by Iain Parke
As we headed into the open countryside, the line of bikes began to string out. The gang were all on bigger bikes. Seven fifties and upwards, mostly a mix of UJMs5 and some older Brit twins and back in the car park there had been the usual good natured joshing about Brit shit and Jap crap.
On the more open roads we came swarming up from nowhere in seconds behind cars that we caught, and barrelling past them, rocketing by in a wail of powerful noise without even slowing down.
But then in more twisty bits we might get caught up without the clear overtake, bunching up behind a car, all bright lights, chrome, noise and thunder just behind the driver’s back bumper, feeling the tension, the eyes in the rear view mirror, the kids in the back seat turning round to look open-mouthed, before the road straightened out again as we crunched down a gear and with a bawling scream of pure exhaust noise we launched ourselves past the outside of the car, tearing up the road again to the next bend.
Riding in a pack was completely different from riding on your own. As a rider on your own machine, you are still singularly alone, testing yourself, totally responsible for your own actions and how far you are able to push yourself. You against the road.
Yet at the same time there was both that feeling of invulnerability, of being part of something bigger, us against them, and that feeling of competitiveness with the other guys, As a pack you are always egging each other on.
At the back on my two fifty with Gyppo on my tail, I was having to scratch hard to keep up with the charging pack. And failing. So the times when we got caught behind something, bunching up into a jostling knot of bikes and power and noise, just waiting to be fired past the car’s windows at the first hint of a gap were great for me as they gave me a chance to catch up before the more powerful machines howled away again into the distance, stringing out into a line of glinting swerving disappearing spots as the road opened out. Finally on the last stretch, Gyppo pulled out and twisting the throttle, zoomed past me at probably ninety or so into the final bends leading up to the summit.
As I pulled into the Edgeside car park I must have had a grin a mile wide.
Most of the gang had dismounted and were already filing into the café. Gyppo and Tiny were standing by the row of bikes as I kicked down my side stand at the end of the line.
‘Not bad considering it’s a two fifty.’
‘You’re going to need to get yourself a bigger bike kid.’
I got the feeling that I had just passed another test.
*
And then we were off again, down the falling hairpin curves of the Edgeside pass and out towards the flat valley below.
Riding at the tail of the pack, for the first time in my life, I truly felt accepted in the company of men. I belonged.
I had become a tagalong.
Chapter 3 – THE PATCH
I sold the two fifty and just about anything else I could lay my hands on, lied through my teeth to get a loan, and two weeks later bought myself a second-hand silver Honda CB750F, the double overhead cam job. Gyppo gave me a lift over to the west coast to collect it. Heading out onto the road on it for the first time to follow him back, feeling the neck snapping surge of acceleration that could send the world around me into reverse, was like falling in love with biking all over again.
Over the next few months I gradually just drifted in, becoming absorbed into the gang. We weren’t a club back then so the process wasn’t as formal or structured as it is now, so in some ways I never went through the whole striker thing.
Instead I just hung around with Gyppo a lot, sat with them at the Golden Lion, tagged along on runs, joined them on parties.
Gyppo began dropping in at the flat for a smoke and a brew when he was out our way, or for when we fancied a session in the pubs around the village square where he could crash out overnight at our place.
Billy followed me in really. He sort of became my tagalong’s tagalong.
Billy was thin and lanky, scruffy with a pony tail and sheepish grin while his bones sort of looked too long for his body. He limped from a bad shunt he’d had, flying down a country lane on his first LC6 when a tractor with a trailer pulled right into a field in front of him. At close on a ton he hadn’t stood a chance. The bike smacked straight into the side of the trailer and Billy went over the bars, right across the top, and slammed onto the dirt on the other side. He spent nearly six months on his back with a smashed up pelvis, and another six months or so afterwards dealing with clips and catheters or some such shit every time he wanted a piss. He hadn’t bothered to take his test when the 250 ban came in, so rather than trade down to a 125 he just went out and bought an XS1100, the big shaft job. He reckoned the cops wouldn’t be bothering to check anyone on a bigger bike, they’d just assume he had a licence.
He started to ride at the back with me in a sort of threesome with Gyppo as our leader.
We were all brothers of course. But it was just a bit like Billy was my younger bro.
It was dumb really, we were the same age and all. It was just that he had always tended to follow me. I never really knew why and I don’t think he did really either. In many ways as a kid it ought to have been the other way round. He was the more fun of us, I was always the more serious. He was the one with the cheeky grin, the one who would have the balls to chat up the girls, I was the one who sat silent. He was the popular one, never valuing or putting any effort into friendships as they came so easily to him that he never thought about them, there was always another one coming along when one fell away, whereas I never put any effort into friendships as they never touched me. We were always a strange pair. I have no idea why it worked, why it started even, or why it endured so long. But it did.
To this day I still don’t know what I did for him, why I was the one friendship that lasted for year after year after year. I’m not sure he knew either, in fact I’m damn sure he didn’t. He wouldn’t have stopped to think about it for a minute. That’s not what Billy did. It was almost as if he felt that he could leave the being serious and silent and thinking to me while he had fun and just followed where I went. And so despite his success with the girls, his happy go lucky lifestyle, the fact that he so obviously didn’t need me, that you could drop him into any situation and he would just turn on those blue eyes and that smile and everybody would be falling over themselves to help him, I felt responsible for him. I worried about him.
