Swingers

“Over to your right, miss, next in line. Take your luggage with you.”

I mentally shrugged my shoulders and followed the instructions. Parking the bike in the assigned spot, I waited while the bike was secured for the ferry trip.

I got off my trusty F2 Honda and took off my helmet. I noticed the guy shake his head when he had a sly glance in my direction. With the full-face helmet and my longish hair trailing out of it, I’m often taken for a girl, but the wispy beard that appears when the helmet comes off shows that I’m well and truly a guy.

I’ve been riding for several years, now, and this trip is one I’ve taken for a few years, my annual pilgrimage to the Isle of Mann. I got interested in racing in my teens, building a bike to take on the world at any racetrack within reach. Unfortunately, even though I was wringing everything I could out of a 500cc BSA, it wasn’t competitive,

One day, as I sat in the pits at a meeting, my motor in bits beside me, never going to be running this weekend, a sidecar rider asked me if I had any experience ‘in the chair’. I hadn’t, but I told him I was willing to give it a try. His usual passenger had been suddenly called home to make sure his wife was taken to hospital to give birth, having started a few days too early.

As we walked to his pit, he told me that I was chosen because I was tall and skinny, the height being a plus by getting the weight of my head out from the bike, the skinny bit good because it meant that the bike wouldn’t have to haul my weight around. Before we went out to the track, I was instructed in the art of ‘swinging’, the word that sums up what a passenger does.

I found out that it is the swinger that really makes the bike go round corners, do it wrong and you crash. When it was time to get out on the track, we did a few laps slowly as he shouted at me, telling me where I should be. We got faster, and faster, and I was bouncing from side to side like a gorilla. The last couple of laps were enough to make me sweat, and they had me hooked. On the Saturday afternoon, we had two races and we got better each time.

The fields, back then, weren’t big, or sophisticated. There was a mixture of bike types, from the ‘ride it to the meeting’ machines that then had the lights and other bits removed to go racing, to the more specialised and purpose-built machines. Like the one my new friend, Basil, owned. It was, I discovered, a Windle frame with a 500cc Triumph motor, tuned to within an inch of its life. It was very low, and, during one of the races, I found myself with my head only inches from the track, looking at the boot of the rider of one of the conventional bikes as we went past him on a corner. That was scary and exciting at the same time.

I had driven to the meeting in an old Transit van, so, that evening, I made up my bed on an air mattress and reloaded my BSA chassis and a box of engine parts, before going to the clubhouse for a meal. I sat with Basil and a few of the outfit teams and listened to them swap stories. I was told that I had done very well, for a novice swinger, and that the Sunday races should see me able to hold my own, if we didn’t crash!

Sunday morning, I had a flannel wash and joined the others for breakfast. We had a session on the track, early in the morning, and then another three races during the day. At the end of racing, I was ready to go home when Basil came over and asked me to stay to see the presentations. It was a complete surprise when we found that we had enough points to be third in our class. Basil and I had to go up and collect our trophies, my first one!

Before I went home, we exchanged phone numbers and Basil said that he would get in touch regarding the next meeting, should I be interested. Interested! I was hooked.

At home, I unloaded the BSA and put it up on a stand to work on. I still had all the road-going equipment and was now certain that it would go together as a quick road bike. My workshop was in one of the sheds on our property. My family was into removals, and the transit was one of the first vans my father, Jack, had used. The fleet was now six big pantechnicons, and they roamed the country, far from our base in Lincolnshire.

I had been christened Jess Kay, with the business known as JK Removals. The Jess was from my great-grandfather. I wasn’t forced to follow the family tradition. As soon as I could leave school, I did. As soon as I could take the tests, I had a licence to ride a motorcycle, drive a car and a light van. I hadn’t gone for the heavy vehicle licence and Dad told me that he had enough drivers with plenty of experience. With my slight build, I was never going to be able to carry heavy furniture around, anyway.

I had always been good at art, and becoming a budding painter was a given. To earn my keep, I took up airbrush art and slowly built up a small signwriting and painting business that I called JK Tanks and Stuff. I was the go-to guy for motorbike tanks in the county. A few of my creations had been winners in custom shows around the place and the owners usually rewarded my work with a crate of beer and a photo of the bike with the trophy. These were spread around my workshop and were good testimonials when new customers came to see me. Of course, my main advertising was on the sides of the company trucks as they travelled around.

A couple of weeks later, Basil rang and told me about a meeting that was coming up in Kent. I could swing for him if I wanted to. His usual passenger was now housebound, looking after his wife and new baby. Basil suggested that he wasn’t allowed to risk his life now they were a threesome. The job was mine if I wanted it. Accommodation was to be in a bunkhouse by the track, so all I needed was me and my leathers. That made it easy to get there by bike.

