Ted Barnes is big, mouthy, unreconstructed, often funny, and is unambiguously shallow. Everyone who has worked in industry knows a Ted Barnes.
For all his many faults, his redeeming quality is the care and affection bestows upon his BSA B33 motorbike, the love of his life.
He lives from pay packet to pay packet, which funds his lifestyle of alcohol consumption, a complicated love life and the occasional motorcycle ride into the country.
All this is due to come to an end soon. His unspeaking, taciturn father has decreed that his rent-free days will soon be over. Time to grow up, perhaps.
Ted Barnes drew up on his motorcycle, the one true love of his life, turned off the engine and lit up a cigarette atop one of Lincolnshire’s few hills. It was a small hill, but he was king of it. Out here in the countryside, he need not be concerned about noise – he could rev his engine to his heart’s content without worrying about upsetting his unspeaking, taciturn father. Some of his friends had more modern, faster bikes, but none received the loving attention bestowed on his 1958 BSA ‘Beezer’ B33 with its impressive 500cc capacity single cylinder engine. Upon this marvel of British engineering not a single spot of rust was permitted to reside.
He wore a small open-face motorcycle helmet, clear goggles, thick leather jacket, boots and small gloves. He may not be Marlon Brando in The Wild One or James Dean in Rebel, but he was confident he looked better than those specimens he saw most days riding their scooters back and forth at shift changeover back at the steelworks. Ted Barnes would never have dreamt of using the love of his life for the short mile-long commute to the ironworks.
He had thundered down the long, straight Ermine Street, the ancient Roman road that ran from Lincoln towards the Humber. There he could open the throttle and let the world seemingly fly past in a blur, after which he veered off eastward and took the quiet country road towards the Lincolnshire Wolds, one of the few parts of the county that did not lack feature. He had cruised along its roads through picturesque scenery and undulating hills, knowing not to drive too fast around these country lanes because of the danger of farm vehicles suddenly appearing around blind corners. He was as much concerned about what a collision may do to his beloved Beezer as about any possible danger to his person.
He wound about and in and out, oblivious of any local connection to Tennyson, far more mindful of the nearby motor cycle racing circuit. There was no racing event today. That meant he could enjoy the pleasures of the open road in solitude without other motorcyclists trying to befriend or even speed past him.
Those who thought him shallow - almost every person he had ever known - knew little what great pleasure he drew from the countryside on a day such as today. Nor would he ever tell them. For Ted, days like today were to be enjoyed, not spoken about.
These were prosperous times for him, chiefly due to several years’ avoidance of anything remotely resembling adult responsibility. Not only that but the greyness and austerity of the fifties were now drifting into memory. He had money in his pocket, but nowhere else. No reserves with which to get married or start a family due to spending too much time out drinking and sponsoring his unnecessarily complicated love life.
His longsuffering mother, ever the proxy for unpleasant messages, had recently informed him of his father’s insistence that his rent-free days in their small two bedroomed house on Trent Street in Scunthorpe would likely be over soon. All the more reason, he thought, to enjoy the moment. He cranked up and revved his engine of his Beezer, then set off down the country lane at a modest pace, the wind in his face once more.
