Straight talking Yorkshiremen – The Wilkinsons.

Words: John Moffat; Bill Wilkinson & Mick Wilkinson

Photos: Iain Lawrie; Barry Robinson Estate; Bob Hosie; Mike Davies; Kenny McNamee; Roz Price; Malcolm Carling, courtesy of Nick Haskell; Charlie Watson; Alex Smith; Michelle Wilkinson.

Trials Guru writer, John Moffat profiles the Yorkshire brothers from Kettlewell that are a significant part of British off-road motorcycle history.

It all started with Richard ‘Dick’ Wilkinson of Appletreewick in Craven district, North Yorkshire, who ran the ‘New Inn’ pub and garage and was a factory rider for Panther Motorcycles of Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire, manufactured by Messrs Phelon & Moore.

Dick and his wife Lilly had two sons, the eldest William known as Bill, born June 1941; Richard Michael, born in May 1948 and daughter, Shirley born 1949. Dick, Bill and Mick were to compete in trials and the International Six Days Trial (ISDT) in their respective competitive riding careers.

Dick Wilkinson was a very capable trials and grass track rider and took part in all the national events of the day, he was a national trials winner and had eight Scott spoons to his credit. He rode in many Scottish Six Days Trials, his last being 1953 on a 500T Norton, plus several ISDTs taking in the 1937 and 1938 events in Wales.

Mick Wilkinson, himself a holder of eight Scott spoons: “The 1939 ISDT was centred at Salzburg when the entire British team and private riders had to leg it over the Swiss border when the outbreak of World War two was imminent. Dad had no choice but to get free of the potential risk of spending the war as a prisoner, they couldn’t guarantee their safety. He rode post war in Italy in 1947, Wales again in 1950 and his last in Italy once again in 1951”.

Dick Wilkinson campaigned the Panther until the factory closed, then he bought himself a 500T Norton and then a 200cc James, which he continued to ride until he stopped riding in 1954.

Christened ‘Richard Michael’ Dick & Lilly’s second son was to be universally known to all as ‘Mick’ and to the family as ‘Mike’. “I’ve never been that bothered what folk call me, Mick, Mike, Wilks – it’s all the same to me” he quipped.

Mick: “I can’t remember when I actually started riding motorbikes, but it was as soon as I could nick Bill’s for a run out. We both took up riding influenced by our Dad”.

Elder brother Bill, holder of thirteen Scott spoons and event winner in 1964, holds the distinction of being the last British rider to win the Scottish Six Days Trial on a British built motorcycle, the Greeves in 1969. Ten years earlier, he had taken the best first timer award riding with L-plates, the P.S. Chamberlain trophy on a private Greeves and stayed faithful to the marque for twelve seasons.

Bill Wilkinson: “The Chamberlain trophy is a solid silver scale working model of a Rudge with rubber tyres, silver cables and chain, we had it on the mantelpiece in our house all year, until I returned it, all polished up proper the following year, but I think they stopped presenting it after that as it was so valuable.”

“Our Mike was forever taking my bike out for a ride whenever my back was turned. I inherited my Dad’s 200cc James which was his last competition bike and I rode it around locally from 1954 until I took up riding properly in trials in 1957. I then switched to a 500cc BSA Gold Star which I rode in the Scott Trial that year, bloody heavy thing it was too.”

Greeves factory ride:

Bill: “I bought my own Greeves in 1959 for the Scottish and when I got to Fort William on the first day, Ralph Venables came over to me and said, ‘come with me, I want you to meet someone in the Stag Hotel’. We went in and there was Bert Greeves sat in the bar. He said: ‘do you want to ride for Greeves? We can see how things go, but we will pay you bonuses and expenses for starters if you ride nationals’. I said fine by me Mr. Greeves, but can I have a scrambler as well? Mr Greeves said ‘we’ll see what we can do’. After the Scottish, the factory sent up a used trials bike by train to Skipton and two weeks later they had built me a brand new one. Then two weeks after that, up came a scrambler. Every year I had two new bikes and they gave you the option to buy them at a reduced price, so you could sell them on and make a few bob.”

Bill continued: “I never had a written contract in all the time I rode Greeves; it was all done with the shake of Mr. Greeves’ hand. I once said the Derry Preston-Cobb that I wanted a contract like Don Smith’s, but ‘Cobby’ let me have a peek at Don’s contract the wrong way up and I realised that I didn’t want it after all as mine was actually better. That was in 1962, Don was boasting to me about how much he was making and that set me thinking and I went down to the factory and spoke to Cobby. I said ‘Cobby I want a contract like D.R’s, he said ‘no you don’t Bill’ and sure enough I was actually winning more and earning more than D.R was, so I said, your right Cobby I don’t want a contract we’ll leave things as they are.”

