Chairman's Article from MPH
Through the Chair - February 2012
Tim Kirker
January's edition of MPH was a blast from the past with the article from Pip Harper about his adventures on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. I heard some of these tales first hand from Pip in the couple of years between my moving to Derby in 1977, and his leaving for Aberdeen, never (rarely!) to be seen again.Apart from locating the odd Black Lightning in inaccessible parts of the world, he was an amazing builder of Vincent-powered specials. It was Pip that convinced me that trying to put a Twin engine in a Seeley frame was not crazy. (But he didn't say it would take seven years...). He was (still is?) a wizard with fibreglass and used to produce Series 'D' cowls, including the special cowls for the replica Victor he built.
Pip is no longer a Member and the article was submitted on his behalf by his old friend, Jim Mathers. I guess this was before events before Christmas when Jim suffered an aortic aneurism and was rushed into hospital for major surgery. He was in the fortunate position of living only a couple of roads from Derby City Hospital, otherwise this report might be a bit different. We were hoping we might have seen Jim at the East Midlands Cobweb Run, which we attended for the first time in many years, but apparently he was still in rehabilitation care. However, we met a lot of other old faces and enjoyed the day. It was good to see Rita Stafford, with Bob, even though she wasn't quite up to running the raffle, as of old. It was also good to see a good number of new (to us) faces, as well as the older ones who, sadly, were fewer this year with the loss of Ken Colver and Denis Hull - both of whose families were keeping the flag flying. So, another new year is under way and our first business meeting is a few weeks away. Having just retired from gainful employment, we're hoping to get to a few more events this year, maybe even a few we've never got to before, but the diary's filling up all ready. Having been driven mad, for years, by all those senior Members who insist that they don't know how they ever found time to go to work, I'm going to really enjoy annoying our younger Members with the same tale (if I can find any!).