Wheely great time

04 February 2010

THE final piece of the motorcycling trio jigsaw has fallen into place, thanks to a phone call from south London.

Times readers answered in their droves when we asked who the three motorcyclists were and we managed to track down two of them.

We found out that the third man, Fr Scott Anderson, had moved to a parish in Lewisham but were unable to contact him until he contacted us.

Fr Anderson said: "Seeing that picture again brings back some wonderful memories of my early years at Willesden Green.

"I went there in 1994 and was there up until September 2008. This photo was indeed taken as a bit of publicity for our charity bike ride.

"Rev Sinclair and I had just met and were poles apart in terms of religion but we were both potty about bikes.

"Frank was a member of our second congregation at St Francis and it was he who came up with the idea, although it took longer than we originally thought to get it off the ground.

"I remember Paul would ride his bike like a racer and got into stunt riding. Sometimes he would arrive at my clergy house and I'd come to the front door and he would say 'I've got a new trick.'

"He would then do it on my front porch and I would be amazed."

A fan of motorbikes for years, Fr Anderson, said the trio had a fantastic time on their great charity drive and also remembers fondly his 14 years at Willesden.

He said: "I left because I was quite clear I was going to retire at 65 so I needed to move to give myself a reasonable time in a new parish until then. Willesden was quite hard as it had a high turnover of people.

"In ten years we had three quarters turnover of new people and that makes it quite difficult to do in depth work.

"However, I would not have stayed had I not been happy there.

"In fact, at my new parish I often find myself saying 'When I was St Andrews we did this or that' so it has been on my mind recently."

alex.wellman@archant.co.uk