This is the story of my accidental acquisition of a 1952 Francis-Barnett Springer 58, and its eventual refurbishment into the very special little motorcycle that I have gifted to my granddaughter Lauren. The bike itself is a very ordinary piece of British post Second World War utilitarian transportation. It is however, unique in that these bikes were never popular, or common, and particularly so in Western Canada. How a ‘Fanny B’ came to be laying in a ‘pickers’ yard way south of Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, 60 years after its shipment from the UK will remain a mystery.

That I found it, recognised what it was, and eventually got it running again, also is somewhat of a mystery. More interesting than even that, is the fact that the wheels and assorted bits and pieces came from Christchurch in the very south of the South Island of New Zealand via my daughter Kristie, who lives in Auckland with her husband Stephen, and our second precious granddaughter, Rebecca.

In 2008 I was badly injured in an industrial accident. Up until that time I had been competing in many forms of motorcycle racing, most recently Vet’s motocross throughout North America. With a lengthy recuperation and lots of free time on my hands, I decided to get back into road riding if possible at a later date, but more importantly, I decided to start hunting around for bikes to restore to give me something to do.

That was made easier by the fact that In Canada motorcycling is still very much a minority sport and pastime, and older bikes seemed to be laying in every second barn or garage.

Word of mouth had been mu main source of information, and it served me well, leading me to a 1971 Triumph Bonneville that had been partially restored and modified into a poor-man’s cruiser. Thankfully the owner lost interest before any serious damage was done to the bike. A nice paint job, a new seat and a bunch of hard work later, I had a very attractive, well-sorted Bonny in my garage, even though at that time I still couldn’t ride. But I had plans — and a brand new Bell open face helmet to boot…

That then set me to looking for other bikes that I had an interest in. while I was out in the bush in the back blocks of Western Canada dragging the ‘XS1’ out of a run-down log building, I saw the remains of the Francis-Barnett laying under a number of other bike skeletons. Three hundred dollars later I owned most of a Fanny B Springer 58 with a 8E (or a 6E)? Villiers engine fitted. Oh and no rear wheel. But no matter, the seller had bits and pieces of all manner of bikes laying in among the trees and other log brans, so there was sure to be a matching wheel somewhere. Nope, but a Beeza Bantam wheel looked like it would fit, so that’s what I started with.

I attacked the XS1 first. Right away it became very obvious that I had a pile of parts from about three bikes all cobbled together, so that got put aside while I negotiated to buy a real XS1 (engine number 000290) that had all blue tinware, but underneath was the real deal.

Not for the first time, that project ground to a halt, so it was back to the Francis-Barnett.

As is the way with fine British machinery, and particularly quite obscure stuff like an F-B, I already knew that finding all the correct parts would be more difficult, and it was made even more obvious to me when I started to look at the assorted funny threads and screws holding everything together. This did, just for good measure include sheet metal screws, BSF (or is Whitworth or Scottish Metric) stuff, a couple of bolts with a stylised ‘S’ on the head and coach bolts and gate hinge bolts holding on the rear shocks. Jokingly, I reckoned the stylised ‘S’ stood for Supreme or Strong or similar meaning… ‘Suzuki’ of course.

But no matter, I had a fine Villiers-engined little bike to apply my considerable skills and time to, for I reasoned that if I could resurrect a butchered Bonny, I could fix almost anything. And for additional motivation, I would dedicate it to my granddaughter Lauren who had been pillion riding with Michael and l and now had her own Yamaha 90… she’d love it, particularly when painted her favourite ‘Aston Martin’ blue.

But with all good projects of course the first step is to make an inventory of all the parts one has, and equally importantly, all the parts one doesn’t have. There began the first steps to a modest degree of frustration and never-ending annoyance as I simply couldn’t tell what was real and original, and what may have come off something else not in a remotely connected to one of Mr Francis’ or Mr Barnett’s products. And the damn 12 page ‘Owner’s Manual and Workshop Imaginorium’ didn’t help much either — its fine pencil drawings and linotyped pages containing imaginative descriptions which included ‘spokes — 36’, ‘shims — various’, or ‘bearings — 2’. Grrrrr…..

