Snappy dressers talk scooters, mods and fashion

Three friends, from three different points on the compass, have bonded in north Norfolk over a shared love of scooters, music and fashion.

They have all made very different journeys to get here – Surrey’s Cathy Stern from the ‘80s mod revival, James Quinlan from Manchester’s indie scene, and Norfolk native Peter Sampson, who didn’t own a scooter until 2015.

From left to right, James, Cathy and Peter

They got together in the quaint market town of Reepham to tell their stories.

Cathy Stern

Cathy, 59, grew up in Camberley, Surrey, and retired to Norfolk in 2015 after a career in IT.

“I remember when I was about 13 or 14 seeing an article in a newspaper colour supplement about the mod revival, and I fell in love with the fashion, so I had a brief flirtation with mod then, but without the scooter.

“I made my own sort of two-tone dress and went to a disco called The Walton Hop in Walton-on-Thames, and then the next month when I went back there about three girls were wearing two-tone dresses, so I thought ‘no, I’m going to be a punk now, I don’t want to be the same as everybody else’.

“So I had a couple of years as a punk girl, and it wasn’t really until 1980 that I came back to the mod scene. By then Quadrophenia had been released, but I was still too young to have watched the film because it had an 18 certification.

“But I felt I grew up with all the references from the film because all the mods used to quote lines from the film, so I felt I knew it.

Mod boyfriend

“When I was 15 years old, I was too young to own and ride my own scooter, but I had a mod boyfriend, and I had an older sister who also had a mod boyfriend.

“He was a little bit older and coming out of the scene, because he was not very happy with all these scooterists wearing parkas emblazoned with The Who on the back – he called them Quad mods.

“But he gave me that visual idea of what a mod should look like. Like, I shouldn’t put things or have any writing on the back of my parka – it just had to be across the arms, very subtle.

“And he also leant me his book called Mods! which had black and white photographs of the mods from the 1960s at the resorts, and that really became my style reference. That’s how I learnt about the mod movement and how you dress.

“My boyfriend had a rather tasty Lambretta, with all the lights and mirrors, a whiplash aerial and a fox tail flying out the back.

“At the time we had two main scooter clubs around the Camberley and Aldershot area, Junction 13, who were quite mod, and A5, who used to go on all the northern scooter rallies and were into cutting down their scooters and turning them into skellies.

“So it wasn’t long before the boyfriend abandoned the mod trappings and decided that was the way that he was going to go.

My first Lambretta

“When I turned 17 we bought an old Li series 3 for £25 off one of the ex members of the A5 club, and my boyfriend spray-painted it up for me and got it going. At the time it was pretty mod looking, chrome side panels and leopard skin seat covering, but without all the lights and mirrors and whiplash aerial. I was a little bit anti Vespa, because the A5 club was very pro Lambretta.

Cathy with her first Lambretta

“I used to ride it round and round outside my garage in circles trying to work out how to change gear. It was quite difficult, because I had tiny little hands and trying to change gear was hard. I remember buying a tennis exerciser to build up my muscles. There weren’t too many girls riding around on Lambrettas in those days – most had Vespas because they were easier to handle.

“In the early ‘80s I started getting into the rally scene. The first one would have been Weston-super-Mare, and the Isle of Wight because it wasn’t far.

On a rally in the early ’80s

“We started to abandon the mod look, and I became a fully fledged scooter girl at that stage, with army greens. But I always wanted to be a little different to everyone else. They had the flight jackets with patches all over their backs, so I started sewing patches on my trousers instead.

Happy days

“I customised that Lambretta, which went through various stages. I’m ashamed to say I cut the leg shields down, because there was this trend of cutting everything down. I did a rather bad job of it with a jigsaw, but then I came to my senses.

Custom scooter

“After I was involved in an accident, the frame got bent up quite badly, so we got a new frame and went for all the murals and started to get things chromed at Rafferty Newmans in Portsmouth. As soon as money was available I’d buy a piece of chrome and add it on. I had it rebored and fitted a slightly bigger carb, but I’d always been advised to keep the scooter as standard as possible and it won’t let you down, and that’s something I’ve held on to.

“By 1986 I was doing the rallies quite intensively over a couple of years, and that culminated in going to the Vespa Euro rally in Barcelona. I went on the back of my boyfriend’s P200 Vespa and it was quite interesting for me because it showed me a different type of person that was into scooters – the Vespa crowd was very European and quite cultural.

“I thought it was quite different to what we were doing in the UK on the scooter rallies, where everyone was drinking themselves stupid and dressing up in grass skirts. I thought ‘I rather like this’, and I think that’s the way I probably would have gone, but unfortunately my scooter was stolen.

