Suckin’ diesel with wind on my Thai

PUMPING diesel into my ancient automobile (outstandingly comfortable but nil value today) one warm afternoon last week, I recalled the joys of riding a motorbike on back roads in Thailand a month ago, my wife on the pillion and the wind in my hair (plenty of wind but not a great deal of hair).

Motorcycles are light on fuel and, with helmet-wearing an optional choice in Thailand, we could enjoy the outdoors and fresh air to the full. In Thailand, nanny-state rules do not disbar an adult’s right to risk splitting his skull if he so chooses. Motorcycling is as it used to be when, as a young man, I owned a bike for a year.

I was no ‘biker’; the machine was a modest, if pretty, 200cc DKW, 10 years old, with no cowling. I wore no leather pants, jacket or big boots, and no helmet. I rode around London, from teaching job to teaching job, in a corduroy jacket, polo-neck sweater, everyday trousers and woollen gloves. That year, London experienced one of the coldest winters ever recorded, known as The Big Freeze of 1963.