John Bacon and his Greeves Pictures
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John Bacon with the loves in his life. His family Jean and Linda (David) was still on the way!……and his motorbikes.
Just for the record……..The bike numbered 122 is John’s 175cc Ducati and his racing number shows the photo was taken at a National Meeting at Brands Hatch on 4th April 1958. John’s Finishing Position in the race was 4th which was impressive because I am sure this was his FIRST road-race given that he bought the bike early that year from the new importers who had a small display of the Ducati Sport bikes (175cc and 125cc) which they had laid out in an office basement in Kingsway in London. It was long before Kings of Oxford took over the concession.
Shortly after John Bacon died racing at Tubbergen, in 1965, I lost contact with his wife Jean and daughter Linda whilst living and working in Portugal. When returning to England in 1967, I was informed Jean had moved to Cornwall but none of my contacts had her address.
On many occasions over the years I inquired after Jean and Linda but without any success. Earlier this year A,J, West posted on this site a photograph of John racing his Ducati at Brands hatch back in the 50′s and within days Linda responded to A,J’s posting.
Through Vintage Bike I wish to thank A,J for remembering John, Jean and Linda when making his initial posting which has lead to many of John and Jean’s old friends getting back into contact and discovering John and Jean had a son David who was born some months after John’s untimely death. Any readers wishing to follow this story are invited to click on to – http://www.vintagebike.co.uk/pictures/john-bacon-ducati-175-sport/#.UIwAyWez5jo.
Thanks a million A.J, you not only opened up a new window on the lives of their mother and father for Linda and David but through your action, brought back many fond memories of John and Jean for so many of us.
I am so glad that my posting had such positive consequences – entirely unexpected by me. All I was trying to do was make sure John’s considerable contribution to motor cycle racing was not forgotten. We all, at that time, put in enormous amounts of time and hard earned cash just to be part of what came to be regarded later as a ‘golden era’. Aged 80 now, I still remember the thrilling sense of ‘history’ I experienced when I was able to come to the start-lines of the TT, the Ulster Grand Prix and again, years later, to blast-off on a vintage Velocette in sprints at what was left of that iconic circuit Brooklands – nowadays designated a ‘Heritage Site’. I send my best wishes to all who share my love of what I have to regard as the best sport in the world! Bless you all. Arthur (A.J.)
Positive consequences-indeed!It has been life changing for my brother David and I.We have found out so much about our Father and his racing career that we would have never known about.It has answered so many questions that we had.Thanks again to Arthur West(A.J),Richard Morley and of course Vintage Bike.
DEAR LINDA & DAVID.
I HAVE THE LAST FEW DAYS RECEIVED SOME E MAILS FROM RICHARD MORLEY ABOUT YOUR LATE FATHER JOHN.
I TOO LIVED IN OLD WOKING IN THE 1960′S , THEY WERE GREAT TIMES , I WAS A YOUNG LAD OF 14 / 15 YEARS OLD & FELL IN LOVE WITH RACING MOTORCYCLES.
I STARTED RACING AT A VERY EARLY AGE & THANKS TO YOUR FATHER WHO CAME WITH ME IN THE FIRST INSTANCE TO DORKING HONDA DEALER VAL KNAPP EARLY IN 1963 & WAS SUBSQUENTLY OFFERED A BRAND NEW HONDACR110 PRODUCTION RACER 50CC TO RIDE AT THAT YEARS 50CC TT RACE.
YOUR FATHER WAS ALWAYS IMMACULATE IN EVERTHING HE DID, HIS TURNOUT , HIS MACHINES WERE ALWAYS THE TOPS.
I REMEMBER YOUR GRANDFATHER RODE A TRIUMPH 3T / 350CC SPRUNG HUB MACHINE & AND WAS A MILKMAN IN WOKING!
I ONLY REMEMBER YOUR MOTHER WAS A SMALL , SMART LADY.
I AM MARRIED TO RIA WHO COMES FROM EINDHOVEN IN HOLLAND , I HAVE RIDDEN SOME DEMONSTRATIONS THERE BUT NOT TUBBERGEN.
THEY ARE MOSTLY STREET CIRCUITS AS TUBBERGEN & I NOW CONSIDER THEM TOO DANGEROUS AT SIXTY EIGHT YEARS OF AGE.
I HOPE THIS SMALL PIECE OF IMFORMATION IS SOME INTEREST TO YOU.
BRGDS.
IAN PLUMRIDGE.