“I’d just bought my first flat, I was paying the mortgage and I’d let my insurance expire…but I still went out on my scooter. It broke down, and I left it at the side of the road. We organised a van to go and pick it up, but by the time we got there it had disappeared.

“It was never recovered, and sadly because it wasn’t insured I wasn’t able to buy another scooter.

Break from the scooter scene

“I focused on my career and bringing up my son, and then about 20 years ago I acquired my small frame Vespa Primavera.

“I used to travel around with him on the back, and he’d do the hand signals for me. I wasn’t in the scootering scene, as such, but just riding it for enjoyment.

“In 2015 I moved to Norfolk, and I was looking for something to do. I didn’t know anyone, and the first thing I embarked on was getting the Primavera restored, because it had the wrong mudguard and the wrong shaped headset, plus there were a few issues with the suspension.

“I was looking for someone to work on it and do a spray job, so I asked around and realised there were various scooter groups on Facebook – so I started to discover what was going on in Norfolk.

“The Primavera was customised and restored, and I wanted to have it ready for the first vintage ‘60s festival which was taking place at Cromer. Around that time I started to see posts from Trevor Bailey, who ran Cromer Soul Club, which took place at the festival. He wanted to put together a scooter club, and that’s when we all started to talk to one another and realised there were quite a few people in north Norfolk who own and ride scooters.

Something a bit meatier

“He arranged the first ride out in about 2018, and it’s grown from there. Roundabout then I acquired my Vespa P200, because I realised I wanted something a bit meatier.

“The Primavera is lovely to look at, but not great for longer distance ride outs. It was nice to have something man enough to put a tent and sleeping bag on the back.

“I’d always held on to the Lambretta as my favourite scooter, and I was determined I was going to have a classic scooter, so when I saw a 1960 Li150 S2 come up for sale online I thought ‘I’ve got to have that’. It was originally restored by Disco Dez.

“I don’t think the fashion thing ever really left me. When I was working as a trainer at Rank Xerox, they treated us a bit like Pan Am flight attendants and we were always taught that it doesn’t matter where you go, you’ve always got to be looking your best. And that’s something I always held on to.

“Whatever I was buying, it wouldn’t necessarily be vintage mod gear, but it always had that ‘60s vibe to it.

“After Covid, I got into the current mod scene and decided I really wanted to get to some of the events. I’d heard about the Dreamsville mod weekender, which moved to Gorleston, and I wanted to get back into that look. And having the ‘60s scooter and also the vintage ‘60s festival in Cromer, all these incentives brought the whole thing together.

“It’s all provided me with a community, and also for me I’ve always been quite a creative person, so it’s a way of expressing my own creativity by dressing in a certain way, adopting that look and riding the scooters. There are a lot of ladies on the mod scene, but not too many that are still riding scooters. It’s quite nice to have individuality.”

James Quinlan

James, 47, was a teenager in Manchester at the height of the Britpop scene before chasing the Mod scene to London. He later moved with his family to Norfolk for a change of pace.

“I was a bit of an Indie kid in Manchester in the ‘90s, and I remember there was an issue of the NME with a front cover of loads of folks in Brighton with scooters, I think it was headlined ‘Touched by the hand of mod’.

The magazine that started it all for James

“I thought ‘bloody hell that looks brilliant, I want to be part of this’, so I started looking into the Mod scene, researching it, and buying books on the period. I had always been into ‘60s music, mostly by stealing my Dad’s record collection, as you do.

“As well as the music and the clothes, which were much easier to get hold of then, Mods had scooters, and I thought ‘I want one’. I ended up working loads of jobs after school, saving money to get my first scooter, and I found an advert in the back of Loot for one that was within my price range – which wasn’t a lot.

“We went in a mate of my Dad’s van to pick this thing up from Stockport late at night. It was advertised as a Vespa PX125, perfect for a learner legal scooter, but we collected it from this bloke’s shed in the dark, and in a rush, a fatal mistake.

“It had no lights on it, most of the panels were knackered, and on getting it home it turned out that the numbers on the documents didn’t match the numbers on the bike. So, I had bought a right dud.

“I was stuck with it then, but I got it road registered, had the documents all sorted out, got the lights done, an MoT, and got it up and running.

“I’d still not taken my CBT so me and my friends were taking it on the local playing field to try and learn to ride, which isn’t a great idea on 10-inch wheels on a wet football pitch. So it was mostly learning how to slide on your arse down the touch line.

