On 28th Mar 2015 5:04pm, Greylad said:
Earlsdon had Talbot's at 48 Earlsdon St. from 1923 to 1984.
That was the main bike shop when we were kids. An unpretentious shop where you could get anything for bikes.
When I was 9, I had a couple of (glass in those days) pop bottles in a shopping bag slung over my handlebars. Stupid, as when I tried to turn into our drive, they jammed between my front wheel and the forks, pitching me off the bike. The fork was slightly bent, but my front wheel was rather mangled and out of true, with several wrecked spokes. (I and the pop bottles survived.) I took my wheel to Mr Talbot, who said "leave it here". A day or two later, I went to collect it and it was as good as new. He only charged me 2/-.
About 4 years later, I went into the shop get a few steel balls, the sort you find in a ball race. Mr Talbot asked what size, and when I said about 5/16", he looked a bit puzzled and asked what make of bike they were for, as it was very unusual for steel balls to be that big. I told him it was for a very old bike. He said "it must be". He went over and got some tins, which he opened. One of them had the biggest balls he stocked, but they were only 1/4" in diameter, so I bought some of those They had surface rust, and had obviously been there for many years. I dare not tell him the true purpose of the balls. Nothing to do with cycles. No, my friend had turned up a model steel cannon in metalwork class at his school, and they were to be the cannonballs for it! We used banger powder at first, then later our homemade gunpowder. The balls should have been a bit bigger, but they worked.
Eventually, we ran of of balls, so I took one of the last ones as a sample and went back to purchase some more. When I showed Mr Talbot the sample ball, spotting the surface rust, he said "that looks old", to which I replied "well, they came out of an old tin". He said nothing but gave me a very funny look.