Bill had a lot of respect for the Greeves workforce, Mr. Greeves who he never refers to as Bert, and especially Bill Brooker, the competitions Manager. He would travel down to Thundersley and the company either gave him accommodation or, if he waited four hours or so, they would rebuild the bike on the spot for him to drive straight back to Kettlewell that same evening.

Mick’s first works ride was when teamed up with “Jonah”, Dennis Jones on the Frank Hipkin’s Sprite in 1965. This was followed by an approach from Norman Moore of Francis Barnett and James when Mick Andrew’s James, 305AKV became available when Andrews moved to ride Bultaco for the Rickman brothers.

Mick: “I rode the James in the 1966 Scottish, but AMC was by then in a bad way financially and Bill was riding for Greeves, so I went over to join him. I never had a contract, just an agreement with Bill Brooker and Derry Preston Cobb. I had the factory Anglian at that time and rode those until the 169cc Puch engined ‘Pathfinder’ came on stream. I had a good one of those which had some improvements carried out by Reg May at Comerfords. This included lowered footrests by one and a half inches and a more conventional exhaust system. Arthur Browning got me a weighted flywheel which helped the lower end power and it ticked over right well. My bike was ten times better than the rest of them. I won the Travers Trial in 1971 and rode it in the Welsh Three Day as the dealer sponsored Cheney Triumph wasn’t ready and I passed Ken Heanes on his 500 Triumph twin who started a minute before me, he wasn’t too pleased at that”.

Bill interjects: “The Pathfinder was absolute crap, my brother could ride it, but I hated the bloody thing, they were awful. In fact I got so fed up with the Pathfinder that I started to use Mike’s Anglian that he laid up and started to get results again. I rode the Pathfinder in the 1970 Scottish and having won on the Anglian in 1969, I was well down the leader-board just one year later. I did ride one in Austria at the Puch factory in Graz and it was a terrific little bike, but I think they changed the motor because when it came over to England it just wasn’t the same machine at all.”

Wilkinsons and the ISDT:

Mick Wilkinson had a fair number of rides in the ISDT commencing with the 1968 event at San Pellegrino, Italy on a Suzuki, followed by a Greeves ride in the 1969 Garmisch-Partenkirchen event where he picked up a gold medal. He was on the dealer backed 504cc Cheney Triumph for El Escorial, near Madrid in 1970 as part of the British trophy team.

Mick: “We were all bloody stupid back then, we could have been much better prepared; for instance, we were losing marks on the noise meter test. Had I known this I could have backed it off to take the sharpness of the exhaust, but we all rode like silly buggers going as fast as we could instead of riding with a bit more stealth, as we could have done”.

The 1971 ISDT, held in the Isle of Man, was to see Mick fall foul of the team management as his Cheney Triumph locked up.

Mick: “The oil pipes had melted against the exhausts as the motor was running really hot and it spewed oil all over itself and me. There was bloody oil everywhere.  At first they didn’t believe me and said that it wasn’t possible, I was exonerated later that year when John Pease’s bike did exactly the same. I had pulled over after about 40 miles and had to replace the plastic insulation which had melted through on the wires to the points with insulation tape. Ken Heanes’ back up man had seen this and we got it going once it had cooled down a bit. It got me to the third check of the day when it seized completely though lack of oil supply, the pipes having melted completely through. I did enjoy riding the big Cheney, they were great fun to ride but the preparation could have been better looking back on it all”.

In 1972 and 1973, Mick was aboard the Otley built Dalesman under the control of former Greeves competition manager, Bill Brooker.

Mick: “That Dalesman, LWW578K was one very quick motorcycle; I could hardly stay on it sometimes. It had a 125 Sachs motor and it absolutely flew. I did the ISDT in Czechoslovakia, the Brecon and Welsh Three Days on it. I rode it in the USA in 1973 which was my last ISDT.”

Bill and the ISDT:

Bill Wilkinson rode the ISDT twice, in 1965 in the Isle of Man and the following year in Sweden. He was supplied with the specially built 250cc ISDT Challenger from the factory carrying the registration MEV10C on both occasions. This bike, along with the rest of the ISDT Greeves, were prepared in the comp shop by Scottish trials rider and Greeves mechanic, Allie ‘Beag’ Cameron originally from Fort William and Bill struck up a good rapport with ‘Wee Allie’.

Bill: “I was going well on the Isle of Man until the Thursday when the clip came loose in the carburettor and it got sucked right through the motor; that was the end of that. Sweden was better and I picked up a gold medal that year, but riding the International was a right risky business and to be honest that and scrambling took my eye of the ball for trials so I decided to concentrate on trials after that. I enjoyed it but it really mucked up my trials riding.”

