Nineteen 78: following a couple of loathsome MZs resulting in my first SMIDSY and Close Encounter of the Nursey Kind, I get a gorgeously cool brand new T140V Bonneville for 900 quid – my first proper bike. Everyone remebers their first proper bike, whatever affordable shite came before.
I go rocking climbing in North Wales and start despatching in London. Only for a year, mind, just until I get a proper job.
Strikes (firemen, Ford, bakers, BBC, Times, etc), Jonestown, unemployment post-war record high, Yorkshire Ripper, Charlie Chaplin’s coffin stolen, Callaghan, Georgi Markov Waterloo bridge, Evita, more strikes, O Levels and CSEs scrapped, NVT liquidated, Sex Pistols disband, Amoco Cadiz, Aldo Moro, Carter ditches neutron bomb, Keith Moon o-ds, dictatorship ends in Spain.
Adventure Motorcycling Handbook 