Many thanks to Frank Foxton and his 40 "Hard Stuff and CTC" cycling friends for raising the subject of Alf Hetchins' unusual fron fork in their peloton. Frank's reference is the first I have ever heard to the existence of a non standard Hetchins' model. Well..this lightweight member of the equally lightweight VCC (no offence taken..and I'm much older then you anyway) will offer what little he knows..or at least thinks he knows about Alf's truly dreadful Diadrant-alternative. It's a subject that I had thought of raising myself in the hope that some of the Hetchins experts on the List might be able to provide some validation
It would be early 1980s..when a customer walked into my shop and, knowing that I collected Hetchins..in those days one whole barrel-vaulted cellar of my premises was dedicated to displaying "collectables"..he offered me "..this very special Hetchins with wiggly front forks". Because he hadn't got the frame with him I asked him to describe the extent of the wiggle in the forksforks to me.
"Well, they're like the wiggly back ones..but they're at the front". I produced a pencil and paper as clearly a sketch was necessary. His rough diagram showed a pair of forks that must have had a front end head-on shunt. No doubt in my mind about it. The guy was a time=waster. Telling him my diagnosis..of the forks..not him..he took no offence but persisted with "....the frame is all chrome and there is a sticker on the fork that says 'Air-Flow' "
At that time in the UK there were plastic self-assembly models kits available called "Air-Fix"..so I politely told him that some joker had stuck a pair of "Air-Fix" stickers on a badly shunted fork. Protesting the veracity of his description but , being a Yorkshireman, realising that I, another Yorkshireman, wasn't going to cross his hand that day or any other with some filthy money for this joke-Hetchins, he departed.
He returned some weeks later..carrying the Hetchins into my shop.No longer chrome, it sported an aerosol spray can finish of matt-white with all lugs, and some other parts such as the Gnutti chainset and Webb pedals, and the curly rear triangle...and the curly front forks..sprayed equally amateurishly in matt-black. All traces of the round "Air-Flow" fork decals had disappeared, that is, if they had ever existed.
To cut a long story short I bought the bike because it had one of the rarer lug patterns, a Gothic design, and flattered myself that I could either pull the blades back to their original shape or make a new pair, using the existing crown and column. Shortly afterwards I carried out all the checks that I knew to prove to myself that my diagnosis of a front end shunt had been correct. Surface plates abounded, gauges..you name it..I tried them. Not a sign of a tell-tale crease anywhere under the top or down-tubes. As far as I could detect the frame..and fork were as perfectly true and aligned as when they had left Hetchins shop..sometime in the 50s..at a guess.
The fork looked as though it had been formed and raked like any other of Alf's two=plate round-bladed ones, but then appeared to have had both blades pulled backwards from a point about 5" below the crown (hope you've got pencil and paper out!), so that the drop-outs ended up perfectly in line with the centre-line down the fork. ..the perfect front-end shunt performed at exactly 90 degrees to a wall,
I never solved the riddle and let the frame pass into the hands of some collectors up Nrewcastle way where it might still be. Certainly I have raised this matter in the pages of the VCC magazine, but no-one but no-one has ever heard about, let alone seen the mystery Hetchins "Air-Flow" fork.
Perhaps three years later.. a rare sunny day at Harrogate where the Cycle Show was in full swing..enter none other than Alf Hetchins sitting on a low parapet wall outside the Show hall eating a pork-pie.
With some fear and trepidation, almost like facing your maker on Judgement Day I approached the God of the Curly Stays. After some light chit-chat about friends in common, Rion Kitching, Bob Jackson etc..I decided it was time to try to solve the riddle of the Eighth Wonder of the World - Hetchins Air-Flow forks..and the Creator was there in front of me.
His countenance brightened at the very words..then an air of puzzlement seemed to cloud over him as he vounteered " I don't know why we did it.. probably because Horace had done his Diadrants..but they never worked, you know, not the Diadrants..our Air-Flows. Daft idea really..don't know who came up with it..we had tried other ideas as well..seemed OK at the time..but they never steered right...dropped the idea..never really launched them. I think we only ever made eight or nine pairs..daft really. Where did you get yours?" He seemed to be genuinely moved that someone would want to talk to him about his frames, and wanted to know what I had in my collection. I never met him again unfortunately, but feel happy for that chance to meet the Creator not only of the Curly Stay, and the Gothic lugs..but also of the short-lived Air-Flow fork.
What I still fail to understand is why the guy who tried to sell me the frame thinking he had something very ultra rare, should then be stupid enough to go and kill off the evidence. Really, what are the chances of ever finding a copy of that "Air-Flow" decal now?
HetchinsPete - Peter Naimann - if you are reading this..do you chance to have a pair?
Norris Lockley, V-CC and Bar(with Merit), Settle UK