‘A few years ago I had the good fortune to meet a legend in motorcycling circles, Father Bill Shergold – aka ‘Farv” – who helped found the 59 club. Here’s some pictures he gave me of Rockers in the 1950s and 1960s in the UK’
-
Oliver Hulme
…
This capsule was curated by Oliver Hulme
Go The 59 Club main site
More info on the 59 Club, from Wikipedia
The
59 Club, also written as
The Fifty Nine Club and known as "the '9", is a British motorcycle club with members internationally.
The 59 Club started as a
Church of England-based youth club founded in
Hackney Wick on 2 April 1959, in the
East End of London,
then an underprivileged area suffering post-war deprivations. It is
notable for its adoption by the British motorcycling subculture known as
"
rockers" in the early 1960s, its badge taking on an iconic value.
History
It was started by Curate John Oakes, who went on to become the Canon
of St. Brides in Fleet Street. Leadership duties at different times were
later taken over by Father Graham Hullett, William Shergold and Mike
Cook. The club became well known, and attracted luminaries such as Sir
Cliff Richard, Dame
Elizabeth Taylor,
Princess Margaret and
Lord Snowdon to its opening night, and later many motorcycling sportsmen and musicians. Its trustees included Bishop
Trevor Huddleston, the famous anti-
apartheid
campaigner. For British motorcyclists, it was famous for being one of
the first places in the UK to preview the previously banned biker movie
The Wild One, in 1968.
[1]
From 1962 to the early 1970s, the club enjoyed fame as the top hang-out spot for British
rockers and motorcyclists, and overall it created a positive archetype for the young members to follow, in the
bad boys made good vein. At the time, the rockers were considered
folk devils, due to their clashes with scooter-riding
mods (see
Mods and Rockers).
The club had to split in two to keep both sides apart; the mods staying
in Hackney Wick, and the rockers moving to a church property in
Paddington in the
West End of London.
During its 1960s heyday, the club may have been the largest motorcycle
club in the world, with over 20,000 members, who had to sign up in
person. Members came from all over the UK, and even Europe.
By the late 80s, the '
Rocker Reunion Movement
had started and a number of enthusiasts, young and old, started a
'Classic Section' with the club, a sub-group of members dedicated to
upholding the 1960s rockers
subculture (fashion, music and motorcycles).
The 59 Club attracted both male and female members and, according to
Father Graham Hullett, its success was based on its almost entire lack
of rules. Besides motorcycles and 1950s
rock and roll,
the club involved activities such as football and sub-aqua diving —
which gave the youths, mainly from underprivileged backgrounds, an
outlet for their energy. Each year, the club organised ride-outs to
famous winter motorcycle rallies such as The
Dragon Rally in Wales, The
Elephant Rally at the
Nürburgring in Germany, and to the
Isle of Man TT races. The 59 BBQ event still occurs every year at TT in Laxey.
Towards the end of its heyday, the club saw the birth of a very different type of motorcycle club; American-style
outlaw motorcycle clubs such as the London-based Road Rats and the California-originated
Hells Angels.
The rise of these groups, which tended to cater to an older, tougher,
and sometimes criminal crowd, pretty much marked the death of the 1960s
rockers culture.
Present Day
The club still exists in London, and has a large international
following. Father Bill Shergold, remembered by Len Paterson, an original
Rocker, 59 Club member and founder of the
Rocker Reunion movement, as being like “a father figure that many of the boys never had”,
[2] was the president until he died aged 89 in
Wells,
Somerset in May 2009
[2][3]
The chairman is currently Father Scott Anderson. The current committee
openly accepts rockers. Father Graham Hullet was recently interviewed
for
BBC Radio 4 Home Truths programme
when he spoke of the club's heyday. Now retired, Father Hullett left
the club in the early 1970s over a matter of principle which he is too
gentlemanly to discuss and had been written out of the club's history by
the other parties until recently.
[1] The 59 Club moved from Yorkton Street in
Hackney to
Plaistow, London and meets twice weekly.
It remains a registered charity as established in 1965, and has
evolved into a place where families and individuals are welcome. The
difficulties and expense of getting a motorcycle licence has pushed the
membership age upwards, but members aged 18 to 65 still attend. The
management committee has amongst its committee four members who have
been helping the club since the 1960s. The club has been staffed purely
by unpaid volunteers since the early 1990s.
The 59 Club has become recognised worldwide as a genuine motorcycle
club with a rich history and members all over the globe. Unique to the
59 Club, and other clubs like it, is that members do not consider
themselves
One Percenters,
it is merely a club for motorcycle enthusiasts. The main patrons of
this organization are enthusiasts of classic or vintage British and
Italian motorcycles such as: Norton, Triumph, Ariel, Matchless, AJS,
BSA, Royal Enfield, Moto Guzzi and Ducati.
The 59 Club currently maintains links with both the
Ace Cafe and the Rockers Reunion. As of 2009, the club had over 30,000 members, of which around 800 renew their subscription each year.
Also, the club is not a 'Christian motorcycle club' and has no church
agenda, it merely started out as a church-sponsored youth group but
recently (September 2009) celebrated a very successful and well attended
50th anniversary service at
St Martin-in-the-Fields church, Trafalgar Square, London.
The Fifty Nine Club currently has officially recognized chapters in
Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and
Texas (USA).
