Honda GL1500 Gold Wing
A very strange co-incidence
This was our GL1500 on the day I sold it.
So the bike was sold in late 2003 and life changed a lot for us after that - we both retired from work and made the move to our new home in Orkney. We had bought our new house in October 2005 and made many enjoyable trips up and down at any available holiday time to do some work on the place and finally sold our place in Southport in June 2007 and moved up permanently.
Some time in 2010 we had a visit from our former neighbours from Southport and travelling with them into Kirkwall we were followed by a 1500 Goldwing but as Christine was driving and I was sitting in the back of her Honda Civic, I didn't have enough room to turn fully in the seat to have a good look. As we waited at a junction to turn right, this bike came up on our nearside to go straight on and I clocked the number. 'That's my old Wing' I shouted as it turned into a supermarket car park. I made my apologies to Christine and our friends - they were only going to the bank and I could easily catch them up, but I wanted to have a quick word with the new owner. The bike was imported by West Coast Motorcycles and after some cosmetic work and MOT I had the job of having the bike and all of its paperwork inspected at the LVRO in Preston. They then issued it with an age related G prefix registration number so I had to get a plate made up which made the number quite memorable (to me anyway) I eventually transferred my three letter, two number plate to it. It carried this number for the whole time I had it and at the time of sale, transferred the plate to my new bike. The original number was then re-allocated to the red bike.
I waited by the bike for a few minutes and the owner came back to it and we had a general conversation about bikes. I said that I once owned this bike. 'Oh, you've had a bike then?' was the reply. 'Yes, I had THIS bike' 'Oh, you had a Goldwing then, was it a 1500? I got the impression that he just thought I was just a confused silly old fool, wanting to talk bikes. Now we all know that you don't touch other peoples' bikes so when I told him about the repair I had done to the hinge on the little stowage box by the passengers seat, he opened it and looked inside and my handy work was still there and working.
A big light went on and then we had a few more minutes chat before I gave him my phone number and invited him round for a brew. It turned out that he was a coach driver from Fife, who came up to Orkney for the season when the Cruise ships were in and the Tours were on.
He came round a week or so later and I took a picture of my old bike outside our new place. I don't know what the chances of such a happening are but perhaps I ought to have bought a Lottery ticket that week! I had sold that bike 7 years earlier and 500 miles away.
Sandy and his Wife Vicky are now residents in Orkney and we meet up fairly regularly - we've made lots of friends through bikes and cars in our lives - good, innit? The Wing has again moved to a new home but Sandy still has a bike.
There is a more recent tragic ending to this story, Sandy was doing someone a big favour by going down to South Ronaldsay to drive a school bus for them, On his way back home to Sandwick, whilst travelling along Churchill Barrier 2 on his motorcycle, he was hit by a vehicle as he went to overtake it and he struck the armco barrier and died instantly in the collision.