And so began a few happy years as a sidecar passenger. Between then and a few years ago, we did well enough for me to have a shelf of trophies in the workshop. Then Basil fell off a ladder and broke his hip. His wife then laying down the law; with him selling the outfit and all the spares to a couple of young brothers who were just starting. I suppose that I could have hired myself out as a part-time swinger, but my workload was getting big enough to take up more of my time.

Before his fall, Basil and I went in his car to the Isle of Mann to see the 1980 TT, with the view to entering the following year. We drove around the course in the car several times, at normal speed, and I wondered at the braveness of the riders who took unfenced corners at over a hundred miles an hour. The following year, he was recovering, so I took my bike, a new Honda F2 Bol’d’Or, to join the army of bikers going to the island. I had pre-booked my accommodation at the Seaview Guest House, where we had stayed the year before and just needed some changes of clothes in the panniers and tank bag.

I had a great couple of weeks and decided that I would make this a regular holiday, perhaps working it so that I came over a week before the races to explore the island. Over the next few years, I got more and more fascinated by the whole experience. I rode the track several times each visit, getting to know all the turns at legal speed. I saw the advent of the new sidecars that made the old Windle look ancient. The trend had started around the time I first swung. The old outfits were just lower versions of a road-going machine, with the rider having to kneel astride the motor. The new ones had the motor behind the rider and just in front of the back wheel.

They weren’t that much lower but were longer and more stable in corners. They became known as ‘Worms’. The passenger was on a platform behind the rider and had lots of space to move around, needing carefully placed handles to hang on to. In the old days, on right hand corners, I would often have to hang on to Basil. Of course, with new technology comes new costs. You couldn’t just turn up and expect to get a place, now. No, it had become an even more expensive business.

The following years my Honda was admired by many riders, now I had airbrushed it with a blond beauty on the tank. I always left a bunch of business cards under the seat strap and got a lot of subsequent work that way. I had developed a lot of friendships with the regulars and had discovered all the best places to watch the races. My accommodation was a permanent booking, and I knew the best, and cheapest pubs. I had even learned to say “Hello’ to the fairies every time I went over the Fairy Bridge, you don’t want bad luck, do you?

This year I had arrived at the ferry terminal in Liverpool, with my usual tank bag and panniers with some clothes in. When I left the bike I took the tank bag with me, locking my helmet to the bike. The panniers were already securely locked. I went up to sit in the bar and have a few beers while we sailed the four and a quarter hour trip to Douglas. There were always some other early birds on the ferry, so it was always a pleasant trip, talking about the rides we had taken.

Off the boat and parking the bike outside the Seaview, I unloaded everything in my room and went out for a walk. As usual, there was starting to be a collection of bikes at the sea front, and I had a good look. Next week it would be packed. Over the next few days, I went and visited my usual vantage points to make sure nothing had changed, riding the full course several times. I caught up with a lot of friends and had a few too many on a couple of nights. Luckily, those were within staggering distance to my bed.

By the Friday, a lot of the competitors had arrived, many setting up camp in Nobles Park. This is alongside the main pits and the start/finish line on Glencrutchery Road. I walked over to have a look at the new machinery for 1985. There was a lot of trick gear there, but the main talking point was that Joey Dunlop had been sailing over from Ireland, on a friend’s fishing boat, and had been shipwrecked.

On my way along the line of sidecars, I came across Mandy Walker, a girl I knew from when I was racing. We had a few Saturday nights together in her van at meetings, while I had been racing. When I saw her, I went and gave her a hug, seeing that she seemed very unhappy. I asked her what the trouble was.

“Oh, Jess, I’ve just wasted several thousand pounds being here. Me and Judy had planned this assault on the Island for a couple of years, now. We had bought this frame, added a competitive motor, collected all the spares and now I’m here and she’s in hospital with a broken leg. I only found out this morning!”

I remembered that the pair of them had been good but held back by the outfit they rode. This one, when I looked closely, was right up there with the best of the second string. You would have to be a great team to bother the ‘worms’, but it was certainly the equal to the better kneelers. The motor was a Yamaha TZ500, used by a lot of teams, and as potent as you could get. I looked around and saw that she even had wet weather tyres as well as a couple of complete sets of slicks. They had certainly spent some serious money.

As I was looking at this, she seemed to recover slightly, perhaps it was a familiar face that helped.

“Where’s Basil, lately, I haven’t seen you two at the tracks?”

