Good Old Stan

A Memory of Blackpool.

I was to live in Blackpool for a short while and would work on a farm; I lived with my sister and brother in law in Delphine Avenue. Lawrence my brother in law leant me his Honda fifty motorbike, I pulled into a petrol station some 15 miles away and proceeded to ask the pump attendant for a gallon of two stroke petrol. He informed me that as far as he was aware this type of bike was a four stroke engine and that straight petrol was the norm, but I was so stupid and big headed that I insisted that it was a 2 stroke engine! The customer is always right - where he simply said have it your own way and put in 2 stroke oil into the tank with petrol. Having kicked up the bike I set off back to Blackpool and got less than one hundred yards from the garage when the engine came to a spluttering stop. I began to push the bike towards home when I noticed a Jaguar car slowing down on the other side of the road, but then he picked up speed and went his way. Some twenty minutes later this same car went by me and stopped some twenty feet away. Two men got out of the Jag and came to me asking if I had run out of petrol. I told him how stupid I'd been putting 2 stroke oil within the tank. I don't recall the name of the driver but I do know that he was a chauffeur because of the way he was dressed. It was then that he was to get his man to open the boot of his car where the two of them and me also placed the bike into the boot. I was worried that the bike would scratch his car and told him so but he said that I had no need to worry. The boot door was left open as it was too big to fit entirely into the boot. Off we went to Delphine Avenue and of course I could not for the life of me understand why this man should be so kind as to offer me such help. I tried to offer him gratitudes but he would not hear of it. Anyway on getting down the Avenue I asked if there was some way I could repay his kindness, he laughed and said that he was not short of a bob or too and then smiled and asked me if I had reccognised him? I looked at him but had no idea on who he might be! It was then that he said that he was Stan Mortason, where I suppose he was waiting for me to jump for joy and ask him for his autograph. I looked at him in bewillderment as he told me on whom he was. In fact in the end he had to tell me that he was the blackpool football manager? It was then I had to shrug my shoulders and say to him that I was not from these parts and that I did not even follow football. Sorry Stan, I'm sure you are dead by now, but a memoary of that day lives on. I'm not sure what year it was when I lived there but it was the year when Highland Wedding won the Grand National or was it the Grand National?

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