Richard inside his workshop.
I met VVC member Richsrd Vickery for the first time at the club’s AGM on 19th October in Leamington Spa. Richard has recently taken over managing the VVC’s club shop from Lesley Purdy, who carried out this role for the past few years. I thought it would be a good idea to get a few words from Richard and introduce him to members, allowing them to put a face to the name when it comes to all things VVC Shop related.
“Unlike the majority of the club’s membership my introduction to the joys of Vespa ownership came quite late in life (about 8 years ago), although I can trace this yearning of scooting antics back to an unfortunate incident back in 1985. As a young lad who’d just come out of his time as a Rolls-Royce apprentice and still living at home, I deemed myself quite well off and after bunging my mum £10 a week for board I’d got enough cash left to buy and insure a brand new Peugeot 205 GTI. Like most young lads I considered myself a fantastic driver who could take a corner faster than anyone else, however as you can imagine I eventually exceeded the ability of the tyres and vehicle chassis and stuffed my pride and joy heavily into a brick wall. As I needed to get to work and didn’t fancy ‘catching the bus’ the only other option available to me was my Mum’s Honda Melody, complete with shopping basket over the front wheel. Although not very cool I always remember it being a fun nippy ride.
Fast forward 26 years and my daughter Ellen was starting college and as we live in a village she was going to have to rely on the spasmodic rural bus service. Like most teenagers she didn’t relish the thought of getting up at all, let alone getting up early to catch the bus. It was at this point I had a eureka moment and I suggested we bought her a scooter. I found a pink Sym Mio on eBay and even though my wife Sandra wasn’t overly keen on the idea Ellen and I drove off to Northampton to have a look. You can probably guess the look Sandra had on her face when we returned with it in the back of the car ! To set the whole family’s mind at rest I bought a LML Star (Indian made Vespa PX) to accompany Ellen on her CBT and get to a position where we felt she was safe on the road. Ellen’s love of scootering lasted until she got soaked one evening in early November but I’d got firmly bitten by the bug and haven’t really looked back.
Even though I carried out some performance tweaks to the LML, the PX shape didn’t really do it for me and I soon replaced it with a beautiful voluptuous Italian 1963 Vespa VNB. A lesson I soon learned about old Vespas is that they generally need a supply of mechanical and electrical love to keep them on the road. Far from this putting me off, this gave me a yearning to restore a scooter from scratch. My first project was a 1965 Vespa Sprint which some of you may have seen at the Stratford and New Forest VVC rallies. Three smallframe projects followed this which went very well and convinced me to try something a bit older. I spotted a very tatty 1958 Douglas 152L2 in Swindon on eBay, it looked a bit rough in the photos and was even rougher when I went to pick it up as the winning bidder ! It was hand-painted green, complete with bullet holes. We nicknamed him Lazarus as after a lot of hard work he was eventually bought back to life. This was the hardest project I have ever completed and without the helpful advice and some difficult to source parts from VVC members I’d still be struggling with it now.
Since joining the VVC I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time on the ride-outs which are lot more relaxing than the ones organised by my local scooter club (Coventry’s AONSC) and look forward to attending many more in the years to come. The members have been most welcoming and have made Sandra and I feel part of the VVC family, thank you all. Hopefully I can inject a bit of life into our shop and provide merchandise more appealing to you all. I’m open to any of your suggestions / ideas. Please email me at shopvvc@hotmail.co
Richard Vickery”
Richard’s lovely restored 152L2
Well done Richard for volunteering - it would be nice if members can support Richard and ease him into his new role and contact him with any suggestions or ideas of stock that you would like to see the VVC Club shop hold, going forward.
Richard’s Vespa 50S outside his workshop.
Good luck to Richard and many thanks to Lesley Purdy.