Chris and the bike

Into September, the month when traditionally British schools go back with the trek by car bus or train to ones dorm after the summer hols finish and the six weeks of freedom becomes a dim memory as the daily battle over algebra and trigonometry  resumes.
There are of course good sides to it, the resumption of friendships, the comradely of shared existence in our dorms and in our undoing in the hands of the Grown Ups in charge when we're all caught out.
We were fortunate for one year to have a person with a great interest in engineering and motor vehicles on staff and for period I and a few others were placed with him on a project to repair a BSA Gold Star motorcycle including major respraying. 

It and all the BSA models were made by the Birmingham Small Arms Company ltd, Warwickshire, England from the 1930's through to the 1970's where the competition from Italy and Japan especially proved too much.
It was very much a hands on job requiring overalls as parts were checked over and replaced such as the gaskets which I had to cut from paper, parts were regreased, paint was removed, surfaces cleaned and resprayed and so on.
Very much a labour of love by the time we'd finished on it, it looked an absolute beauty.
There was something else though, namely in that time we all had bonded as a unit relying on each other, being responsible as a group of boys and as such had grown under the direct attention of our instructor as much in carrying our boyish selves as in our knowledge of the workings of engines and making parts.