“Broke his hip, falling from a ladder, and sold the bike to budding riders. It wouldn’t have been competitive, these days, anyway.”

“What about you, are you swinging for someone else?”

“No, I have to concentrate on my work, this is my annual holiday that I give myself.”

She looked sad. “I suppose you don’t have a licence anymore, then?”

“I do, in fact. For some reason I’ve kept it going. I’ve still got the old BSA that I rode when I was going solo. For some reason, it’s sat on the stand for more years than I’d like to admit, waiting to be taken back to a road bike. I’ve got all the gear, but I now ride a Honda 900 and the BSA is still in racing trim. I might keep it that way until it can be classed as historic.”

Mandy came and stood in front of me, looking me in the eyes.

“Jess, I’ve got a bike with no passenger. You’ve got the licence and the experience. I’ve never ridden the mountain. How would you like to be a TT virgin with me this year. It would mean that all the money I’ve spent won’t be wasted. We don’t have to try too hard, but I wouldn’t want to go home without doing a lap, at least.”

I thought for a few moments. I knew the track as well as many, I had two weeks here. I suddenly knew that this was something I wanted to do.

“Mandy, you sweet talker, you. If we can get me signed in, I’m happy to lose my virginity, again, with you.”

She gave a little squeal and kissed me, hard. We then walked over to the official building, where I showed my competition licence, and they fast-tracked me through a medical. After that, we both went back to my accommodation where I collected my leathers and helmet, taking them to be inspected and then leaving them with the outfit.

When we got to her pit area, I met Barney, her mechanic. We quickly decided that I knew nothing about high performance two-strokes and wouldn’t be telling him how to suck eggs. We did, however, find a tin of paint and a small brush, so that I could paint in ‘Jess Kay’ next to ‘Passenger”, on each side of the fairing.

That afternoon, we were out on the mountain, on the bike, along with a couple of dozen others. This was a closed road session and was serious. We had an hour and a half to find our way around. Mandy had seen plenty of videos and just needed to find the race lines. I had a wealth of knowledge about the corners and, after all, it’s the swinger who really steers the outfit. We did our first two laps of the course. The first with me shouting in her ear as we got to corners, and the second with us both going for it.

She was a good pilot, and we slid our way around the island. Coming down the hill was the most frightening time I’ve ever had on a bike. That TZ was twice as powerful as the old Triumph, and we flew. As we crossed the line and slowed down after that faster lap, I was panting with fear and exhilaration. Mandy took us back to her pit and we shut down. Both of us were just draped over the bike when Barney trotted up.

“Hey, you two, I timed that second lap, and you were in the fastest twenty. For your class you were in the top ten. Well done, it’s going to be an interesting week.”

We left him to look after the bike and I took Mandy back to my room, where she made her appreciation clear. After a shower and clean clothes, I took her out for a meal. That evening, we went back to the pit, where Barney was tinkering with the outfit. He pointed out that we had almost scrubbed the rear tyre, something we needed to organise. The others would be all right for a couple of laps practice, but we may run short if we end up racing in both the sidecar races. Barney told Mandy that she needed to listen to the motor more, this track having lots of bumps where you could lift the back wheel. We went to the tyre distributer and put our names on two more, with me paying for them.

Mandy picked up her things from her transporter, and we went back to my room, telling my host that I would pay extra for two. He gave me a wink as he made the note on my account. That night I was transported back in time, to the night we first got together, when I lost my virginity. It was a wonderful experience then, and still was. She forced me to admit, to myself, that she was the reason I had stayed out of the dating scene.

The alarm went off at an ungodly hour and we showered and dressed for another session on the mountain. The sidecars had been granted another hour, starting from eight, and we needed to be ready for it. At the pits, Barney pulled us into the transporter with a grin on his face.

“Jess, I was listening to the talk around the place last night. Those who haven’t seen you without your helmet on think that you and Mandy are a girl team. This is an odd event, a girl team taking on the mountain. While you were out on the track, yesterday, I heard the PA going on about a pair of fast women but didn’t twig then. I picked up a razor and some shaving cream at the shop, and I suggest that you use it to lose that excuse for a beard.”

I tried to argue, but they overcame me with logic. For Mandy, the reputation as a female rider would be diluted if I was shown to be a guy. The organisation would benefit if we did well, being able to show the world that the TT isn’t totally macho. The final argument was that Mandy wanted me to swing for her, in the long term, and we would have a good reputation if we stood out as a pair of girls. Maybe even getting appearance money!

