Don Halliday, a former member of Thornaby Wheelers, contacted me recently to pass on some of his cycling memories. Don sent some start and result sheets from time trials in the 1950's and a letter and photos which are reproduced below. If any reader wishes to contact Don, please email me for his address. If you have any photos or memories of Thornaby Wheelers which you would like to share, please mail them to me and I will do my best to add them to our site.

Colin

Feb 09

Dear Colin,

I have not been very successful in finding any action photos of those early days, but just a few of me and my pals Johnny Wharton and John Smith. We all belonged to Thornaby Wheelers and for a number of years were inseparable. National Service finally broke us up and we never really got back together again. Johnny went in first, he was a bit older, and then John went in at 18 years old. Then when he came out I went in at 2l years old so we did not have any chance to keep together.

We did keep in spasmodic touch for a number of years but I left Teesside forever and we all settled into our own family lives. As far as I know they have both remained in the area and have family ties there.

As we know now, those were the golden years of cycling, with no traffic at all, and if you did see a car on a Sunday outing, we used to wave to each other, especially if there were any young girls in the car. There were thousands of cycling clubs and time trials every Sunday. There were very few road races because the police would not allow them. The first breakthrough came with the Milk Race. Croft Autodrome was not available for bikes but was being touted as a car racetrack to the budding car racing industry. The very first races were the 500cc class. Basically a high performance motorcycle engine mounted in a hand crafted chassis and shell. Hence the start of Cooper, Lotus and many, many more. Quite a few defunct airfields were involved and I remember going to Brough to see them racing.

The three of us entered many TT’s, 10’s 25’s and occasionally 50’s. Generally about a mile outside Stokesley on the old Thirsk road, and the "strip" was at the Mack and Larry’s Caf6 in Stokesley. It was not a fast course and I cannot remember anyone breaking the hour on it. Down south on some fast courses I can remember the Higgins twins doing 56 minutes every weekend during the racing season.

There were many fine cyclists on Teesside as you can see from the results sheets but one of the best that sticks in my mind was Walter Fowler who started seeking out some of the fast courses and was a contender for the country’s BAR.

All our holidays were taken on the bike, mainly stopping in Youth Hostels. Scotland, the Pennines and Lake District were favourites, but as you can see we went further south. The photo at Stonehenge shows Johnny and me at the stones with no barriers! Those were the days; we cycled down to Lands End via the North Devon coast and cycled up Countesbury hill with full pack.

It’s sad to see the passing of Syd and also Norman Taylor, I had not heard. I was briefly in contact with the Taylor brothers and Bill Beattie after I had visited Lance Bell at Ardmore in north west Scotland many years ago. Lance and his wife left Teesside to become general manager of the outward bound centre founded by the modern explorer John Ridgeway. When I visited Lance he had retired and was enjoying his time in a most beautiful setting. Lance did not recognise me, but I used to watch him making bikes in his workshop when I was about 15. We had another connection as he started work as a pattern maker and worked alongside my uncle Norman Treeby.

Well that’s enough of my ramblings; I hope this collection of scraps of paper help fill in a few gaps in the club history. Do not hesitate to contact me for anymore info.

Kind regards,

Don Halliday