Witcomb Afterwork - The Pictures
Last night, twenty or so local cyclists came down to visit the shop and workshop. After tea and cake, Ernie welcomed them and went through a quick history of the business.
Everybody then moved on to the workshop where Barry explained about his work and the state of the industry, evocating memories of past builders and shops.
Gasps of awe welcomed the appearance of the book listing all the bicycles made by Barry between 1960 and 1984.
Having arrived around 7.30, people left around 9.30 and comments about last night on the Southwark Cyclists website are very positive:
Witcomb's was fascinating last night...Witcomb senior was even a steward at Herne Hill Velodrome for the 1948 Olympics. Maybe 15 of us at Southwark Needle and another 7 at the shop. Wonderful to see local bike craftsmanship just about surviving in an amazing tiny workshop. Their relaunch plans deserve all the support we and other local groups can give them. Lovely stuff. Beautiful frames. They're looking for apprentice frame-builders - 3 of America's finest trained there and they helped the two that started a little set-up called Marin years back. - Barry Mason
The group will be coming back in a few months to check the progress of the work on the shop. We were really pleased by the success of the event last night and hope it marks the start of a fruitful collaboration with our local cycling groups. Thank you to Barry Mason for organising the event.
View more pictures of the event (or add your own) on our Flickr photo pool.
Southwark Cyclists
Southwark Cyclists forum
Labels: events
posted by Zefrog at
12:39
1 Comments:
Hello Folks,
I thoroughly enjoyed visiting your workshop last week on Barry Mason's Afterworker Ride. All I saw and what you had to say was fascinating.
The smell of steel filings took me right back to when I served an engineering apprenticeship back in the 60s! Thank you for hosting the visit and for your kind hospitality. I'm telling everyone who I think will be interested about the evening. On last week's Critical Mass I spoke to two people who were riding fairly new Witcomb bikes - one of them lived just up the road from me.
The only downside of the evening was that I missed the Old Kent Road turn and went miles out of my way, ending up at Oval and Kennington and it took me over an hour to get home to Islington! I often get disoriented south of the river!
Thanks again.
Best wishes,
Chris
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