Two Wheels to War

[vintagesunbeam]

"Two Wheels to War" by Martin Shelley and Nick Shelley, and published by Helion, is now available from all reputable suppliers - the usual online retailers include some informative reviews.

 

Our initial proposition was to publish an illustrated edition of WHL Watson's Adventures of a Despatch Rider (the unexpurgated 1915 edition), using previously unpublished VPK photographs taken by 5th Division motorcyclists in France in 1914.

 

Along the way we enquired what other sources there might be, and we were inundated with well-informed advice and assistance. Thus "Two Wheels to War" turned out to be a far more ambitious project. In particular we found six surviving children of 5th Signals company motorcycle despatch riders, along with grandchildren and other relatives of the men. So when the time came to launch the book, there were more than 50 enthusiastic relatives of the men who served in 1914 to be invited to lunch at Milestones Museum in Basingstoke.

 

We were helped by a number of online resources, of which this Forum https://www.greatwarforum.org was the most useful. Great War Forum helped us to  connect with some of the families, either where family members were already on the Forum searching for information, or where the Forum's experienced and ever-helpful contributors guided us to useful sources. Thus we obtained diaries and letters from Watson's colleagues, such as Pollers, Sadders, George, Spuggie, and Fatters or the Fat Boy, We also obtained the autobiography of Frank Merchant - not a despatch rider but a regular Sergeant when the 5th Division mobilised at Carlow in 1914. The despatch riders taught him to ride a motorcycle before leaving for France, and he ended the war as 5th Signals Commanding Officer. 

 

The front cover shows Sergeant Polhill ("Pollers") at Serches in September 1914, posing on the frame of a Blackburne motorcycle which had been built by two of his colleagues, Cecil and Alick Burney. The group photograph came from the album they created after the war, which they annotated with all the nicknames, including their own, that Watson had used in the book. Thus they referred to themselves as "Cecil" and "Grimers".

 

Another significant find - this time in the National Library of Scotland - was the archive of Blackwoods, the Edinburgh publisher who first serialised Watson's letters in Blackwoods Magazine. The publishers asked Watson to rework the articles as a book which he did after he was wounded at Ypres in April 1915. In addition to their correspondence with Watson and his "agent" (a former schoolmaster), the archive contains Watson's plan of the book. It also conclusively proves that what was taken out of the 1917 Shilling edition represented material which was cut to comply with the demands of the censor.

 

A factual appendix describes the motorcycles and equipment used by the 1914 despatch riders. There is also a database of all the motorcyclists who served with the Signals Service in 1914: more than 200 motorcycle despatch riders reached France in August 1914, and altogether over 400 motorcycllsts qualified for the Mons Star. We'd be particularly pleased to hear from anyone with further information about any of the men on this database.