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Mainly for women

 

The following articles first featured in "Scooter and Three Wheeler", the daddy of today's "Scootering" magazine. Originally published in a regular section called "Mainly for Women", these articles are so hilarious (ie: very un-pc) that we felt obliged to share them with you.

 

Mirror view – June 1967

That great handlebar mirror controversy has been conducted mainly by men, I see - and that's probably why they have missed one very important aspect of the mirror. NO! I don't mean that it is a substitute for a vanity mirror. Anything but, in fact. Have you ever tried? Most handlebar mirrors are set in such a position that the resulting contortions are inelegant, to say the least.

The aspect I was thinking of is best illustrated by the tale of what happened to me on Brighton sea front one wet day earlier this year. I was riding along, in full winter gear, wistfully thinking that if only it was summer I might look sufficientlty unlike an expatriate Eskimo to rate the odd glance when, from behind me, came an almighty wolf whistle.

How I blessed the giver. That whistle lifted my morale sky high. But - had the man got second sight, I wondered. So, I glanced in my mirror - and the penny dropped. I had perfect view of a rather mischevious looking lorry driver's mate - and since mirrors are a two-way affair it followed that he had a pretty good view of me too. I'm glad he liked what he saw! [top]

Bad form – June 1967

While I'm up there on my soapbox, the commercial people could also take a long hard cool and critical look at their gene conscious forms. No, not the ones they see in the mirror this time; the ones they like people to sign. Hire purchase forms and the like.

A married friend of mine wanted to buy herself a scooter, and decided that she would get it on HP - until she saw the form that is. And there was printed the deadliest insult she could imagine.

According to that horrible male-orientated form she would have to obtain her husband's counter-signature before she could spend her own money buying her own scooter for herself. It fairly brought out the suffragette in her. She stormed out of the shop; borrowed the entire purchase price from an unusually understanding (albeit male) bank manager; and went back and bought the machine for cash. She had even succeeded in haggling a slight discount - and with the savings made by using a bank overdraft instead of hire purchase he did pretty well out of the deal.

Even so, her eyes still flash with indignation when she talks about that form, money saved or not. Who said women were mercenary? Why, a man of course. It had to be! [top]

Man's world – June 1967

This is still too much a man's world for my liking, ardent feminist that I am. And it shows, you know , even in the design of scooters, though things are better now than they used to be. Even so, have you ever noticed how the hand controls, for example, are almost invariably scaled to the size of the male mitt, leaving us to strecth our tendons in order to operate them? How ancilliaries are set a man's reach away from the grips? How kickstarters are geared to man-sized kicks and shod with man sized pedals? How one is supposed to have man-sized shoulders to heave the beast on and off its stand?

Time was when two wheels were an almost exclusive male preserve; but that time was not the middle of the 60s. Don't you think that designers could now wake up to the fact that girls like scooters, too – and either build in a degree of adjustment for the controls or reduce the sheer physical size of them a little. Or is the age of chivalry even deader than I think? [top]

Brighter than bright – June 1966

Late nights! Bright lights! That's for Jackie. Blackpool or Southend, I don't mind. Nevertheless I was very glad to welcome British Summer Time again, even though the weather was far from summery. Bright lights are all very well in their place and one place that I think they should very definately not be is on the back end of a car. A good pair of rear lights is one thing, but adisplay to rival the Regent Street christmas decorations is another.

The combined wattage of rear light, brake light and flashing indicator must add up to something quote powerful and the overall effect can be blinding. I believe there is a device being fitted by some car manufacturers which halves the wattage of brake lights and flashing indicators when the driving lights are switched on. The sooner such a fitting is made compulsory for all cars the happier I shall be.

It was not until I had a ride in a lovely low slung sports car that I realised just what a nuisance headlights can be, not only from oncoming traffic but alsom from astern. A great many scooters have headlights mounted on the handlebars. If you compare the height of these from the ground with the position of car head lights you'll find that the scooter's lights are quite a lot higher. The result is that when a scooter follows a small car the headlight shines straight through, catches the driving mirror and dazzles the driver. This even when the scooter is using 'dipped' beam. Bear it in mind when you next chase one of those sporty jobs at night. [top]

Where there's yellow – June 1966

Somehow I always seem to miss out on a chance to make a fortune. When I was last up in town I saw at least three groups of men busy painting - yellow lines! There are yellow lines in the gutter, yellow lines climbing up the kerbstones, yellow bands around the lamp-posts and, best of all, whole junctions criss-crossed with yellow lines. There must be acres of the stuff in Central London alone.

What is it that they use to make the paint yellow? And why couldn't I have been smart enough to corner the market? [top]

Unmechanical Misses – November 1966

Mr Adlem's interesting account of his Lambretta trip across Australia's outback in the July issue, reminded me of two female friends of mine who made a similar journey on a Vespa. Because they knew that once they left civilisation they would have to largely depend on their own resources if anything went wrong with the machine, they attended an intensive two-day course on maintenance in Sydney.

Perhaps I should explain here tha my friends were (and still are, for that matter, completely unmechanically minded. However, the course was very well planned on a fault-finding basis - you know the sort of system where each step moves logically on to the next and so on.

But it was this very point which nearly involved the girls in a great deal of unnecessary work, because they confessed that if anything had gone wrong they would have had to work through the whole system until they came across the bit that was relevant to their particular breakdown. As I said, my friends are not mechanically-minded. [top]

Modam's style – March 1966

Have you come across those polo-necked sweaters without fronts, backs or arms (well you try to explain them better) ?!

I've had mine for several weeks now and have found it just the job on a scooter. The secret, in cold weather anyway, is to wear it in addition to a good chunky sweater. This combination (if I may use the word) has the advantage over a conventional polo-necked sweater that once inddors you can discard the stuff neck without having to take off the whole sweater. And on the scooter it's better than a scarf because its's much snugger. [top]

Flea Bite – March 1966

Really from my own personal point of view, I found it difficult to take seriously Mr Jim Callaghan's appeal to save the country's money by not taking holidays abroad. Equally, I always found the maximum travel allowance (is it still £250) a bit of a laugh, especially when my friends and I troop into the bank and ask for £15 worth of traveller cheques for a fortnight's holiday! Quite honestly I shall assume that Mr Callaghan is not really interested in my scooterist's pittance and shall be camping on the Continent as usual this summer.

If I have any uneasiness of conscience I will try and persuade all the Continental scooterists I meet to come to the UK next year for their holidays. Mind you, they will not have two francs to rub together either. [top]