Bikers' Bookshelf

The first book to explore the value of the motorcycle to communications, and how the despatch rider prevented German victory. When Roger West mounted his motorbike he had no idea he was riding into history or that his King would shake his hand he was merely doing his duty . That one of his feet was so injured he couldn t wear a boot was beside the point: San Fairy Ann that didn t matter. To Roger, an amateur despatch rider in the British Expeditionary Force, it seemed a pity that a bridge along the Great Retreat of August 1914 was open to the German armies, so he rode back to blow it up. When he wasn t up to such japes he and his chums in the Despatch Rider Corps, almost all civilians in uniform, were riding day and night to hold a desperate force together, so that it might fight another day. Despatch riders saved the British Army from annihilation. How did these real-life Boy s Own heroes come to be forgotten?