Spooky - or what?

Some say that flirting with unknown forces may be dangerous, others that there are no such things and that it is a matter of individual choice as to whether such things exist or not as well as to become involved or not with such.  From this rather vague opening remark it is hoped to relate a personal experience of strange and maybe unexplained events.  Please bear with me ...

One Tuesday evening in mid-March we were using a Ouija board at home, this was not the first occasion as it had been used many times before.  After a number of inconsequential contacts through the board a very positive one was made, this one eventually gave his name as 'Pa'.  Seemingly at first nothing remotely unusual in that many men over the years had been known as Pa by family and friends.  When asked "Pa who?" there was a response of "Norton".  Now the name of Pa Norton definitely  meant something as he was the founder of the Norton motorcycle manufacturers in the early twentieth century.  Just for those who do not know me I have been involved with motorcycles in one way or another for over almost sixty years now, they are an abiding passion.

It just so happened that only a few weeks before we had bought a Norton racing sidecar with the idea of racing it, what else?  The morning after this Ouija board session we were off to Snetterton circuit in Norfolk for a practice day for a shakedown for us and the bike.

Back to the Tuesday evening - our next request for any message was met very quickly and vigorously with the planchette speeding from letter to letter spelling out D-A-N-G-E-R.  The next message was C-A-U-T-I-O-N and that was the end of contact with Pa Norton.

The outfit had been stripped and rebuilt by us over the previous weeks with any necessary work carried out and we were happy that we had not missed anything at all.  The Wednesday morning found us at the circuit, after preliminary safety checks and warming up the engine we went onto the track for some exploratory laps to get used to the machine and satisfy ourselves that there was nothing amiss.   Returning to the paddock various checks and minor adjustments were made, fuel topped up and off we went again with the idea of improving lap times.  Having completed half a dozen laps or so top engine revs were being used on the faster parts of the circuit and our times were falling.  Crossing the start/finish line something suddenly felt different about the handling of the outfit, probably imagination.  Near the apex of the next corner, a right hander, it became apparent that it was not in my mind, there was definitely something wrong as the bike wanted to go straight on rather than turn, the effort involved just to stay on tarmac was huge.  After what seemed an eternity we got onto the straight and pulled off.  Quick inspection showed nothing significant, no puncture apparent which was the obvious possible fault so slowly we returned to the paddock.  After a quick discussion the fairing was removed and a thorough check begun particularly around the steering and front forks where the fault was obvious - the brazed joints of the frame to the steering head were all cracked, thus the difficult steering.  Presumably the fault was either due to poor brazing which was unlikely as the frame etc around that area was original factory brazes or caused by a previous crash unknown to us.  That was that then, unfortunately an abrupt end to any further testing and a visit the next day to the man with the brazing torch.

Pa Norton was right that there was danger, the end result could have been very serious for us both.  As far as strange forces are concerned there is little personal choice but to accept that such things certainly exist and something for which I am more than grateful.

Maybe a little more in this vein may follow ...