1924 International Six Days Trial ISDT Browne Motorcycle 10-Page History Article

Description

1924 International Six Days Trial ISDT Browne Motorcycle 10-Page History Article published in 1976
Original, vintage magazine article published in 1976
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
WHILST DOUGHTY LITTLE
BROWNE, LTD., will most be
remembered for edentate forays into
international road racing during the years
1911-1923, those certainly did not
comprise the whole of this splendid Manx
firm’s sporting involvement. Sir Thomas
Browne’s extraordinary motor cycles were
intended for use on public roads, and
outfitted in a manner suitable to that
purpose, so it was to be expected that they
would most often be raced over hard-
surfaced circuits. However, those of us
privileged to be present through Browne’s
innovative though lamentably brief
existence know there was nothing in the
behaviour of Sir Thomas or his distinctive
creations to suggest slavish, uninteresting
devotion to the straight, smooth and
narrow path. On the contrary, Sir
Thomas’ disregard for the constraints and
inhibitions of the small-minded was
conspicuous in his character, and men
who rode his machines found in all of
them -— beginning with the seminal
Browne Grackle of 1909 and including
the last, lone Browne Parvenu con-
structed late in 1924 -— a spirited
eagerness to escape humdrum, kerbed
confinement on the road.
Malcontents being a ubiquitous com-
ponent in the human race, with represen-
tation within even the British Isles’
usually phlegmatic populace, Sir Thomas
sometimes was obliged to hear complaints
concerning the headstrong quality of
Browne motor cycles’ handling. It was
true that the Great Man’s devices did
require firm hands at the reins, a
thoroughbred’s trait, but Sir Thomas was
too completely an aristocrat to share in
the common tradesman’s vulgar obsession
with customers’ every fevered imagining
and he did not suffer such criticism
quietly. Written communications that
might prove upsetting were, following Sir
Thomas’ specific instructions to his staff,
merely added to a heap maintained at the
ready in a men’s convenience behind the
Browne workshops. Even so, there was
the occasional personal encounter with
an unappreciative Browne owner to be
endured, and it must be conceded that Sir
Thomas tended to be less than diploma-
tic. “God stone the crows,” he would
bellow, “are you so timid a milk-livered,
faery chappie that a bit of excitement sets
you mewling for your ruddy mum?” The
Great Man’s habit of slashing about in
agitated fashion with his riding crop lent
an especially forceful emphasis to these
rebuttals, and complainants were quickly
shamed into taking their quarrelsome
dissatisfactions elsewhere.
The reader should understand that
most of the sturdy fellows who owned
Browne motor cycles accepted their
machines’ strongly individual behaviour
with happy equanimity, and many of
them came to positively delight in the
unexpected. Typical of these stalwarts was
my old school chum, Horace “Hurdies”
Maffick, who laughingly said of his
beloved Browne Cassowary, “When it’s
plungin’ off the road she wants there’s
naught to do but shout the navvys out of
the way and pray ye don’t fetch up agin’st
somethin’ terrible solid.” Hurdies’ jovial
good nature was the perfect complement
for Browne ownership and it saw him
through numerous unanticipated diver-
sions off-road before he at last came to
relish travels over tilled fields more than
on asphalted roads. In consequence of
this curious prediliction my chum Maffick
became first in the group it was Sir...
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