I joined the Fanny B Owners Club (the esteemed ‘FBOC’), sent off my membership fee — paid in coin of the realm of her Majesty, Queen ‘Lizbeth, included my request for help finding parts and then walked… and waited… and waited. Turns out the Fanny B Owners Club uses a system known as ‘HM Post Office’ to move information around so it seems like I would also have to use this organisation called HM Post Office to find parts, or worse, find out what I was missing, rather than what I had. I also at the time found out the HM post office was a love-child-relative of the Canadian Post Office and very similar in appearing to do not much with a lot. And it costs lots of many to utilise its services.

So I resorted to the internet and begged for help and parts. I found a toolbox for £16, but HM Post Office wanted £25 to ship it to the Colonies… oh man this is going to be expensive and time consuming. I was so frustrated, I was going to call the Queen and get her to intervene on my behalf.

After all, didn’t she own HM Post Office? My wife told me: “Forget Queen Liz, she’s busy visiting Will and Kate’s little guy and doesn’t have time for this nonsense. And she doesn’t really own the Post Office anymore.”

Did I mention that I was resourceful?

By that stage Fleebay, Kijiji, Trade Me and local swap meets had become an all-consuming obsession, and anything that even remotely resembled a part of an F-B or a Norman, or an Ajay, or for that matter anything else remotely British, was grabbed always at the maximum bid. My sense of foreboding and dismay was overwhelming as I reached the point where I really didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but did have lots of overpriced mismatched parts. I still hadn’t found any wheels and was beginning to despair that this was going to end up down the side of my garage with the unloved and incomplete Beesa 441 Victor Trail, that I had once held such high hopes for.

However, at the last minute, when all seemed lost, I made contact with a fellow F-B’er in New Zealand, who told me about a pile of parts for sale in Christchurch (CHCH) of all places. I couldn’t have picked a further distance from the stick at the South Pole from CHCH…

Another $300 (NZD) later I owned what appeared to be two incomplete bikes minus engines, but clearly there were parts in the pile that I needed desperately, including a matching pair of wheels. Worse, I was in Canada; parts were in CHCH and I truly feared the costs of getting it all home. Whatever would I do? Wait, I almost forgot — Kristie lives in Auckland, which is only a few thousand miles from CHCH.

With that problem solved, all I needed to do was get the parts to her, then she could pick out what I needed and sell the rest… it’s really easy if you say it fast and don’t think through the details, such as how to identify the parts I needed? Once again my resourceful and artistic nature came to the fore. I got the aforementioned 12 page parts book and laboriously drew a near facsimile of each and every part I needed, making constant reference to the photos I had of the pile of parts laid out in the seller’s garden in CHCH.

Eventually, and with a further exchange of funds with the New Zealand Post Office acting as intermediary, and my bank manager (who now controls all my capital expenditures due to my personal loss of control of my financial affairs), a large and unwieldy parcel was despatched which may include wheels, fender stays (all wrong), parts of an exhaust which may or may not contain a dead mouse, a set of handlebars (bent of course) and a quantity of mismatched and damaged clutch and brake lever parts and other assorted Fanny ephemera.

Now in my second winter playing with Fanny B, I was liking it less by the minute. It was time however, to rethink my commitment to Fanny B and ‘just do it’ as they say in an old TV ad of some vintage, so I recall. With that thought in mind, I took the only rational course available to me which was to completely dismantle the bike down to its simplest and most common part without any reference whatsoever to the 12-page parts book, my photographs or possibly be to put it all back together? Really, the entire bike was only comprised of about 98.5 assorted parts. It couldn’t be that hard. Could it?

