Hoe-Down

At last the guilty secret is out. Once a year the folk from the Leicester Phoenix BMF Rider Training Scheme get away from the serious side of training and let their hair down with friends and loved ones. Attended by the other four BMF schemes in Leicester as well as the County Road Safety Officer and local dealers, the event this year was a Hoe Down with the top country and western group "Midnight Flyer" who managed what no disco has yet been able to do - get everybody dancing within minutes of playing.

Very few had square danced before but doing the wrong moves added to the fun and the constant swapping of partners livens things up no end.

Later in the evening though, it was noticeable that a number of instructors had disappeared. Then to the strains of Zorba the Greek they re-emerged to sing a little ditty called "We'll Train You Right" and do a dance routine that brought the house down.

You may think that these photographs have been mercifully blurred to protect the identity of reformed characters. We think the blurring occurred on the night so Terry Reynolds names names in the text.

Part of the routine can be seen above with Fairy Feet (Wally Bradshaw), Womble (Steve Grocott), Rabbit (Jesse North), The Kat (Mike Price) trying to remember the actions for another filthy song. Also Part One (Sue Thomson), Trev (RAF), Pro (Daz Savage), Titch (Helen Ayriss) and Chairman (Peter Juby).

 

Roger Sharp was an ace photographer and Instructor with the scheme in the 70s. Now he has turned Kings evidence to bring the Wally Bradshaw gang to justice.

Give us a bucket of sand and we'll sing you the Desert Song and Mecca good job of it.

Whatever anyone tells you, the person on the left is not Wally doing the dance of the seven army blankets.

It is an easy mistake to make.

It is somewhere about here that the idea of sex equality falls foul of the forces of nature. Wally couldn't look like a fairy if he flew round the ceiling.

 

Bob the builder was never like this.

John Wilmot leads the chorus in a rendition of Last Training from Sans Culotte.