A passion for scooters and a dream fulfilled
Better get a Vespa
As a teenager in the late 1950s, Bernard Lawlor was living near Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, and used to watch the Royal Signals’ motorcycle team practicing and performing their act. Part of their repertoire of performances was a display which involved riders on Vespas and it was this display of riding skill on these scooters which ignited Bernard’s desire to own a Vespa. “In the early Sixties I was working as a 17-year-old delivery driver for Babyland in Mansfield earning £4 a week. If you were born in Mansfield in ’62 or ’63 the chances are I’ll have delivered your pram to your parents!” Bernard joked.
“I’d never been a bike man and since seeing the Signals’ display team on their Vespas I’d always wanted a scooter. I saw the ‘Better get a Vespa’ advert on TV and I bought my first scooter for £95 in 1961, which was a Vespa 152L2 (125) from Henstocks in Mansfield.”
Deepening passion
“After I’d got the scooter I used it every day for work and through the day I used to leave it outside the shop. One day, when I’d finished work, I saw someone
