PETE ’ S PEOPLE
entertainment for thousands . “ There was nothing else . No movies . No TV . Radio consisted of a crystal set and a two volt ‘ accumulator ’” - a type of battery that was charged up and swapped out at a local store . There were few sets and very primitive as well , post war , so meetings were announced in newspapers , which also carried stories of the outcomes and the good riders were famed . Cycle racing adopted the rules of speedway immediately , and they raced in teams . Motorised Speedway had begun in the 1920s , post-war , although it was birthed in New South Wales in Australia . There were a few Australians who went to the UK and became famous , however , Speedway was closed down during WWII , and Cycle Racing sprang up partly because no one could afford motorcycles , and those that were riding in the National Speedway meetings , following those years , were mostly despatch riders who had survived the war . Tough , driven men , with access to machines .
From the start of cycle racing , Tommy did well , with clubs like the Westend Wanderer , the Arsenal Aces team , and , initially , he rode a fixed wheel bike , until the fixed pedals caused too many offs in the cornering . He had a frame with a dropped crossbar allowing a lower seat height and Tom thinks that may have given him a slight advantage . They raced on many circuits , including where Camden Market is today . He was one of the leading racers in Cycle speedway for years , from 1946 to 1954 , when he joined the motorised Speedway circuit . Speedway was huge and a vast crowd puller , second only to horse racing and well exceeding football crowd numbers . He rode from 1954 to 1973 and over those years , with famous names popping up all over , Tommy right there among them .
LEAVING SCHOOL Tommy left school at 14 , a necessity of the war , and he clearly remembers the day he started work at 10am one morning in 1944 during an
84 KIWI RIDER