So, I sat down with a mirror and lost the beard that had taken ten years to grow. It didn’t take long, and I even felt a bit better when I had finished. That done, we got into our leathers and pushed the outfit to the collection point for our session. I kept my helmet on and Mandy made sure that my hair was prominently spread out down my back. We were warmly greeted by the guys, and I found it to be a new experience. They had dissected the timing and we were told that we would only be twenty minutes behind the winning time, based on our single fast lap.

I tried to say very little, leaving all the discussion to Mandy. It was a relief to be called up to be ready to start. We were set off in fours, with the worms out in front. By the time we pushed the outfit to get it started I was totally focussed. As we jumped on, I could tell that Mandy meant business this time. It took us a few miles to clear away from the rest of our group and caught up with the slower ones of the group in front as we went up the mountain.

We went like the wind, both of us truly in the zone. It all went well until the hairpin, nearly back at the main straight. Mandy went in a bit too fast, and we spun, throwing me off the back of the bike. I slid a bit but picked myself up and we got going again, We then did a flying lap which I thought may have been the best, so far.

Back at the pit, Mandy shut down and came and put her arms around me as I stood.

“Jess, I’m so sorry at that mistake, are you right?”

“I think so, but I don’t think the organisers would pass my leathers now.”

She, and Barney, inspected my scrapped shoulders and backside. Mandy declared that she would buy me a new set. So, we walked to the merchandise area and started to look at leathers for me. At one stall, the owner looked at us and immediately made us an offer we couldn’t resist.

“Wow, Mandy, and Jess, you two are the talk of the town, that last lap you did is going to put you in the first ten at tomorrow’s race. Those leathers have had their day, Jess, how about I supply you with a set each, two for the price of one, if you put my stickers on your bike. I’m sure that the cameras will be on you in the first sidecar TT.”

That’s how we ended up in matching red leathers, with new red racing helmets and red boots. I was not easy to win over but Mandy was all for it. When we got back to the pit, Barney had to sit down. The only way you could tell us apart, in the full kit, was because I was taller. In the tight leathers, Mandy was as flat chested as me. My only problem was that these leathers were for a woman and was very tight in the crotch. I went into the transporter and re-arranged my tackle so that it wasn’t squashed.

That afternoon, the first race was won by Joey Dunlop. We watched it in the canteen hut along with a lot of other riders. Some of them wanting to sit with us as we watched. The only thing different about me was that I was now clean-shaven. I realised that nothing could convince these guys that I was a guy.

Next day was the first sidecar race. We took it easy in the practice session, having set our starting order with our previous time., No-one, in our class, was able to beat that, and I wasn’t sure we could repeat it. It may have been the anger at her mistake that made Mandy ride like a demon. We stood out, though, with our new sponsor stickers and matching red riding gear.

With a full tank and a new set of tyres, we fronted up to the start, to find that we were, indeed, starting at tenth. There were even two worms behind us. I spoke to Mandy as the first ones went away in a screech of tyres and a roar of exhaust.

“Take it easy to get to speed, Mandy. We need the back tyre to do three laps. We haven’t done three at speed and I don’t want us limping back with a puncture.”

We then started concentrating on the job in hand. We made sure the fuel was on and the electrics ready to go. When we were flagged off, I thought I heard a cheer from the stands. The engine kicked in so quickly, I had to pull myself onto the back. Then we were off. No smoking tyres but quick, all the same. The TT is unlike racing in a pack. You are out there, on your own, and it’s only the clock that tells you where you stand. The best thing is to forget all that and just do each lap as smoothly as you can.

Coming down the mountain, we could see a worm in front of us, so I guess we had picked up about thirty seconds on him. When I looked behind, I saw another, about the same distance behind us. The format of the TT is that you do two laps and come in for fuel, so you never do a full fast lap in the race itself. Barney and a helper got us fuelled, exchanged our helmet tear-offs, yelled that we were fantastic, and sent us on our way for the last lap. It was all very slick, and I made a note to buy them a drink tonight.

On the way back up the mountain, we passed another outfit, by the side of the road, and overtook the one that had started before us on the way back down. I could hear Mandy hooting as we approached the finish line and I joined in, slapping her on the back. We certainly hadn’t won anything, but we now had something to be proud of. We were no longer TT Virgins.

What I hadn’t expected was for other riders clapping as we took the outfit back to our pit. When we stopped, we could hardly get our helmets off for the number of guys wanting to hug us. Barney turned up and shout to “Give the girls a chance, guys, you know how much three laps can take it out of you.”

When he had cleared our pit, telling the guys that they could buy us drinks in the HQ bar tonight, he waited until we had shucked our leathers and changed into jeans and tee-shirts, which I saw were now supplied by our clothing sponsor. We had a clothing sponsor! The jeans were low cut, bright red, and the tee-shirts must have been screen printed while we were out on the track. They had ‘Girl Power’ in bright red on a black base.

