Clive and his Motorcycle - Who am I and where did it all begin?

Born on the 23rd October 1953, which makes me fifty nine years and six months old, christened Stuart Clive Hosken and always known as Clive. Husband to Thea (thank you for the most amazing ten years) and father to Natasha, Roxanne, Christopher and Gregory (four amazing children who have always made me very proud, sometimes very angry, nicknamed Hurricane by my children when angry. Thank you to all four of my children for keeping me on my toes and also for keeping me young. 

Visited Cape Town in December 1998 for a holiday, fell in love with this beautiful city and I have been here ever since, fourteen special years.

Beautiful Hout Bay - Cape Town

My Dear and Darling Wife - Thea

Tash

Roxy - Alive and well and living in Aspen

Chris - on Lion's Head Cape Town

Greg - Fish on the Rocks in Hout Bay

Spent most of my childhood years in Bloemfontein in the then Orange Free State. Well as this is about Clive on his Motorcycle lets jump to the beginning. Bought my first motorcycle in 1967 for R25-00, it was a old Honda 50cc, the lights no longer worked, the seat was not fastened to the frame but was a wonderful learning and falling experience. On turning sixteen, I worked during the December school holidays in the foundry at the South Africa Railways in Bloemfontein as an electrician's tool boy and earned +/- R300-00. This enabled me to buy a "roadworthy" nearly new Honda Fury 50cc for about R200. It was wonderful and I was free - what a feeling!

Anyway, I enjoyed my little Honda immensely throughout my school years and at the beginning of 1972 parked it in the garage and went off to the army to complete my National Service. My parents re-located to Pretoria while I was in the army. Pretoria once I had completed my initial military training was a huge "culture shock" that I eventually survived. Got my first job at the South African Permanent Building Society and joined the so-called real world. Motorcycles became mostly forgotten excluding the occasional ride on my friends Honda 500cc Thumper or on a rebuilt 2nd World War Harley, foot clutch and hand gears. My younger sister Jeannie, had a wonderful boyfriend named Kenny while we were still at school, he had a Triumph Bonneville 650cc, this was my desire, the look, the sound and the speed, I always said that one day I would have one. 

So to sum up thus far, a rickety Honda, a Honda Fury, the odd ride on friends' motorcycles and then a break of almost forty years during which I got married, had children, worked and lived in Pretoria, Midrand, Rustenburg, Durban and then in Cape Town. In the next episode I will skip those forty eventful years and get to Clive on his Motorcycle. 

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