Eh Lad, would you believe it, me Dad on TTWebsite...Thanks folks.

He was very much in "at the beginning" and I have a separate "vast collection" of my Dads photos, race programmes and all of his press coverage. I have some of his trophies here as well !

He was the tallest successful speedway rider of his day and has only been beaten fairly recently by a Russian rider. Some race/lap records still stand to my Dad because the tracks closed down !!

He knew Johnny Hoskins personally and rubbed shoulders with the other big names. Strange though, he dedicated six months of the year to speedway the rest of the time he was working in his Uncles business as Sales director in Turveys of Sunderland then Youngs of Chester le Street. Dad gave up when I came along, besides there was a war starting (Wozn't me !) I think because he was classed as a "part-timer" he didn't get even more publicity. He was invited to ride for Wembley but concentrated on Gosforth Park and Brough Park, both in Newcastle upon Tyne.

I have so much in my loft, I would like to document my Dads history but it would be "War and Peace" sized volume.

I have the inaugural programme for each speedway circuit in the north of England. Every major town had its own track and crowds were sometimes bigger than the football lot of then and in some cases as big as stadiums of today. You see they didn't have TV in them there days so the only other thing to keep them in the house was s** (I'm told).

The link on the posting above is good since I have contributed copies of early programmes to that site. I have a number of books from that era, some written by Johnny Hoskins and I have a rare book about Bluey Wilkinson, Jan !

I never saw Dad race but in the 50s he bought three big boxes of bits. These he built up into a beautiful original longitudinally-engined Douglas Speedway machine which he tried out on our local fell and then sold it to one of the top sandracing sidecar racers who strapped a sidecar on it and won everything for a few years. I wish I knew where this machine ended up !

If anyone wants any further info don't hesitate to contact me........................I don't charge a lot !!