“It was good practice – get your crashes out of the way early.

“Then I was just riding around town and going to sixth form on it, but I didn’t know anyone else who had a scooter. You’d see the odd other person who’d give you a head nod, but you’d never stop long enough to catch up with them.

Solo trip to first rally

“Then in the back of Scootering magazine there was an advert for a CCI (Classic Club International) rally in Rhyl, north Wales, at Easter ‘95, which for me in Manchester was nice and close.

“CCI was run by a guy called Tony Class, who ran events with more of a Mod element, so I thought ‘I’ll go to that’. I put a sleeping bag on the back of the Vespa and went on my own. I didn’t know anyone, I just thought I’d turn up with a pocket full of money and kip on the beach.

“I went in the bar, having an underage pint, and this tall skinhead lad walked up to me and said ‘you alright mate? Where have you come from?’ I was panicking a bit, but we got chatting and he was really friendly, from a scooter club local to me called The Lazy Aces.

“He said ‘we meet every Sunday night at the Burton Arms in Manchester, you should come down’. So the following weekend I snuck up there and got into the scootering scene properly. It was then two solid years of doing everything I could do.

“There seemed to be loads of national rallies and scooter club do’s plus the CCI doing rallies, and then underneath that you had the New Untouchables, which was very ‘60’s mod and less scooter oriented – a whole selection of things you could go to, along with a lot of clubs, all-nighters and venues playing the music, which was great.

‘I really wanted a Lambretta’

“The Vespa was nice and I enjoyed riding it, although I crashed it a few times, including one where I hit the kerb, went off the scooter, which followed me. I hit a church wall, and the scooter hit me, so I got sandwiched. That stung.

“But I really wanted a Lambretta – I had a few mates who had them, and they looked the nuts.

“I saved up some more money, sold the Vespa and went to Pete Merchant’s up in Rochdale and bought a 1966 Li125 Special for £700. The engine had been rebuilt and it was on the road, so for me it was great. I resprayed it in the shed with rattle cans and managed to overspray everything. Dad had lovely blue and white wellies for years!

“For a couple of years, I did all the rallies I could on that and did about 14,000km one year. Towards the end, I’d started at university in London, so I was riding between London and Manchester on my scooter most weekends with my washing in a bag. 

“I came up in the winter once and when I got to mum and dad’s house in Manchester, dad had to come and lift me off the scooter because I was near enough frozen stiff. I couldn’t put my legs down to put the centre stand down to get off. Dad laid me in the front room until I defrosted. But you do crazy stuff when you’re young.

Swapping Lambretta for Herald

“At about the end of ‘96, I was getting very heavily into the ‘60’s mod scene more than the scooters, a lot more about the clothes and the music. It was getting so I couldn’t carry enough stuff on the scooter for the weekend away – five or six outfits, shoes and a girlfriend who had the same.

James’ current Lambretta

“So, I chipped my Lambretta in for a Triumph Herald convertible and then had classic cars for the next few years. But I never got over my love of scooters, and every other year or so I’d go and buy another scooter, ride it for a few months and that itch was scratched for a bit.

“I’d been constantly scratching the Lambretta itch on and off over the years, but I stayed on the ‘60s scene and was heavily involved in the ‘60s club scene in London with the New Untouchables.

“Then I got married and had children and we eventually moved here to Norfolk, where I’d already been volunteering on a steam railway for a bit.

“Recently, with the children all getting a bit older, that itch came back, so last year I liquidated some previous hobbies I had – cupboards full of stuff – and bought this 1964 Italian Lambretta Li150 Special in October 2023.

“If it was a period British import it would be called a Pacemaker, but this one came straight from Italy, bought from someone who imports them. It was absolutely original, down to the fact the petrol tank was held on with baler band and the sole of somebody’s shoe where it had been bodged in Italy.

Stripped, cleaned and restored

“Over last winter I stripped, cleaned and restored it, rebuilt the engine, and got it back on the road. It was covered in filth, all muddy, but it’s come up nice in the end and the engine’s good. The only major change has been putting electronic ignition on for easier starting.

“It’s amazing how quickly you forget how to ride a scooter. For the first couple of days out I was very nervous, tiny wheels and rubbish brakes, especially as I’d restored it myself – ‘did I bolt that on tight?’

“Then when the spring came round this year, I put some feelers out to see who the local scooter clubs were and whether there was anything going on.

“I got in contact with Trevor Bailey from NNSC and he said ‘we’re going out next weekend, pop down and join in’, so I met up with them and they’ve all been really nice. Nearly once a week we go out for a run now.