Hello Ian,
How lovely to hear from you.Really great to have more information about my father and particularly about my grandfather as I knew nothing at all about him.Amazing that he was a ‘biker’ as well-must have been in the blood!Do you have any photos of my father?
Kind regards,Linda Lipscombe(John Bacon’s daughter)
DEAR LINDA.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR REPLY. I AM AFRAID I DO NOT HAVE ANY PICTURES OF YOUR FATHER ONLY MEMORIES.
I RECEIVED MAIL FROM DAVE SHEPHERD IN AUSTRALIA THIS MORNING, HE HAS A PICTURE OF HIMSELF & AND JOHN TOGETHER ON THERE RACE BIKES .
HIS DAUGHTER WILL TRY & SCAN IT SO THEY CAN ADD IT TO THIS SITE.
IT’S BEEN NICE FOR ME TO BE REUNITED WITH PEOPLE I NEW FIFTY YEARS AGO AS A YOUNG LAD, I WILL BE MEETING SOME OF THEM IN THE NEAR FUTURE.
BRGDS.
IAN.
Hi Linda & David,
My name is David Shepherd and I was a close friend to your Father John during our racing careers, I lived in St. Peters Rd Old Woking quite near to John’s Father where I first met John and his bike, I was mad on bikes from the age of 14 and as time slipped by and our bikes got better and more exciting we made a decision to go to Brands Hatch on a wednesday practice day, John on a 175cc Ducati and me on my road going Norton 600 Dominator, the thrill was immediate and we were hooked. John kept his Ducati and I part exchanged my Norton for an NSU 250 Supermax. John bought an old Bradford-Jowett van as a transporter and we were on our way, sharing the costs. Our bikes were about even in power and we had many a tassle at all the southern circuits, great times. John was not a reckless rider and neither was I,( you never won a race sliding down the road on your backside)
John was a true friend and helped me tremendously, my wife Ann and I remember your Mother Jean as being petite, very kind and very much in love with John, we were shocked by his tragic accident.
I hope this will help to fill in another chapter for you both,
Best wishes
Dave & Ann Shepherd (now in Perth W.Australia)
I
Hi David…i am replying to you on behalf of my husband Ken Lucas from Send who you apparently worked with at Pearce and Nicholls in Woking and he was of course one of the gang of you bikers. We were also great friends with John and his wife Jean and hopefully you might have picked up our history during the late 50s re.John making my wedding ring for Feb.14th 1959. Ken was 21 and had just come out of the RAF when we met in 1957 and i was just 16….hence we are just about to have our 54th anniversary. Where have the years gone.? Ken was motorbike mad as you all were and its been great for him to have since met up with some of the old gang and of course Johns son David who instigated this great reunion in the form of emails remembering the good old days…which they really were .I was the youngest one of the Wells family from the High Street so i’m sure you knew of my brothers and my sister…sadly only 3 of us left now. Ken has always cursed the internet but now of course realizes just how great it is since catching up with so many stories of the past and our reunion recently. Take care..hope you’re loving Australia more than Old Woking haha. Kindest regards Mary ( on behalf of Ken Lucas.)
Hello all,
I am Jim Bacon, John and Lorraine’s younger brother. I am glad to say after a lot of searching I stumbled on this website. Firstly let me apologize to Linda and David for losing contact with you after you came to see me 25 years ago, due to my own fault. At the time I was preparing to emigrate to America and was in the throws of selling up. I want to let you know you now have another aunt, my wife Annette and 4 more cousins, Christopher (23), Scott (21), Jacqueline (19) and Jeffrey (17) along with your aunt Lorraine’s children, Jenny, and Mark who David met. Sadly Lorraine passed away in June 2010 from cancer, she was 70. They all lived in the Westbury area of Wiltshire. Besides this web page I have also looked at the information on the other web page associated with this (John Bacon 175 Ducati sport) and am very pleased that you have gathered so much information about your parents, some of which I did not know, and that so many of John and jean’s friends have reach out to you. Your trip to Tubbergen must have been very enlightening and emotional. With regard to information about John and Jean I have very little apart from what I remember. To the best of my knowledge John took all his photos with him when he married. Virtually all I have of him are two faded newspaper photos I placed in an album after he passed away so, like you, I am looking forward to seeing any photos friends may have. After she left the Woking area I never saw Jean again. I presume she took all the photos with her, I can only imagine what happened to them. Finally I would like to say a warm thanks to A.J. West for posting the first photo of John, to Richard Morley I knew as a friend of John’s, Dave shepherd as a friend of John’s and owner of the fastest 250cc NSU around, to Mary and Ken Lucas, I remember with pleasure the Jets and Mustang days, and Ian Plumbridge whose name I remember being mentioned by John.