Like I said, he was my brother. But he was like my younger brother who I felt I had to look after. Like he fucking needed it!
As we became more and more involved with our new lives within the gang, inevitably we drifted away from the other guys we had known before, and they started to drift away into jobs and careers and couples and kids and straight lives.
Sometimes we went back to Gyppo’s place.
And that was when I met Sharon again, when she opened the door that first time.
She was petite, slim and pretty, with medium length straightish chestnut hair framing her elfin features as it fell in a great curve to just above her shoulders, and soft hazel eyes that caught and held your gaze. Her delicate, almost boyish figure very feminine in a dark blue chiffon blouse embroidered hippy style with a mass of small white flowers, the material so thin that I could see right through it to the white top she had on underneath, a clatter of bangles at her wrist, tight faded blue jeans and leather moccasins. She was twenty-two, but with a shock I recognised her as she stretched up to kiss Gyppo as he came through the door.
Christ how couldn’t I have done? She had been in the year ahead of me at school and one of the girls that we had all fancied like mad without ever having a hope in hell of asking any of them out. I had an abiding memory of having seen her at a party I crashed once, one of those when I was doing my level best to get as blind drunk as possible, as quickly as possible. It was a sort of slow motion, bottom of the bottle image of her as she brushed a strand of hair away from in front of her face, as she turned away from talking to some hunk from the school football team
.
She was training to be an artist, their flat was decorated with her pictures, beautifully intricate compositions of light, colour and joy.
Gyppo introduced me and her smile was like the sun coming out. She had obviously heard the story.
‘Thanks for helping Gyppo out.’
And then, my God, she reached up and kissed me on the cheek.
*
Gyppo dealt. It was his main thing. He was a relatively small scale dealer but it made him a living and he always seemed to have access to a ready supply of dope or speed.
Billy and I were both doing odd jobs just to get money for petrol, beer and to buy blow from Gyppo, as well as to pay the rent; mainly a bit of despatch work for cash in hand. We were both signing on for some dosh, as was Gyppo of course.
We were scratching a living but he always seemed to have cash for smokes and drinks. So it wasn’t long before we were starting to deal in a small way for him, buying a few ounces and divvying it out in eighths at a time. After all, we were known to the guys out in the valley and to our contemporaries from school, we had the links into the club to get the stuff from Gyppo, so it wasn’t long before we had a reasonable network of customers to supply. But it was all still minor stuff; blow, a bit of whizz, the occasional experimental blotter acid that just made me rant continuously for twelve hours straight while drinking every drop of alcohol in the flat, from the beer through to the dregs of every bottle of spirits I could get hold of, apparently without any effect whatsoever.
Gyppo had really taken us under his wing. So when, after about three months of this, he pulled up outside one day, rang the bell and asked if we fancied coming for a ride to meet someone, we didn’t ask questions. We just grabbed our gear and mounted up.
He led us out across the countryside and down into town. But then instead of stopping, we headed out again, across the bridge and up the hill to turn right at the roundabout and down onto the fast sweeping dual carriageway heading east towards the city. Wondering where we were headed, Billy and I settled into the usual staggered formation to give ourselves some roadway behind him as we cruised at a steady eighty-five to ninety along the outside lane.
We parked up behind a rough looking pub in the terraced backstreets down where the shipyards used to be. We took off our lids and gloves and Billy as the most junior was delegated to stand watch over the bikes while I followed Gyppo inside.
It was one of those old fashioned working men’s pubs. All dark wood, scuffed lino, yellow stained ceilings, Guinness mirrors, frosted glass windows, cardboard hangings of KP nuts and pork scratchings and ripped vinyl upholstery.
It was also quiet as we walked in, our eyes adjusting to the relative gloom of the interior against the glare of the day outside.
Gyppo hadn’t said anything to warn me, so the sight of The Brethren patches bent over the pool table and sat on stools at the bar gave me a start. I just hoped that I hadn’t shown it as the door swung shut behind us.
But Gyppo was advancing into the room with a friendly ‘Hey Doggie!’ to the guy with the shaved tattooed head and spade beard just standing up from his shot at the pool table and looking round.
A smile spread across the guy’s face, ‘Hey, Gyppo, how’s it going?’ he said, sticking out a hand for Gyppo to shake.
‘OK mate, thanks,’ as the handshake transmuted into a short backslapping bear hug at The Brethren guy’s lead.
‘And you?’
‘Good, good. You here to see Dazza?’
‘Yeah. Is he about?’
‘Yeah. I think he’s next door.’ The outlaw nodded his head, indicating the door through to the lounge bar as his eyes wandered back to the table.
‘Cheers. See yah soon.’
‘No problem,’ he said bending back down to look for his next shot.
It was as though I didn’t really exist. I tagged along invisibly behind Gyppo as he headed across the bar. I guess I would speak when I was spoken to.
