Big Andys Scootering Site
an independant scooterist's web site....e-mail address:- big-andy@ntlworld.com
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Colin Potter ... July 1965 - January 2006 |
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The photo above was sent to me from another Derby scooterist and was taken at Scarborough in 1982 and shows me wearing a boating jacket of all things. The lad next to me is Colin Potter who was my best friend. We met when we were about 12 years of age and became inseperable and were more like brothers than friends. We both became punks before becoming mods together, we even got married to girls who were best friends. Dawn, my wife was best friends with Colins 1st wife, Lisa. Colin was my best man when Dawn and myself were married. As previously stated my first scooter was a P200E but Colins was a Vespa 50, before moving onto a LI 125 and a GP 125. When the above photo was taken Colin had actually rode his 50cc up to Scarborough on his own, taking about 7-8 hours to get there. In the last 2-3 years we drifted apart a little bit, seeing each other only occasionally, but Colin was never too far from my thoughts. On the 18th January 2006 Colin passed away, aged only 40, having been diagnosed with cancer only a couple of weeks earlier, leaving me devasted by his death. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Sue, and the rest of his family who obviously are more devasted than me. Another old scooterist goes to ride his Lambretta in the sky. Rest peacefully mate, i shall miss you |
This photo was taken in Scarborough in 1982. It was sent to me by another Derby scooterist, Steve Grant. The ironic twist to this was that Steve sent this to me the day before i found out Colin was ill in hospital with cancer. Colin had spent 7-8 hours riding his vespa 50 all the way up to Scarborough, whilst i had ridden my P200E up with the rest of the Derby Cobras Scooter Club as we all had at least a 125cc scooter to ride. Some mate i was aye, leaving him to ride on his own. Actually we didn't know Colin had planned to ride up there, so imagine my big surprise whilst walking along the seafront, when Colin pulled up along side us.
This Photo was taken in the same pub as the previous photo and includes some old friends from the North West Leicester Scooter Club based in Ashby and Coalville as well as friends from Derby. The lad in the red top, next to Colin is Steve Perry, a friend i still enjoy the odd pint with today. The lad i'm blowing kisses to is Chris Wheatley from Ashby and the lad in the bottom right hand corner is his brother Mark Wheatley. I Dont know who the lad in the middle is unfortunately.
These two pictures are of two of colins scooters. The first is his Vespa 50, the one he rode to Scarborough, and the other is of his Li 125 which he bought as soon as he was 17. His other scooter was a GP200. Needless to say his 2 lambrettas got him to the rallies a little bit quicker than the Vespa 50. I remember having a couple of accidents with his Li, one was when we had put new brake shoes on it but we didn't tighten the cable up properly. We had done it at his girlfriends house whos drive had quite a steep incline to the main road so i set of to test the brakes having to give the scooter some revs to get up the hill. Once up on the main road i applied the brakes, but they didn't work and i shot straight over the road, hit the kerb on the other side and flew over the garden wall on the other side of the road. It must of been hilarious to watch but Colin was more concerned for his scooter, not that i blame him, as i lay flat out on the neighbours flower beds. The other time i came of it Colin was actually riding it. We were on our way to Derby Scooters on the otherside of town when his clutch cable broke so we managed to nurse it some distance without a cable. In the middle of town we came across a traffic light on red and had to stop so Colin knocked into neutrel. As the light changed to green Colin Knocked it into 1st gear and the scooter shot up in the air with an impressive wheelie. Unfortunately i wasn't holding on to well so flew off the back, sitting on my arse in the middle of the road watching Colin disappear into the distance. He must have gone a good 1/2 mile before he realised i wasn't with him anymore and returned to find me being tendered to by a few passerbys who were struggling to keep a straight face.
This little gem i also found tucked away in Colins photos. The skinny ugly lad in the red Jacket, believe it or not is yours truly pushing my P200E. If you look closer you will see that the front forks are Lambretta forks (with a flat tyre). It also had a Lambretta front mudguard but for some reason its missing on this photo. Myself and Colin had experimented by putting the Lammy forks in as i thought it looked better, but handled terribly. This scooter is the same one that started life red in colour but after a series of tarmac surfing i had resprayed it and turned it into a salute to my football team, Derby County, much to Colins disgust as he was a West Ham fan. The other lad in the photo with me is Gary Anthony, another life long friend. Gary lived just up the road from me and could play the guitar to all The Jam records, not note perfect but good enough to impress us at the time.
This photo also is of me on my P200E which if you look closely you can see the Lambretta front mudguard on it. The Lammbretta next to me was Colins GP200 which he was putting together at the time. I'm not sure what was on my flyscreen but as you can see even back in those days i didn't have all the mirrors and lights on my scooter as was the fashion in those days. The Mods were still 99% of the scooter scene then and Scooter Boys were just emerging, besides i couldn't be bothered with all that cleaning and polishing that you had to do to the lights and mirrors. By the way the red jacket i am wearing in these last 2 photos has long gone but i still have the patches, some of which are on one of the denim jackets i can often be seen wearing.
This photo just shows my P200E when it was still in its red stage. I'm not sure who owned the lammy in the picture and i also don't know who the two girls are either. The lad sat with them is the afore mentioned Gary Anthony, who usually attended rallies on the back of my scooter. My P200E was a fantastic scooter, it was completely standard but it was really fast compared with other standard 200's. One of my fellow club members had a 225 conversion done to his P200E and although he beat me on accelleration, mine would still go faster than his at top speed.
Now this photo is one to put in front of the fire to keep the kids away. When we were looking through Colins photos we all fell about laughing when we got to this one. Yes the scruffy looking stick insect in The Clash t-shirt is non other than me. I was a big Clash fan back in those days. I must admit though that i don't remember having that much hair. I'm not sure where the photo was taken but it looks like it was in a B&B somewhere. The other lad behind the door is Tony, another of the old Derby scooterists
Well these were just a few photos that i came across whilst looking through my friend, Colins scooter photo album. The photos above all featured either myself or some one we both knew. To see a selection of photos Colin took of some of the scooters around back in the early 80's just click on the link below. My only regret is that Colins Photo Album won't be able to increase in size now that he is no longer with us. It just remains for me to thank Colins widow, Sue, for allowing me to use these photos. Colin Potter R.I.P