Best regards to you all
Jim
Hello Uncle Jim,
This is indeed a great surprise to hear from you!David and I both knew you were emigrating to America,but didn’t have any idea when or where you were moving to.Over the years,we have yearned for more information about our Dad.Thanks to the wonders of the internet and A.J. West we have!It has been life changing to say the least!Would love to make contact with you.Where in the states are you living?
Love and best wishes,Linda
Hello Linda,
Thanks for the prompt reply. I have thought of you and David over the years and would love to be in contact with you both again. My email address is baconsoccer@cox.net so if you would like to send me an email I will send you my address. We live in northern Virginia not far from Washington D.C.
Best wishes,
Uncle Jim
Hi Jim,
So pleased to read your message and glad you found the website and in contact with your family again and the Old Woking gang. I’m amazed after all these years you still remember the NSU, hope life has been good to you and your family, Richard M has done a marvellous job bringing old friends in contact again. John and I were great pals both on and off the track,I was shocked when he died, and had no idea where Jean was living,
Am sorry to hear that Lorraine has passed away,
Kindest regards
Dave Shepherd.
Hi everyone, I’m Mark, John’s nephew. Lorraine was my Mum. I’m amazed to have found all these people that my Mum spoke of, all talking on this website. I have always been interested in the Bacon side of my family, as Grandad (Norman), Uncle John, and myself have been so keen on motorcycle racing. I tried to find out what I could about Uncle John and his racing days. I also took up motorcycle racing for a year, in 2004, competing in the North Glos Roadracing club championship. I have to say, without the same success as John. It was more to achieve an ambition, as at 38 I was too old to be competitive. I do live in Westbury, Wiltshire, but grew up in Ottershaw and then Addlestone in Surrey. We frequently visited Send/Old Woking as children. The last time I met David, I was following my other passion of American Muscle cars. It would’ve been about 27 years ago. I’m glad to have made contact again. I’m also glad to have heard from the people my Mum spoke about. I remember her talking of Dave Shepherd particularly. I have no memory of Uncle John, as I was born about two months before his death. But both my Mum and Uncle Jim would say I bore an uncanny resemblance to him.
I hope to hear back from some of you.
Mark
So pleased, as John and Jean would have been, to see you all coming together.
very best wishes to you all,
Richard
Hello Mark,
I forgot to ask you for your email address – if you can let me have it on this site or via Linda or David I will copy you some of the photo’s of John and press copy covering the Memorial Service in Tubbergen last year.
Not at all surprised to hear you inherited the racing bug.
best regards,
Richard M
Hi Richard,
That would be great. My address is markable30@yahoo.co.uk
Mark
Belated hello to Ian Plumridge and Dave Shepherd.
Ian. It’s good to know that my father gave you support when you went to the Honda dealer to get your first production racer. A HondaCR110 50cc (I will have to locate a picture of that bike).It makes me smile when you write that my father was always immaculate in everything he did. My great passion has been football. I remember one kit man said,”I can always tell your kit David, because no matter how bad the conditions your kit is always the cleanest. How do you keep it so immaculate?
I hope to see you and Ria in the near future.
Dave. WOW.You are the first person that I have heard of that actually raced regularly against my dad. You must have loads of great stories, especially as you were such good friends and transported your bikes around together. I wonder who won the most head to head races between you. I really would have liked to have gotten into motorcycles in a big way. I passed my motorcycle test first time. I had a Suzuki TS100 and then a Honda superdream 250cc. Someone knocked me off my Honda on Hayling Island when I was stationary. It wrote the bike off but I was okay. This spooked my mum and the next thing I knew she bought me an H reg Austin 1300 in british racing green. It had a steering wheel the size of the one in my current truck! I now drive a 32 tonne concrete mixer (DAF CF75) for a living driving for Cemex.
With your response my father’s name has now gone worldwide. The JOHN BACON GOOGLE SNOWBALL has gone global. Truly amazing. Thank you.
Best Wishes to Ian, Ria, Dave and Ann.
David Bacon (Neale)
Hello Uncle Jim and cousin Mark.
