My 16th birthday in April came and went marked only by classmate Peter Bollans (three weeks older than me) arriving at school on his birthday with a brand new, fully accessorised, blue on white SX200. Bastard.

Like myself, Bollans was football mad and a fellow Chelsea supporter and here he was on a brand new scooter in the team colours complete with a union jack seat. The next game we played in together I gave him a bloody good kicking which caused quite a fuss as we were on the same side at the time.

Amzingly we have a picture from 1968 just turned up of my sister and I on the BSA sccoter. Complete with L plates.

BSA Sunbeam just like mine - click image for a larger picture

Probably the best example of the BSA Sunbeam scooter I have ever see - click for larger image

1961 Advert for the BSA Sunbeam - click image for a larger picture

1968: l to r: Paul (I am told, don't know him). me, sister Karen

Peter Bollans was all right really it's just that his dad had a few bob and no expense ever seemed to be spared. He used to take me to away games on the back of his SX200 - he had passed his test in what seemed like just a few days after he got the scooter. As I said, bastard.

There was no money in our house for a scooter and my paper round and Saturday job working for my uncle in Hounslow (South of Watford) would not make up the difference. I don't remember making a fuss as it was just the way it was.

We started sixth form in September 1968. Most of the school football team had gone and got jobs that summer and the team we cobbled together were useless and certainly no use playing for. Peter Bollans came up with the idea of us trialling for Kew FC who played at Old Deer Park near Richmond, Surrey (South of Watford).

We both got in. Only it transpired Bollans made the first team and I was placed in the reserves. What a bastard. Anyway, the upshot of this was that we were playing in different games each week - sometimes he was at home whilst I travelled with the reserves and vice versa. I had a transport problem. At a push I could cycle to home games, around 10 miles, but getting to the away games was a bugger. I needed wheels.

Hello Sunbeam!

My dad suggested we walk over to see uncle Sonny. It was only a couple of hundred yards away. Sonny, real name Arthur, was in fact not my uncle but my mum's cousin who still lived at home with his dad, also called Arthur - hence Sonny. I still called him uncle Sonny though - it seemed right with him being 20 plus years older than me. Sonny and Arthur lived next door to my nan. It was all a bit close - my auntie Joyce lived down the same road as well.

Sonny had apparently bought a brand new scooter around five years earlier but for the last three years had not ridden it as he preferred to use his bicycle to go to and from work in Staines (South of Watford) some four or five miles away. Apparently, Sonny would take a reasonable offer for the scooter.

The scooter was in the garage next to the car, a Morris 1000, that Sonny also never used. I didn't recognise the scooter at all. It was clearly in excellent condition but WTF was it? I was in no position to object when my dad started haggling over the price and I believed they settled on £20.00.

We walked the scooter the hundred yards or so back home and dad, who had always had motor bikes himself, soon got it going, pumped up the tyres and went off for a ride. I kicked a football against the wall for half an hour before he came back and announced we had 'got a bargain'.

A very nice example of the BSA Sunbeam scooter - click for slightly bigger image.

It turns out that the reason my dad was so pleased with himself was that the scooter was a 1963 BSA Sunbeam twin cylinder, 250cc 4-stroke. Right up the street of a dad that had ridden Triumph and BSA motorbikes most of his adult life and only gave up two wheels when my sister and I got too big to fit in the side car along with mum.

Dad rang the man from the Pru and arranged insurance, I applied for a provisional licence and a week or so later I rolled up at school, parked by the bike sheds, lit up a cigarette and looked around for the girl. Fat chance.

As a postscript, uncle Sonny was killed the following year when he was hit by a car on his way to work on his bicycle near Petters' roundabout in Staines. A very sad day in our house.

	Riding the Sunbeam It looked like a scooter but sounded and rode like a motor bike. Regular petrol for the four stroke engine and two pedals on the floor. The one on the left being a one up and three down gear lever and the pedal on the right being the rear brake. 250cc - was it fast? It was meant to be but no, not really. With a claimed top speed of 70 mph it just about kept pace with my mates Li150's but TV175's, GT's and SX200's saw it off easily.
The BSA Sunbeam was available as a 2-stroke 175cc or a 4-stroke 250cc.
Was it reliable? Was it heck as like. The main problem I suffered with was the petrol feed. The carburettor was decidedly moody a lot of the time and it got to the point where, about six months after I got the scooter, the carb died on me. This was around the spring of 1969.
Dad found a replacement carb, fitted it and the scoot was transformed. It went an awful lot faster through the gears and easily held its own with the 200cc Lambretta's. Petrol consumption however, whilst never being great, increased rapidly and added significantly to the running costs for this schoolboy. Another early advert for the BSA Sunbeam. This time with a rather fetching flyscreen and paniers!