While we were in the transporter, Mandy told me that I had better act the part, so she did my hair into two pigtails, then proceeded to give my face the once-over, minimal, as befitting a biker girl. When we were decent, we came out and Barney told us that we were needed at the main pits, to receive our trophies for our class. He gave Mandy a hug and told her that he was proud of her, then pulled me into a hug and thanked me for being such a sport for his daughter. I think that, at that moment he was the happiest of the three of us.

At the presentation, we were photographed as we accepted our trophies, first in class. We discovered that we had finished, overall, in tenth place, with only worms in front of us. We were fifteen minutes behind the race winners, Steve Hallam and John Gibbard, legends of the sport. They both gave us hugs and congratulated us. The race had its drama as Mick Boddice was out in front but lost his chain a mile from the finish, freewheeling in for a place on the podium.

To keep him happy, our clothing sponsor asked us to spend some time at his stall, signing tee-shirts, all black with the red writing. He had silver markers that we used, often posing for pictures. Neither of us had been involved with this sort of thing, before. This TT was even more different than I could ever have expected.

The week was a big blast until our second sidecar race. We didn’t have to buy any drinks and Mandy made sure that all the guys knew we were off limits. Barney was quite friendly, and I would have been happy to have him as a father-in-law. We approached the second race in a businesslike manner. We didn’t go all out in the practice sessions, knowing that no matter where we started, it would be our times that would determine our place.

The biggest difference was how we were greeted out on the course. At several places we saw ‘Girl Power’ banners and were given a loud cheer as we went by. The second race was even quicker, up front, and it was Mick Boddice winning. We came twelfth with much the same elapsed time as the first race, nothing there to take anything away from our euphoria. We were, once again, on the podium to collect second place in class trophies.

Instead of waiting to see out the races, we packed the transporter, adding my Honda and luggage to the load, and took an early ferry back to Liverpool. Barney and Mandy lived about halfway to my home, and they insisted that I should stay a couple of days to discuss our future. When we pulled into their property, a woman came out to greet us, followed by an excited little boy, shouting “Mummy, Mummy, I saw you on the news.”

He stopped dead when he saw me get out of the vehicle.

“Who are you, you were on the sidecar with mummy?”

Mandy gave a little devilish grin.

“Tony, come and say hello to your daddy, Jess.”

The boy came up to me.

“Are you really my daddy?”

“If your Mummy says I am, I guess I must be. Hello, Tony.”

He came up and I kneeled, with him putting his arms around my neck and screeching in my ear, “I’ve always wanted a daddy, all the other kids have one.”

Later, Mandy admitted that it was the last time we had been together when we had conceived Tony. She wanted to tell me, but I had disappeared until last week. I told her that I would have married her, on the spot, had I known, and she told me that it’s never too late for that.

The parents allowed us to sleep in her room and we discussed the future during the next day. Barney had a successful bike sales business and offered to take me home, with the Honda on a trailer, with Mandy and Tony along for the ride. That was going to be a surprise for my parents. I did ring, before we left, to let them know what to expect.

It was a funny time. My mother didn’t know what to make of an instant grandson, nearly four years old, along with his mother that she had never met. Dad thought it was a hoot and declared that I was a proper Kay, my grandfather having a second family on the sly. That was something I had never been told.

It didn’t take long to rectify the husband / wife situation, and I loved being with my son. We bought a house near Barneys’ business, and he refurbished a shed at his shop, so that I could continue my business. Dad organised the moving of all our things. It was just a couple of months later that we discovered that we had created another new life.

That summer, the ‘Girl Power’ team raced at a lot of tracks, winning its fair share of trophies. Only the first two meetings had me swinging, though, as Judy came back, moaning at having to buy a set of red leathers and a new helmet. She stopped moaning after her first meeting and the adoration of our fans. Their last meeting of the season was the last meeting for Girl Power, as Mandy bade her racing career farewell to settle down as a family.

I had been taken as a girl when I wore the leathers, especially the red ones that we had framed to hang in the bike shop, along with the trophies, the TT ones having pride of place. We resisted requests to ride in the following year, after all, we now had a family to look out for, and a successful business to run. We still go to the TT, but purely as spectators with our two little ones, and we would often get drinks brought for us by those who remembered the ‘Girl Power’ sensation. I had often said that I would grow a beard, but Mandy always got me to shave it off before we went. She said that it would spoil the story, and who am I to upset history.

Marianne Gregory © 2023