I was trying to track down London relatives of Joe and Albert Hobbs, the men behind Hobbs of Barbican in the 1930s, yesterday and spoke to a Mr Hobbs who seemed a likely prospect.
After the initial preamble, it became apparent that, although he knew of the marque, he wasn't connected to the family in any way. However, he volunteered the information that, coincidentally, he had been a keen cyclist and always rode a Claud Butler that he bought in 1936.
Never knowing where these conversations might end up, I asked him if he still had the bike (you've got to try!). It turns out that during the war one of his relative's homes was bombed and he jumped on the CB to follow the ambulance. When it stopped at a hospital, he left his bike leaning against a nearby house while he went to see how the injured person was getting on.
Part way through his visit, he heard a loud explosion and ran outside to find the house that had been supporting his bike was no longer there. Not surprisingly, his bike never survived the blast either. I was going to ask him if he'd kept the mangled frame and if it was economically repairable but, like so many things in life, you've got to know when to let go :-)
Bruce Dundee Scotland
P.S. I've since managed to make contact with Albert Hobbs' granddaughter and, hopefully, through her his son, Trevor, by leaving a post on a genealogy newsgroup. Isn't the internet amazing sometimes!