Fantastic to hear from both of you again. So sorry to hear about the passing of your mum Mark. We need our heads banging together for losing contact for 27 years. However, we were all in transitional stages in our lives. So pleased for you Jim that life has worked out so well in America. Pass on my best wishes to Aunt Annette and cousins Christopher, Scott, Jacqueline and Jeffrey.
Tubbergen in May 2012 was an extremely moving and wonderful experience. The people were so gracious and kind to my sister Linda, Richard Morley and I. Linda and I planted an intertwinned orange and white rose (to represent mum and dad at one with each other again) at the point where dad had passed away. We had our private thoughts. I felt really sad that I never knew my father, who I felt from family and friends that I would have had so much in common with, and I think we would have had great fun together and a really good laugh. The one thing I can take solace from is that he died doing something he loved.
(If you google “Tubbergen 2012 old circuit NSU Sportmax” you will get a rider view of most of the 10km circuit dad raced in 1965. If you pause at 8 mins and 41 secs you will see where Linda and I planted the intertwinned roses. It is just before the black, green and yellow sign on the right).
Gerhard Sauer, The present day chairman of Tubbergen Road Racing Club was celebrating his 17th birthday at the Tubbergen road racing track on the day dad had his fatal crash. He said he could see my father in me as soon as we met in Tubbergen in 2012. He later said that he felt very emotional when he met me and that was not like him. He also said that he remembers my dad on every birthday he has had since the tragedy and aways has a private toast to him.
Mark. I think its great that you achieved your ambition of competing in motorcycle road racing. I feel quite envious! It will be great to catch up and have a good chat soon.
Take care and best wishes,
David Bacon (Neale)
Hi David,
Again, if you’d like to get in touch, feel free to e-mail me at markable30@yahoo.co.uk
All the best,
Mark
Hi dad it’s Joshua Neale your son it’s a shame your dad was one of the five people to die in the races bless you grandad.
A special mention to Richard Morley who has made the agonising decision to retire from motorcycle racing. As he stated the body won’t do what the mind requires, and with motorcycle racing you obviously need quick reactions.
Richard had over 50 years of motorcycle racing in his long and distingushed career. The highlights of his career being on the European Circuits in the mid 1960′s.
Motorcyclings loss is Richard’s wife Regina’s gain, as she will have her husband at home for several weekends a year (thats if Ricahrd doesn’t take his golf more seriously!).
Regretably, I never got to see Richard race, but, I did see the glint in his eyes and the excitement and enthusiam for his great love in Tubbergen 2012 at the vintage motorcycle weekend. With over 100 vintage bikes on display, and going around the “old Tubbergen circuit” Richard was like a child in a sweet shop. Totally in his element talking to some of the old racers and explaining all the different vintage bikes to me.
Richard the time may have come for you to hang up your motorcycle leathers and helmet, but, I know that motorcycle racing and all the friends you’ve made from it (some dearly departed,but, never forgotten. Attested by the “Gin and Tonic” you have on any of your departed friends anniversary) will always be in your heart.
It’s been an honour and pleasure to have met my father’s best friend.
Richard, on behalf of my father and I, I salute you. You truly are a remarkable man who has achieved incredible heights both in your personal and professional life.
Best Wishes,
Your friend David Bacon (Neale)
David,
For once in my life I am at a loss for words – but many thanks for your kind comments.
Richard
norman bacon his father ernest bacon had a dairy in old woking my mother joan was youngest child a twin with thelma of ernest bacon the dairy was bought by ken wood for his factory best wishes michael stevens
Wow-that is so interesting to find this out!My father was John Bacon-I knew the family had a dairy but didn’t know any details.Maybe we are related in some way?I have a brother David.Please tell me more.
Hello Michael Stevens,
I am Jim Bacon, youngest of Norman Bacon’s children. I remember Joan and Thelma but did not realize they were twins. As for us, we are cousins but I do not remember if we ever met. If we did I’m sure it would have been at Grandfather Bacon’s house on one of the few occasions that we visited. As to the dairy, my information is that the dairy was sold to Renshaw and Triggs which later became part of Homecounties Dairies. The sale was a bone of contention between my father and his father as the sons were told they would one day get the business. The name of the business was ” E Bacon and sons” and the sons were required to sign paperwork that stated they would not start up in opposition after the sale. It is possible that the dairy business was sold to Renshaw an Triggs but the actual dairy building and land were sold separately to Ken Wood. It was all a long time ago now and it is possible that there is more to this than we know. Hope you are well. All the best………Jim