[CR]Beryl Burton

Topics: History:Norris Lockley Racing:Beryl Burton
(Example: Framebuilding:Restoration)

From: "Norris Lockley" <norris@norrislockley.wanadoo.co.uk>
To: <Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 11:01:39 -0000
Subject: [CR]Beryl Burton

I reckon Mike Butler should be the one to give chapter and verse on Beryl's achievements, as he has a wonderful fund of knowledge of these things.

The photo of Beryl is quite an old one probably taken when she had just started racing fro the Morley Wheelers club, one of many "clubmens' clubs in and about the close-knit industrial area of Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield. I came from the last named one..the home of the Huddersfield Road Club and many excellent riders..not including myself unfortunately, although I was a member. There was fierce competition between the clubs particularly in time-trial events..and of course the fastest rider over a number of specific distances would win the covetted Yorkshire Best All-Rouinder Award for the season.

Beryl's bike gives me the idea that the photo was mid-50s or even earlier in that decade, as she is still riding a steel chainset..TA 5-pin ones were just becoming popular at that time. The frame could be a JRJ (an earlier incarnation of Bob Jackson), whose transfers were always very small on the D down-tube...and there is possibly a contrasting panel on the seat-tube..very normal in the 50s. JRJ were about 7 miles from Morley. Carlton frames were also very popular with "testers" (time-trialers) in those days.

I think the photo is pre- Ron Kitching days, as Ron would have insisted on his large black and white transfers on the frame. Harrogate, Kitching's base is not far from Morley just the other side of Leeds, and into the Yorkshire Dales, and even closer to Shipley where Doug Fattic worked with Ellis-Briggs. I reckon it very likely that Briggs could have built Beryl's frames in the early "Kitching" era, because the Shipley firm was a very important customer for Ron's range of imported continental "goodies".

Once Beryl became a proper almost semi-sponsored rider in the Kitching stable, her frames were made by MKM in which Ron was a major shareholder. Probably either Wes Mason, or Arthur Metcalfe would have built the frames, but more likely the former. Towards the end of the Burton-Kitching-MKM era it was foreman- builder, Steve Elsworth, who built them.

Alhough I was riding very actively at the time Beryl was at her best, I never raced against her,and cannot recall meeting her in the cafes, such as "Ye Olde Bente Poker" in Otley, or the CTC Club houses either after or before the races. She must have been there because, in Yorkshire, everyone was. I knew her husband Charley very well as he was the warehouse foreman for Kitching's business, with which I traded for many years, but it wasn't until about six months before her fatal accident that I met the great lady herself. The occasion was the end of season National Hillclimb Championship that was being held in the Lake District not far from where I live. While cheering on one of the riders I had sponsored I felt Charley's hand on my shoulder...and was then introduced to Beryl who was standing at his side. Both were holding there bikes upright.

He expained that they had driven up the dale in their converted delivery van, slept in sleeping bags overnight on the floor..and then cycled the rest of the way through the hills that morning so that they could " get some training miles in".

That day as I looked at that incredible athlete whom I had just had the honour of meeting, I realised just how pampered were most of our "then" star riders, with their carbon-equiped machines, sponsored cars, often soigneurs etc etc..and none of them ever achieved anything comparable to the palmares of that modest "club woman".. but they certainly earned more money for their efforts. It is true as Doug related that once Beryl's daughter, who also rode for the Morley club, started to beat her mother's times..and to steal races from her..the mother-daughter relationship started to become very estranged, until they stopped speaking for some while. Finally there was a rapprochement...probably when Beryl came to realise that she had to t come to terms with her own aging process, but even then she was an incredible force to be reckoned with.

I think that the photo of Beryl captures beautifully her closed-knee style of riding.and I like to imagine that the time-trial she was riding..and was probably winning, was an "evening 10"...first "man" off at 7 o'clock..after everyone had had the chance to recover from a full day at work, eat, change clothes ..and ride out to the start. Then down to the "pub" afterwards for a beer before riding home again.

Norris Lockley, Settle UK..and trying to resist the temptation to say "..and those were the days!"