sorts, i knobbed the bird whose dad owned the sausage shop down
Canterbury St & some old biker bird whose violent boyfriend was doing 5
years, she was about 24 so it was quite a victory. We could often be found
in the Wimpy bar nr Gillingham train station, tucking into a Baconburger
special grill with beans, if flush then it would be the Prince of Wales in
Chatham for a Steak & chips, the rest of the week we would eat chips n beans
with bread but no butter, then payday would come.
Sean & i saved a few hundred pounds up, quit our jobs, gave up the bedsit &
set off for the giddy highs of Blackpool, we eventually ended up in Devon &
spending the summer there. After that i went to live in Manchester for 5
years & Sean went on to travel most of the world ....I got the bum deal!
Regards, K.