During my time with the Ballarat Rovers Motor Cycle Club Stunt Team, there came a weekend where we were performing during the morning somewhere in Central Victoria; it might have been Bendigo; it might have been Castlemaine; I cannot remember every detail at my age!  Most of our performances took place in the afternoons or in the evenings under lights, but this particular one was in the morning.  One of our acts was named “The School Bus” and began with sixteen or twenty members of the team spread out at well-spaced intervals all around the perimeter of the showgrounds or racetrack.  As a 1942 WLA Harley, brightly painted in fire-engine red, rumbled slowly past, each member would scramble aboard and take up his pre-assigned position until we did a final lap with about twenty bods on board that Harley.

This particular morning, my assigned position was as the last person to board the bike and I was supposed to stand with the toes of my gym boots standing on the rounded tops of the two tail lights – the rearmost part of the bike.  During practice the previous afternoon, the act had gone faultlessly: we had all rapidly attained our designed positions in a professional manner, and the act had looked really outstanding.  But this morning, the position from which I had to mount had been in shadow since dawn, and the grass was very wet with the overnight dew.  My spotlessly polished white gym boots were also well polished on the soles from excess wear in previous practices and performances.  Now, wet rubber does not possess much traction. . .

As I leapt up onto the tail light, I felt my foot slip straight off and found myself falling.  I immediately, instinctively took up the Commando Roll position that I had been trained to do when I had started with the Stunt Team.  By adopting this position during a fall, a motorcyclist can be virtually guaranteed of no injuries resulting from the fall.  As I hit the deck and commenced the roll I could hear the tremendous roar from the crowd in the grandstand.  I forced my body to do one additional roll more than was needed: I had fallen off; therefore I might as well make it look more spectacular!

I leapt to my feet, looked rapidly around pretending to be momentarily lost, and then sprinted after the Harley.  The crowd was cheering wildly in the stands.  As I approached the bike I passed a speaker post and heard the commentator, John Palmer saying, “Can Clanger make it on board this time?”

The crowd roared even more.

I sprang up onto the tail light and deliberately “lost my balance” and fell again.  This time I sprang up after only a single roll on the deck, raced after the Harley again and sprang aboard.  Holding on with only one hand, I then took some exaggerated bows while facing the grandstand.  The crowd were all standing up and cheering and clapping.

They loved it, and so did I!

After the show had ended, we held our usual post performance de-briefing.  There was division in the camp over what had happened: half insisted that we were supposed to put on a professional performance and a professional should not fall off the bike during a stunt, the other half said it was great that I had fallen off, since the reaction from the crowd was greater than we usually experienced.

Most of the members had not seen what had happened, since they had been aboard the Harley and were mostly facing forwards, they had only felt the extra slight lurches of the bike as I had boarded three times instead of once; they had also heard the tremendous noise from the crowd.  Those who had been standing on the mudguard supports on each side at the rear of the bike had seen the whole thing and had cacked themselves laughing at my antics.

The club remained divided over this issue for quite some time after that day.  I volunteered to deliberately fall off the Harley at future shows.  Some thought it would be great; others thought it would detract from the performances.  It was decided that the rostered commentator would call the shots and I should alter my performance depending on what he said.  He would comment as the Harley was approaching my boarding point something like, “Last week during our performance at XXXX, Clanger didn’t make it and fell off the Harley.”  If he continued, “but this week he has put in a lot of extra practice and promised to give us a much more professional show,” I was not to fall off.  However, if he continued, “he has been practising hard all week and has improved a lot, but we still reckon you all ought to start praying that he can make it,” I was to go ahead and do some spectacular falls.

For a little while I think I fell more often than not during performances, but it wasn’t long before my work took me away to the opposite end of the state and I left the Team.  After that, I think only the Team Clown regularly fell off, but all the uniformed stunt riders acted very professionally and stayed aboard the bikes.