The lounge bar boasted dark and intricately patterned carpets and a series of banquet type booths, although I noticed that despite the upholstery fabric, the phantom seat slasher had been at work here as well.
Spreading his arms out wide in greeting Gyppo approached a figure at one of the tables who had looked up to check us out as we had opened the door, and was getting up to greet us, both arms outstretched.
Even without his name tag on his cut off and his VP title I had realised immediately that this had to be Dazza.
He was about six foot tall, aged thirty or so I guessed, with a dark stubbled broad face and high forehead. His hair was black, swept back long at the back down to his shoulders, but cut short and spiky on top. He had a barrel chest and thick, tattooed, and well-muscled dark-haired arms showed beneath his cut off and the tartan lumberjack shirt rolled up to his elbows.
His voice in growling a welcome to Gyppo was deep and measured. He had presence.
As they disengaged from their hug and we stood before him, Gyppo introduced me. ‘Dazza, this is Damage. He’s working for me now.’
I stuck out my hand silently and without a word he took it in a firm dry handshake.
Then with a gesture he indicated that we should take a seat.
So then I found out where Gyppo sourced his stuff.
*
I was his right-hand man. So I spent more and more time with him. And that inevitably meant I spent more and more time with Sharon as well.
We spent any number of evenings together, the three or sometimes four of us if Billy was there. Smoking joints, listening to music, drinking beer, getting quietly peacefully wasted together until one evening merged pretty much into the next.
There were other girls hanging around the gang of course, and Billy went after them like mad, but I never did. I had chances of course, some of them made that pretty clear. And you would have thought that would have been something I would have jumped to take advantage of. But somehow I was never interested.
And the reason was Sharon.
I didn’t understand our relationship, or wasn’t even certain that we actually had one at that stage. She was Gyppo’s girl. They were together. Any idiot could see that. There was a depth of feeling and intimacy there between them that I could only ever stand outside of, I could not hope to break it, or break into it, even if I had wanted to, which I didn’t.
They were Gyppo and Sharon, my friends. They were happy together and I was happy for them.
But still I ached for her.
I wished that she would look at me in the same way that she looked at him.
*
With more of us in the club dealing in a small way, we all started to need to have some space for business that we would have to be able to defend from anyone who wanted to muscle in on our turf. It was this as much as anything that led us to patch up. With patches that identified us as a club we could mark out our area, we could let people know who they were messing with if they started to deal in our territory.
And so within about a year and a half of my first starting to ride with the gang, we became The Reivers MC, named for the cattle rustling robber clans that had made Northumberland and the borders such a badland of fortified houses and pillaging raids for centuries.
Tiny and Gyppo went to see Dazza first to check out with The Brethren. After all, as the existing senior club in the region we had to respect their position in setting up a new patch club. But this wasn’t a problem. Dazza as both VP and acting P, while the P was on remand, was an enthusiastic supporter. And after all, why shouldn’t he be? It wasn’t as if a local stand alone patch club out in the sticks were ever going to be any kind of a threat to The Brethren.
Quite the reverse in fact, particularly for Dazza. He was already dealing with Gyppo, me and Billy, as well as a few others. The better we were able to move stuff, the more stuff of his we moved. And the more of us that were dealing, the more of us he would come to supply. After all, The Brethren in the city with whom we had good relations were the obvious pla
ce for any of our guys to get stuff to sell. And if you were getting stuff from The Brethren, really you were getting it from Dazza.
All in all I guess that Dazza saw this as a great opportunity to build himself a support club out our way to expand his business.
Looking back I wonder if he had even then been playing the longer game. How far ahead had he been thinking?
Patching up gave us an increased feeling of solidarity. Before as a relatively loose riding gang, particularly one spread over such a wide area, people drifted in and out, you were never quite sure who was fully in, and who was out. Now it was clear. If you were in you belonged, you had the colours and the club tattoo. If you weren’t, you didn’t.
I was in.
And with pride in the colours came an addiction to respect. It was all about belonging.
As a group we had always generated a reaction when people saw us together. But now with the patch it stepped up to a whole new level of response. Of fear. Of wariness. Of respect.
We were a mix of ordinary guys; some of us worked out on farms, a lot were self-employed as mechanics, drivers or in the building trade, and a few like me and Billy and Gyppo basically made a living from dealing. But I could feel it when I was out in my colours. The different way people treated you. Wearing the colours we weren’t just some scumbag bikers. We were part of The Reivers, to be treated as such.
We all came to just accept it as our due, for the dues we had paid.
So then we came to expect it as a matter of right. And if you didn’t show it we wanted to know why and what you were trying to prove. We weren’t just individuals now that we had our patches, we were representatives of the club. We had to protect the club’s honour, and to be seen to do so, otherwise any punk might try it on.
Any so any trouble now called for an all out response, on behalf of the colours.
And for Gyppo, me, Billy, and any of the others who were dealing it had another advantage too. As we went on we built up a network of other small time dealers we supplied to. And very few people were stupid enough to try and rip off or burn a patched club member over a drugs deal. If you were dealing with a Reiver, you paid your bills. In cash. In good notes. Or you paid the price.