Santa and his Substitute Sleigh

According to the regulars this year was the best weather the Toy Run has had in living memory – a clear blue sky and warm sunshine – in November!

At the end of this Report is a Gallery of 100 photos taken at the Event – see if you can find yourself.

Jimmy Cretney who took over as Santa’s Chief Little Helper this year, had laid out the mustering area with rows of cones and tape and drafted in lots of marshals to direct the bikers into nose-to-tail parking rows so they could depart smoothly and, even more importantly, lost no time at all after their arrival before heading for the Salvation Army catering vans.

Surprise, surprise, the Salvation Army have fed hungry people before and they were extremely efficient at serving bacon or sausage butties (with a choice of sauce) from one van and tea or coffee from another.  Bill Squires must be on his diet again because he was holding back and looking down his nose at those among us who felt it our duty to partake of this breakfast bounty – indeed I must confess that the bacon butties were so good I didn’t argue when I was offered another!  The cups in which hot beverages were served were a decent size too.  The food hygiene arrangements were conspicuously better than the average biker’s burger van too, so eleven out of ten for catering marks, well done the Sally Army!

Jimmy’s wife Tracy was looking ravishing in a Mrs Christmas outfit and Jimmy was trying to pretend he is taller by wearing a red and white jesters hat.  He nevertheless managed to project both gravtitas and his voice when he briefed the marshals – and he didn’t go on and on either – just enough, clear and authoritative, absolutely spot on.

Best laid plans of mice and men inevitably hit a bad patch on these occasions and so it was with Jimmy’s plan to have two white GoldWings leading the Toy Run with Santa following on his very own GoldWing trike.  (Well if you were Santa what sort of earth-bound transport would you go for when there was no snow around and Rudolph and his mates were on a day off?)

Unfortunately Ken Smith’s white GL1500 developed a peculiar fault following the installation of a new alternator at the beginning of the week – once started the engine ran sweetly as usual and the new alternator also seemed to be doing its stuff perfectly well too.  But when the ignition switch was turned off the engine didn’t stop. After scratching his head for a moment or two Ken resorted to the kill switch, which had the desired effect.

Caught with comb in hand!

Now as breakdowns go that’s not a bad one at all really because the bike was potentially ride-able but Ken didn’t have time to dig deeper and didn’t feel that this was an entirely safe configuration in which to escort an important chap like Santa.  So Jimmy was suddenly one white GoldWing short.

In fact it was worse than that because Ken was the only one who knew the route and the other so-called white bike was that of my friend Bill Squires, which as everyone in our Club knows isn’t really white at all.  In certain light conditions it’s a unique and distinctly yellowish sort of white, known to the Club as the colour of last weeks Papal Robes.  And as a native of Grimsargh Village, Bill knows the centre of Manchester like he knows downtown Shanghi.  Poor old Jimmy; this was looking serious.   The tentacles of his jester’s hat started to droop and the bells on the ends fell silent in sympathy.

Fortunately a knight in shining armour (or rather a Winger on a richly decorated and therefore multi-coloured GL1500) was available to take over.  Gary Jackson, a fellow prize winner of a Honda watch at the Blackpool Light Parade, rode alongside Bill to make sure he didn’t get lost.   Gary’s bike was much more credible as reindeer-coloured Santa-escort than Bill’s, even though sunlight brought out Bill’s brownish tinges really quite well.

Each of them was wearing his Honda watch with pride for the occasion but synchronised timing wasn’t critical to their role – and just as well for when they did their customary time check with other on arrival at Trafford Park, which is an ostentatious ritual they tend to perform whenever they meet these days,  there was a five minute discrepancy.  (The suspicion is that one of them cocked up putting his watch back an hour last weekend.)

Jimmy grew antlers for the occasion

Meanwhile Santa’s trike had also mysteriously become unavailable and he turned up in a car – the plan being that he would ride as passenger with his head and shoulders sticking out of the sunroof.  Health & Safety sprung to someone’s mind at this point and of course Santa’s cunning plan might just have attracted Greater Manchester Police’s attention at an early stage too, since as they were expected to be stopping the traffic to allow the Toy Run to get out of the mustering area on to the roadway.

