I had the privilege of riding in a Tetney Phoenix time trial with Beryl Burton and greatly admired her style. This was close to the end of her competitive riding and probably around 1990. I remember she was selling copies of her recently published autobiography and to my enduring annoyance I didn't buy one. If anyone on list has one for sale, please contact me. I have also found it difficult to find a copy of Barry Hoban's book - Watching the Wheels Go Round, and would also like to buy a copy for its Falcon/Ernie Clements content. As for women riders and the recent reference to 'riding like a girl', this was what us blokes used to say 50 or so years ago. But along came Eileen Sheridan, now there was a girl I would like to ride like. Guts and determination to die for. She is still going strong, but her autobiography is (you guessed it) hard to buy! I have read it but would love a copy. The nice thing about books is you don't have to ride them to justify the purchase. I have just finished Graeme Obree's tortured autobiography. Such talent and, as the son of a policeman, I can identify with his early life, except Lincolnshire kids were not such b---ards. Anyway, my dad would have killed any kids that messed me about to that extent - an advantage of being a boy in the 40s and 50s, when policemen were respected and terms like 'filth' had not been invented. So, I am pleased that political correctness is not an issue for CR and long may it remain so.
Nigel Land North Lincs UK
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 11:01:39 -0000 From: "Norris Lockley" <norris@norrislockley.wanadoo.co.uk> To: <Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Subject: [CR]Beryl Burton Message-ID: <000901c5ffd4$98620f00$747d4c51@norris> Content-Type: text/plain;charset="iso-8859-1" MIME-Version: 1.0 Precedence: list Message: 7
I reckon Mike Butler should be the one to give chapter and verse on Beryl's achievements, as he has a wonderful fund of knowledge of these things.
The photo of Beryl is quite an old one probably taken when she had just started racing fro the Morley Wheelers club, one of many "clubmens' clubs in and about the close-knit industrial area of Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield. I came from the last named one..the home of the Huddersfield Road Club and many excellent riders..not including myself unfortunately, although I was a member. There was fierce competition between the clubs particularly in time-trial events..and of course the fastest rider over a number of specific distances would win the covetted
Yorkshire Best All-Rouinder Award for the season.
Beryl's bike gives me the idea that the photo was mid-50s or even earlier in that decade, as she is still riding a steel chainset..TA 5-pin ones were just becoming popular at that time. The frame could be a
JRJ (an earlier incarnation of Bob Jackson), whose transfers were always
very small on the D down-tube...and there is possibly a contrasting panel on the seat-tube..very normal in the 50s. JRJ were about 7 miles from Morley. Carlton frames were also very popular with "testers" (time-trialers) in those days.
I think the photo is pre- Ron Kitching days, as Ron would have insisted on his large black and white transfers on the frame. Harrogate, Kitching's base is not far from Morley just the other side of Leeds, and
into the Yorkshire Dales, and even closer to Shipley where Doug Fattic worked with Ellis-Briggs. I reckon it very likely that Briggs could have
built Beryl's frames in the early "Kitching" era, because the Shipley firm was a very important customer for Ron's range of imported continental "goodies".
Once Beryl became a proper almost semi-sponsored rider in the Kitching stable, her frames were made by MKM in which Ron was a major shareholder. Probably either Wes Mason, or Arthur Metcalfe would have built the frames, but more likely the former. Towards the end of the Burton-Kitching-MKM era it was foreman- builder, Steve Elsworth, who built them.
Alhough I was riding very actively at the time Beryl was at her best, I never raced against her,and cannot recall meeting her in the cafes, such
as "Ye Olde Bente Poker" in Otley, or the CTC Club houses either after or before the races. She must have been there because, in Yorkshire, everyone was. I knew her husband Charley very well as he was the warehouse foreman for
Kitching's business, with which I traded for many years, but it wasn't until about six months before her fatal accident that I met the great lady herself. The occasion was the end of season National Hillclimb Championship that was being held in the Lake District not far from where
I live. While cheering on one of the riders I had sponsored I felt Charley's hand on my shoulder...and was then introduced to Beryl who was
standing at his side. Both were holding there bikes upright.
He expained that they had driven up the dale in their converted delivery van, slept in sleeping bags overnight on the floor..and then cycled the rest of the way through the hills that morning so that they could " get some training miles in".
That day as I looked at that incredible athlete whom I had just had the honour of meeting, I realised just how pampered were most of our "then" star riders, with their carbon-equiped machines, sponsored cars, often soigneurs etc etc..and none of them ever achieved anything comparable to the palmares of that modest "club woman".. but they certainly earned more money for their efforts. It is true as Doug related that once Beryl's daughter, who also rode for
the Morley club, started to beat her mother's times..and to steal races from her..the mother-daughter relationship started to become very estranged, until they stopped speaking for some while. Finally there was a rapprochement...probably when Beryl came to realise that she had to t come to terms with her own aging process, but even then she was an incredible force to be reckoned with.
I think that the photo of Beryl captures beautifully her closed-knee style of riding.and I like to imagine that the time-trial she was riding..and was probably winning, was an "evening 10"...first "man" off at 7 o'clock..after everyone had had the chance to recover from a full day at work, eat, change clothes ..and ride out to the start. Then down to the "pub" afterwards for a beer before riding home again.
Norris Lockley, Settle UK..and trying to resist the temptation to say "..and those were the days!"