The Isle of Man and 59 Club BBQ 2003 Queens Hotel - Laxey The usual Bennett trip to the Island started on practice week, with a bit of apprehension about what bike we would be on. The new Blackbird outfit which seemed a good idea in the winter was taking a little longer to finish than I thought, could be the fact that I decided to fabricate the forks chassis and sub-frame myself instead of buying it, mainly because nobody would make what I wanted. The Friday before we left I was still bolting bits on and the drive up to the ferry was a bit of a road test, the outfit was a little faster (Actually a lot faster) than I thought it would be and also a lot bumpier due to the low profile car tyres. (or the high-profile road bumps - Ed) The Ferry was actually there and I loaded straight on for a smooth trip to Douglas, Yvonne and Harriet had stayed with Gary and Sandra the night before and flew up from City Airport to the Island. They met me on the prom and then we unloaded the sidecar (how did I bring everything on a solo ! ). We did our usual lap ,Yvonne commented on how much faster we seemed to get around but I said it was her imagination, Harriet was also sliding about so we had to go to B&Q for a coach bolt as an additional handle on the back. Practice week was going well until one day we left our digs to get some shopping, when we came back the road was shut , me being me, I moved the sign over and drove up to our holiday flat, only for it to look like the road in front the place was from an Arnie film. A Calor gas tank had split, the liquid gas had run down the drain which then ignited and had blown up two gas mains, the car sitting where my bike was parked was a molten mass, so were two others. This all made the front page of the local papers, my lucky day! We met all our old friends over there, Ian and Bob our Tesco Breakfast buddies, Johnny Ace our man who does the rock and roll disco at the BBQ and many more besides like Wendy, Peter Watts, Del and even Cooky (Mike Cook) and lots more 59’ers old and new.
Mike 'Cowboy' Cook Steve, Heather, Stephanie and Robin came over the same time as us and brought all the bulky stuff over in the car, they stayed in a lovely cottage in Peel until moving to St Johns. The sad note for us was Steve had a phone call early in the week to say to that, Nigel Harrison, who was a close friend and usually came with us, instead he had decided to go to Spain this year and had collapsed and died on the steps of his hotel. He will be missed by the Members that knew him, at 47 and just having passed his pilots medical, it was a real shock to us all . An old friend of mine John Pitt, was in the classic lap on an ex-Bill Ivy 125 Honda so we went to see him in Castletown and had a good chinwag. It was soon time for the 59 Club BBQ on the Thursday, at the Queens Hotel in Laxey, with mine host Jim. Much thanks to the Moddy Dhoo, Ian and co for their help, they always supply the food do the cooking and help make this what it is. Johnny Ace turned up with all the music as always once again we couldn’t do it without him . A good night was had by all, old and new members, Heather and Wendy did the memberships, thanks to John Ryan the Webmaster for the name tags and free sticky labels, not sure if Peter putting two in a strategic position on Heathers chest were what they were intended for!
Look forward to seeing you all at next years do. Dick, Yvonne and Harriet Bennett (All aboard Harriets Chariot Mach 2)
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