A nice bright yellow Boom Trike materialised from somewhere as Santa’s Substitute Sleigh and suddenly Jimmy’s problems were all resolved – except of course that his escort consisted of one normal-looking reindeer substitute and one jaundiced albino.  (Not that I was in any way jealous that my properly white GoldWing wasn’t invited to escort Santa of course!)

Off we went, more or less on time, marshals led by Jimmy in the van so he could drop us off at the various turning points, so we could park up, look conspicuous and point the way.  My properly white GoldWing was of course well suited to this role and my vantage point on a traffic island allowed me to take lots of pictures of the Toy Run as it passed.  (I haven’t tried shooting passing motorcycles before and as you will see from the blurred results there’s a knack to it which I have yet to acquire.)

After foregoing a bacon butty, Bill fell for an Eclair

So intent on photography was I that I failed to see the large red Salvation Army van which was acting as Tail End Marker and since I had also parked the bike on the kerb and taken my helmet off, it took me quite a while to realise that I was on my own in a strange city.  I live in the village of Samlesbury and we’re not very good with central Manchester either but fortunately Trafford Park was easy to select on the satnav, so I took my time getting going, both to ensure I got down the high kerb without dropping the bike and that I would be able to get myself to Trafford Park off my own bat if I failed to catch the Run up.

And that was the last I saw of any of them.  I followed the satnav instructions, which took me past Manchester United’s Old Trafford, which I remembered Jimmy saying was on the route, so I thought I must be more or less on track.  No response from anyone on the CB but I assumed I was simply a long way behind.  I rode on seeing no one, went into what turned out to be completely the wrong side of Trafford Park and toured a very large car park for five to ten minutes to find the exit, then found another entrance – to see rows and rows of Trafford Park staff in Hi Viz jackets, to whom I apologised as I passed for keeping them waiting so long for the last man.

As I got to the far end of where they directed me I couldn’t understand why there weren’t any bikes – or at least why there was only one, next to which I was invited to park.  The rider of this bike turned out to be a guy who lived locally and who had come directly to Trafford Park thinking it was the mustering area and who was therefore also wondering where everyone else had got to.  How can two or three hundred motorcycles disappear like this I wondered?

Ian Duxbury, Chairman of GoldWings North West bearing presents

Incredibly another 10-15 minutes passed before the Toy Run appeared, by which time I was able to position myself to take lots more photos.  Whatever short cut I had inadvertently taken had worked out quite well.   I was even able to catch Bill combing his hair again, which he does every time he takes his helmet off.  He might be old but he’s still vain and you can prove this to yourself if you ever meet him.  All you have to do is suggest that it’s a bit windy and his hair looks a bit ruffled and out comes the comb – he simply can’t stop himself doing it.  I got him making a really messy job of eating a creamy chocolate eclair too; that’ll teach him to be self-righteous about bacon butties!

Trafford Park was a happy place in the sunshine as the bikers were parking up and families were bringing their little children along, admiring the bikes and the costumes of the many bikers who had dressed up for the occasion, many of the families also bringing presents to donate to the good cause.

For bikers, only some of whom are likely to be Salvationists, to be able to join forces en masse with the Salvation Army for a purpose of this kind is really quite special – and of course they do wonderful bacon butties.

And this year Greater Manchester Police were helpful – they did indeed stop the traffic outside the mustering area to allow the Toy Run to get going as an intact group.  Inevitably bikes got separated into sub-groups by traffic lights along the way but there were no hold-ups and the Toy Run was able to re-group before the entry into Trafford Park.  Jimmy’s marshalling plan worked a treat.

The Manchester Salvation Army Toy Run will take place again in early November next year; if you came this year you’ll surely want to come again – and if you missed it you missed a real treat.  Don’t let it happen again.

here are some photos I took of the Event.  Click on any image for an enlargement.  You are welcome to take copies for personal use.

Manchester Toy Run 2010

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