I took the frame parts to be sand blasted and painted and all went well in relative terms. Then I laid everything out on a sheet pf plywood and took some photos, if only to try to convince myself that I had a complete bike laid before me. Then I got a pile of parts electroplated and nickel-plated. At this stage there was still no rationale, rhyme or reason to what I was doing, I was just doing it and not much else mattered. I needed progress — albeit very much of the two steps-forward, two-steps-sideways, one-step-back variety. But it was progress I’m sure.

Eventually, the build started, and that’s when the realisation occurred that I still didn’t have a clue what I was assembling. My pile of painted, coated and plated parts drew admiring comments from everyone that I showed the photos to. But it was an illusion… I still didn’t seem to have all the bits and I still couldn’t work out what else was missing. Was I paying for the haphazard manner in which I had attacked this rebuild. What goes where? — Well I did know that a Yamaha 250 swingarm spindle wasn’t going to fit in that spindly little F-B swingarm — ever! Maybe I had a few parts mixed up…

In spite of my disorganization and poor attitude, things went along quite well initially. The new and very blue seat returned from R K Leighton. The air filter arrived from Villiers Spares. The wheels are powder coated in that same blue. And the bike was finally but only loosely assembled in Mr Fanny and Mr Barnett. Seems like there are still parts missing though.

I laid down the first coats of a modified Aston Martin blue with cream and silver accents that just impressed the hell out of me and I was beginning to change my attitude towards the bike.

Then we’re at the stage where Michael and I started the wiring using an original Wipac headlight switch, original clear hooter horn button and original magneto and generator coils.

Wiring done, the bike was coming together now with lightning speed — the battery installed in the replica black rubber box, the tyres on the very blue powder coated rims, the air filter installed, the headlight in, chain on, oil in and we were very close to the real day of reckoning. Start-up!

Another winter approached. Lauren would be off to university, or even drawing a pension before I was done at this rate.

I set to and applied all new spark-marker parts including a new condenser, and points plug wire, spark plug, kill switch and more. Maybe too much more, as now there was a grave shortage of spark. Bugger, how on earth did that happen!

Doesn’t matter. Seems that due to a misunderstanding with my very British supplier, the exhaust system was missing and presumed lost — I despaired and threatened to sell the damn bike. I was done with British bikes — I was gonna sell the Triumph and only ever work on Jap bikes. I was just so done with all this positive earth, Joe Lucas-Prince-of-Darkness-stuff. Did I mention that the 1970 R5 Yamaha I was restoring in a parallel universe wouldn’t start either?

Winter took grip. Wouldn’t you know it, while out shovelling snow one day after work, I found a great big elongated box laid on my front steps. Whatever was it? Turned out it was the lost and presumed dead and missing exhaust system from the British supplier. Wow, look at the quality, what an amazing job my wonderful British supplier did. All is well again for, the moment.

I deduced this really was the final missing part, so it’s back to the garage and I turn up the heater. I decide to start from scratch with a new magneto coil (and a second one) all the way from jolly Blighty, a new dial gauge to set the timing correctly. Using some nice new Canadian premium fuel and Yamalube two-stroke oil in the correct ratio, it started like magic on about the seventy-fifth kick. What was all the fuss about? It just hums like your typical Villiers two-stroke single. And it really sounds so nice, three years later.

As I write this, spring 2014 is a very long way away, but Lauren is looking forward to being able to try her pretty little Francis-Barnett Springer 58, and I’m looking forward to being able to say it’s done and exactly how I wanted it. I also need to remind myself to never make the same pile of mistakes and miscues ever again.

I have to admit I’m pretty happy with it after about three years of stress and not inconsiderable cost. With everything tallied, the final bill is north $3500 (CAD), not including my own time of course. I should thank Dave Ellis form Penrith, Cumbria, who acted as my agent in the UK on occasion and very kindly only mildly chided me for even trying to restore this bike. I think I’ve forgotten the number of times I threatened to sell the bike, but through it all I still wanted Lauren to have her ‘little blue bike’.

And I’m glad I persevered.

• Al Gill

Stay safe on the road. When riding, always wear a custom helmet.