Following the profile of Blackmore Vale Motorcycle Club last month (Revving through history, The BV Jan 25), Francis Custard has kindly given The BV permission to share just a small sample of his archive of images taken at some of the club’s historical events:
‘I have put together a selection of photos from the late 1950’s through to 1970. The photographers are my late father, Ron Custard, and Terry Heath, who now lives in Yeovil. I scanned my Dad’s negatives, slides and cines after I retired in 2008.
‘Just before Christmas I linked up with Terry, who had a case of negatives in his garage, and I have now undertaken a project to scan and share his work. The quality of the images is not comparable with the modern images by Michael Berkeley in your interesting article featuring Dean Whitty. Do bear in mind these were taken 60-odd years ago: the camera equipment was basic, and the negatives are now not always in the best condition!
‘There is a selection of Trials, Scrambles, Grass Track and Road Racing. The Blackmore Vale Club ran many events back then: I remember taking part in Scrambles – I broke my collar bone after a big tumble at Whitesheet Hill in 1970!
‘Along with photos, I also have many programmes from Blackmore Vale events, the earliest is for Road Races at Blandford Camp on 1st August 1949!’
Francis has labelled all the images for us according to the slide annotations:
Sponsored by The Museum of East Dorset
The hailwood at Blandford is 1957 not 1967
I am very interested in 1953 to 1959 mv 125 machines. There are also images of John hogan at this race with full dustbin streamlining. I would love to know ow if any other images of the era are unpublished and available for historical research. 07884042115.