San Fairy Ann, Motorcycles and British Victory by Michael Carragher
Am reading this book at present - and very good too, if you are interested in WW1 motorcycles and DonRs. Mr Carragher is a WW1 student so includes a quite scholarly and insightful introduction to WW1 and likewise with WW1 British Forces motorcycles - this is NOT a superficial treatment of the subject; but not dull either. Some interesting statistics - about 45,000 British motorcycles produced for the war effort in total - a lot less going to active operations, of course, where the life of a motorcycle seems to have been measured in weeks, at least in the early phases of the war until the Front got established and systems were set up to repatriate motorcycles for rebuilding (yes, he goes into all this and the problems of coping with mud and punctures and primitive lights, etc). Reading this, it appears to me that it would be really nice if someone would apply the same treatment to WW2 motorcycles - which I don't think has been done........WW2 motorcycle books tend either to be lexicons of the makes or personal accounts. Anyhow, give "San Fairy Ann" a go and see if you agree. Cheers, Ferg
Re: San Fairy Ann, Motorcycles and British Victory by Michael Carragher
The 1926 book must be a different "San Fairy Ann" as the book only came out last year! BTW, for you puzzled Continental types, "San Ferry Ann" is Tommy's bastardisation of the phrase "Ca ne fait rien" that was interpreted as "Oh well, can't be helped...." with a shrug of the shoulders. Mr Carragher promotes this as the WW1 DonR's guiding axiom. "San Ferry Ann" was still in wide use at least in my father's generation, though you would probabaly get blank looks from the youth of today's Britain.
Re: San Fairy Ann, Motorcycles and British Victory by Michael Carragher
this is another ww1 dispatch riders story by captain w.h.l. Watson http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16868 you can down load it for free though it take a lot of your printer paper
