Mud slinging in Peterborough

Wasn’t feeling too hot on Saturday morning after a particularly thirsty London night out the evening before but I found my pick-me-up in a most unexpected package.

Sifting through the mail I spotted the BMF ‘Motorcycle Rider’ magazine envelope. To be honest, it usually goes straight in the bin but, I’m glad to say, this time I decided to open it.

I flicked through the content from back to front and stopped at a feature called ‘ a kick up the eighties’ written by Jeff Stone. The layout was what stopped me. In my befuddled state, it looked like it’d been done in crayon, Pritt-Stick and those roundy-ended, child-friendly scissors, by a blind eight year-old. Baffled, and slightly intrigued, I started to read the feature.

In this piece, Jeff Stone (three cheers for Jeff) catalogued the goings on of the BMF in the1980s with anecdotes and recollections aplenty. His show-piece turned out to be literally just that, I quote:

‘The BMF rally was now a really big event and for 1983 I foolishly persuaded the BBC Radio One Road Show to come along, selling the idea that we’re not all a bunch of hooligans, but ordinary people who happened to ride motorcycles – big mistake!

Weather wise we had continual and heavy rain but in spite of this, we had 26,300 people attending and a hefty 2,300 people camping.

Along came the BBC’s top DJs of the time, Kid Jensen and Mike Smith to broadcast live to the Nation from the BMF rally, quite a Coup I thought. The BBC even brought in chart topper of the day Bonnie Tyler by helicopter!

But it all went wrong when some drunken slobs thought it would be clever to throw mud at the DJs and shout at Bonnie Tyler ‘show us your tits’. Not what the BBC were used to, of course, so the Road Show came off the air and the rest was broadcast from the London studio.

So much for promoting the image of motorcycling, still, I did get a signed LP from Bonnie Tyler.’

Were you at the BMF rally in 1983? If so, maybe you’ve got some pictures of the Mike Smith and David ‘The Kid’ Jensen running away from a hail of well-aimed mud? ? If so, we think you should share them with us all….

By mark forsyth