LESTER GOES
ROMIN’ (STET)
L
ES RUDD WAS A MAN of
many moods, most of them
of a personable, easy-going
nature. He was the owner/operator/
boss of Ryde Motorcycles, the popular
motorcycle store which had operated
out of a very old, heavily-windowed
two-storey building from the early
ÀIWLHVWRWKHODWHVL[WLHV7KHVWRUH
was right on the ant-track at the top
of Ryde hill, where the intersections
of the major Victoria and Concord
Roads and Top Ryde’s Devlin Street
once met. It was ideally placed, for
it stood out like a beacon, its cream-
coloured Western face covered by a
huge painting of a large black panther
which advertised a well-known brand
of car batteries – or was it a tyre
company, or perhaps both? I assume
he was paid a reasonable stipend
for having his building so glaringly
adorned, but I never asked him about
that. It is long gone now, the widening
of the major intersection putting paid
to the building – and the business.
To digress – I know, I know, ‘not
again’ you are all muttering - I often
wonder if I have dropped the kiss
of death on any of the number of
motorcycle stores in which I worked
over many years. Hazell and Moore, in
&DPSEHOO6WUHHWZDVWKHÀUVWRQHDV
well as the biggest in Sydney, where I
worked the spare parts and accessory
counters for seven years from 1948 to
1954, then to A.P. North from 1954 to
1955, to Top Ryde from 1956 to 1961,
and then to Omodeis from late 1961
to 1968. I then made the long-awaited
transition into professional Theatre,
swearing never to look at another
motorcycle in my entire life, much less
work in another motorcycle store.
As it happens, I worked for a short
a message – or be directed – by calling
the girl at the switchboard and being
put through to a ‘line’ into the city; of
wherever. Our phone number, in all
the time I was there, was Ryde 1 – the
local newspaper ads often suggesting
that one should “Ride One from
Ryde 1”, or “Ride Motorcycles from
Ryde Motorcycles.” Corny I know,
but successful enough; and please
don’t ask why one had to ring the Ryde
Exchange to be connected to a city or
ORFDOWHOHSKRQH²LWZDVWKHODWHÀIWLHV
and into the sixties, after all!
Les had a plaque on his desk which
bore the initials ‘S.P.Q.R’, Roman
shorthand for a motto which I knew
the Roman Centurions used to carry
upon their banners while on parades
and into battle. The full Roman
quotation in Latin stated ‘Senatus
Populusque Romanus’ which, (very)
roughly translated was said to mean
‘The Senate of the People of Rome’.
There is still argument amongst
earnest Latin scholars as to whether or
not this translation is entirely correct,
for it apparently depends on where
RQHSODFHVWKHÀUVWDQGRUODVWOHWWHUV
of the various words, but Les Rudd
always said that to him it meant ‘Small
3URÀWV4XLFN5HWXUQV·,UHFNRQWKDW
is as good a translation of the meaning
of those four initials/letters as you
could get anywhere!
The man was a non-smoker, but
for some odd reason he kept a box
of cigarettes and loose matches on
his desk, and when someone came
into the store to express interest in a
machine on display, or to trade-in a
bike on a new or later model, I would
sometimes call him out and he would
immediately pop a cigarette into his
mouth. I would watch him go cross-time with Barry Ryan in 1969 at his
Ryans Motorcycles store in Parramatta
before de-camping into a play in New
Zealand for several weeks, later to
open my own motorcycle store in
Ryde – nowhere near the old Ryde
Motorcycles, for it sat in the bowels of
the Ryde CBD in 1972 – after working
for some time as a performer in the
Club industry in Sydney, country areas
and Interstate.
After a short stint again in Theatre
and TV in Melbourne, I worked on
and off for Ron Angel in Richmond,
who was then importing Moto-Morini,
Ducati, Moto-Guzzi motorcycles and
Nolan helmets, as well as having a
successful agency for BMW machines.
I rode a wide variety of motorcycles
almost every day in very nearly all of
those stores.
The scariest part of that odd
introduction to my history in the
industry is that not one of those
motorcycle agencies I carefully listed
is in existence today – in fact, there
is no evidence at all that any of
them ever existed! Ron Angel is the
obvious exception, for he has gone
from strength to strength as the
Australian importer of Nolan helmets
and many other motorcycle essentials.
However, except for a couple of quite
anonymous small buildings, the areas
on which these motorcycle stores
once stood so proudly have either
been razed to the ground or heavily
built upon, taking the once-thriving
businesses with them.
Now then, where was I? Oh, yes,
Les Rudd and Ryde Motorcycles. In
all the time I worked there, one could
not ring the Sydney CBD directly, for
the phone was connected only to the
local Exchange and one had to directWORDSLESTER MORRISCLASSICMORRIS