Pete's Memories of the Bee

by Pete Broad

I remember the last time I used the Bee, because as I went for a leak, I saw a guy I wanted to smack in the mouth, but he had about twelve mates with him. He once broke into a gas meter in the house I was living in, & I had to foot the bill. This was late `50s or early 60s.
I also remember being asked to test a friends Triumph that he said did 100mph to friends in the Bee. It was at night, so I wasn`t keen, but agreed. It didn`t according to the speedo which were usually optimistic those days anyway. I told him it had done the ton to stop the argument. The same chap, who wasn`t the best mechanic in the world, killed himself when the van or car he jacked up, collapsed while he was underneath.
Another time while sitting in the Bee talking to a fellow "Sparks" who lived in Bushey, several Yanks came in, one drunken one offered to fight anyone there. Minutes later, a group of young Brits came in from a coach & ordered something to eat. Half way through their meal, the Yank was still spouting of how he could beat anyone there, so the lads smashed several chairs over his head. A bit OTT, but he asked for it really. The last thing I remember, was the Bee`s Alsation licking up the blood.
Remember while in the middle of the road waiting to turn right into the BEE one evening, when a pratt car driver overtook me at a high rate of knots, & hit an ambulance going towards London. I was amazed when neither stopped, & carried on their journey. I was silhouetted against the lit junction further on, had my stop lights on, & had my right arm out wearing reflective gauntlets. If he`d hit me, I would have been dead.
Being an atheist & not believing in ghosts or anything supernatural, I got a shock when my first wife & I were doing about 90mph towards the BEE one evening, & saw what looked like a man standing in the middle of the road about 5 miles the Edgware side of the BEE. If it had been a real person, I would have hit him with the twist grip side of the handle bars & probably killed both of us. When we got to the BEE, my wife said she saw the same thing. It may have been steam from a manhole cover, but looked real to us.
Think the first time we used the BEE was in the late 40s, early 50s. Our nearest Bike cafe was Bet`s Cafe at the Green Man, Mill Hill. Have lost about 15 Biker friends since then, but I got lucky I guess.