Bill: “My most memorable wins must be the 1964 Scott, it was a ‘proper’ Scott victory by being fastest man and best on observation, and of course the 1969 Scottish win on my Anglian, WWC169F, was probably my finest and something Sammy Miller has never forgiven me for. I was sold the Greeves by the factory and of course I moved it on to make a few bob. Years later I had the hankering to buy it back, but I had forgotten who I had sold it to, so I began making enquiries. Eventually I tracked it down to Jim Swallow’s at Slaithwaite near Huddersfield. He had bought it from someone claiming it was ex-works, so I got a note of the frame number, checked it out through the Greeves Riders’ Association and it was my old one. Jim restored it as I wanted it and I have it to this day.”

OSSA time:

Mick had switched from Greeves in 1972 to ride OSSA in trials again following big brother whose dislike of the Pathfinder model hastened his departure from the Greeves fold.

Bill’s switch in 1971 from Greeves to OSSA was through Eric Housley, who was the marques first UK importer, before it was taken over by Peter Fletcher and Alan Kimber’s OSSA Moto UK empire which also supported Mick Andrews on the full factory bike along with Dave Thorpe and Bill. Brother Mick followed the next season and was handed one of the first production MAR models, but Bill had ridden the pre-production versions, initially supplied with a brand new Bultaco with OSSA badges stuck on the tank, when his machine failed to arrive on time from Barcelona.

For Bill, the OSSA was a good substitute for the ageing Greeves Anglian which he rode until he split with the Thundersley factory which had been developing the Puch powered, conventional framed Pathfinder when Villiers engine supplies began to dry up. The Pathfinder certainly signposted the exit door for Bill and the OSSA, for him, was a good choice.

Running in parallel to all this active trials and ISDT activity by the brothers, was a family run enterprise, some nine miles distant from Dick Wilkinson’s original business and the spares, repairs, local bus service and petrol pumps at Kettlewell was known simply as ‘Bill & Mick Wilkinson, The Garage’.

Three wheels:

It was around 1976 when Mick turned his attention to riding in sidecar trials which had been kindled way back in 1963 when he was passenger to Peter Roydhouse on the Cammy Norton outfit as a fifteen year old. Mick rode with Peter in the Northern Experts and Bemrose when his regular passenger, Colin Pinder was working overseas for a year.

Wilkinson the younger was to establish himself as a true force to be reckoned with as a sidecar driver along with his long-term passenger, Kevin Lockwood.

Mick: “I took an OSSA outfit in as a part-exchange and it got me thinking that I should give sidecars a go, so I tarted the outfit up a bit and went out and won the sidecar class at the Allan Jefferies. It just went on from there. There were times when I had to decide whether to ride the nationals on a solo or on an outfit. I qualified for the British Experts both solo and sidecar and was runner up twice on the outfit. We won the Northern Experts and were three times winners of the Manx Two Day. I dipped in and out of sidecars which sort of upset the apple cart a bit. I had quite a few chairs made by Norman Iveson and Keith Horseman built one for the OSSA Yellow Gripper, but it was a pile of junk as it kept breaking every time we wheeled it out. We could beat Colin (Dommett) and Clarky (Adrian Clarke) on a good day. I went on to a 348 Montesa with a BKS chair, which were alright, but the later 349 model was crap. I suppose I won about as many national trials as sidecar driver as I had won solo.”

Private life:

Now both retired, Bill and Mick have never lost their enthusiasm for motorcycle sport, Bill rode his last Scott in 1995, his first wife Joan had passed away in 1993 and he decided to raise some money for charity, raising £3,000 in the process.

Bill: “It was very much a Scott too far, I had by this time married Pearl and after I finished the Scott I couldn’t even take my socks off I was so shattered, Pearl had to do it for me. I had trained very hard beforehand by running and cycling as at fifty-four years of age I was fairly fit, but the Scott is an arduous undertaking. My daughter Michelle twigged what I was up to, she saw through my plan straight away.”

Bill has two grown up children, Andrew who also rode trials and Michelle. Mick, married to Dorothy has one son, Charlie.

The business and garage at Kettlewell was sold off in 2014 and it took many months to sell off their massive ‘new old stock’ of bikes, parts and riding gear, which had accumulated over the years, much of it collectors’ items.

But this isn’t the end of the Wilkinson story, Bill can be seen at the Scott Trial each year, he always wears a Greeves sweatshirt with pride and Mick still takes part in “whatever trial takes his fancy.”

There is one thing to remember, the Wilkinsons are straight talking, no punches pulled Yorkshire lads and their knowledge of the sport is endless. Their anecdotes and tales cannot be done justice to in a short article, they could literally fill volumes. They are very much the ‘done that, been there’ type of off-road motorcycle enthusiasts, who were darned good at what they did.

Copyright: John Moffat/Trials Guru 2023

Photographic Copyright: Various photographers named in opening sequence.