“It’s different these days, because back in the ‘90s scooter rallies were definitely all about driving many miles to go and camp in a field, get drunk, watch lunatics get up to all sorts of crazy antics, go to all-nighters, do all sorts of stuff that we probably shouldn’t have been getting up to.

“You drove halfway across the country, had three days of partying, and somehow were sober enough to drive back at the end of it and go to work.

“These days with the North Norfolk Scooter Club it’s a little bit more sedate, everyone’s a little bit older. I think even at 47 I’m one of the younger members. It’s more about popping out to a country pub, but just for the one because we’ve all got to ride back.”

Peter Sampson

Peter, 58, is a Norfolk native, and bought his first scooter in 2015. He always had a keen eye for fashion as an ‘80s ‘casual’ following Chelsea FC.

“I was into the two-tone scene and loved Quadrophenia, which influenced everyone, but I never got into the scooter scene back then.

“But I did become a casual, or a dresser, to do with the football scene. I started to follow Chelsea in 1984 and quickly noticed that the fashion in London was two or three years ahead of Norwich, so when I first went I was wearing completely the wrong thing.

“We were still wearing the Tacchini, Fila, Ellesse etc, and when I went to London everything had gone to pastel colours. Three-button stuff, limes and greens, and a lot of pink around.

“So I’ve always been into dressing smartly and looking the part, but it was mainly down to being a football fan rather than being a mod. But I think the football scene and the music and fashion scenes were very connected, and I evolved with the football crowd.

“I did the football thing for 30 years and then I kind of fell out of love with it. I was a Chelsea season ticket holder for 12 years, and a member for the preceding 18 years, and I was going home and away and to Europe. That was my buzz at the time.

Finding new friends

“But strangely enough, when I stopped going to football and started to come out locally, I didn’t really know anyone because my social life was away from here. So I needed to get involved with something again and that’s when I bought the scooter.

“I had a Fizzie (Yamaha FS1E) and then an RS 125 when I was young, and I always had a yearning to get back on two wheels throughout my life, but married life responsibilities previously put paid to that a bit.

“I had always loved scooters. I used to go to the football on a bank holiday weekend and see the groups of scooters travelling around and I just thought it looked really cool. And I knew of them, obviously, from when I was at school because it was quite a big thing at the time.

“I bought a new Vespa PX125, one of the last ones made, in 2015. I wanted the anniversary special edition, which means you got a nice bag, seat, colour-coded, fly screen, and front and back racks, but they’d sold out, so I ended up buying the black one I’ve had ever since, and I’ve got quite attached to it.

“It’s got wraps on the panels, but it’s all original and unmolested. I would like to have a more retro one, but it’s very reliable and for me to buy another scooter I’d have to get rid of that one, and I’d find that very hard to do.

“There were lots of events on, usually something every weekend. If it wasn’t a scooter rally or a scooter rideout, you’d get the northern soul do’s and there were lots of ska bands on in and around Norwich, so that’s how I got back into meeting people again.

“I found out about the North Norfolk Scooter Club through social media. They’d already had a couple of soul events at Cromer Social Club that I hadn’t been aware of, but as soon as I saw there was a rideout I thought I’d turn up and introduce myself.

‘Like-minded people’

“It’s given me a regular place to meet like-minded people. There are other scooter clubs around, and we do go to each other’s meetings in the local pubs. It’s basically about going out for a pint and a rideout.

“The furthest I’ve been on the scooter is the Isle of Wight. We do take my van with the scooters in the back now, which is mainly just a time thing and of course, I can get all of my suits and boots in as well! You’re looking at eight hours on a scooter and I’d rather get there in three. But we like to have the scooters with us. It’s nice to ride them all suited and booted, and it brings a lot of joy to people’s faces when they see you.

“We’ve been to the Brighton Mod Weekender a few times, which is kind of the home of it. It’s great. It’s nice talking to the original mods from the ‘60s, to hear the real story of how they got into it and what used to go on.

“We’ve met a lot of people now and they’re all very friendly. No-one judges you. You are all like-minded people of a similar age, and there are some youngsters coming through, which is nice to see – they look really cool.

“The fashion is Cathy’s fault, although as I said, I’ve always been into looking smart. As you go to more and more Mod events you start seeing people all dressed up, so you start buying the clothes – although Cathy’s always had the right stuff.

“So I’ve got into it through my love for the music and going to the events.”

Scooter stories is a series of articles exploring the lives and experiences of scooterists and collectors. Click on the Scooter Stories category link to read more.