Factory original....

Although the book I bought recently has no bearing on Enfield's it does show some excellent pictures of WD Motorcycles being overhauled at No1 Workshop Group (REME) Chilwell.

What I was surprised at, was the scale of work being undertaken, there are benches marked with Makers names, Matchless, Norton, Ariel etc, with jigs set for the straightening of Girder forks.

Jigs to straighten frames, benches with half built motorcycles on and there are many........

The eye catching pic though is one that is a stores/ assembly line in dated 1942 and says probably North Africa!! Personally I doubt its North Africa but the Amount of Engines in the Foreground of the pic it does make you think.

So whats it got to do with Enfields you ask? well I'm guessing if you take away the bikes and add Enfields and other small arms you would get the idea of the scale of repairs etc.

As Peter will often mention, a rifle that came in for repair, was repaired with the parts at hand, regardless of manufacturer and went out a repaired rifle.

If anyone is interested the book is called "British Forces Motorcycles 1925-45 by Chris Orchard and Steve Madden.

The period pictures I've seen of wartime weapons reclamation, repair, cleaning operations are always eye opening for their scale. There's a picture out there in the ether of a lone GI somewhere in the Pacific, sitting on a stool in front of a bucket full of solvent of some sort...and he's surrounded by a truly mountainous pile of M1s and other small arms. You can definitely tell that the concerns of future collectors are nowhere in his thought processes.

Remembering some of the weapons cleaning work parties that I was on way back when really reinforces the concept, albeit on a much smaller scale. :rofl:

The very affable Steve Madden was a regular and welcome visitor to us at the Small Arms School

Peter, the pictures in the book are from the REME museum ( as its on the move will be sometime before its open again) hope to get there and try and get some copies of the pics, it really does bring home the scale of repairs etc, this just being the Motorcycle part of it. Most pics don't have a time frame, but I,m guessing the repair side is post war.


(added info) I mention Enfield's in the original post as I posted it on the Enfield forum, to try and convince a few that, the chances of a Factory original are very slim to none existing apart from the No4 Mk2' s in the Wrap.

A good example is when people are pleased that that they bought an FTR'd No4 as they assume it's been fully Faz refurbished.

All it proves is that action body and maybe the bolt body were once FTR'd 60 years ago as the rifle will have gone through many owners and probably quite a few rebuilds in the intervening years!

As you say Geoff, it's only the in the in the wrap examples that can be called new with any degree of certainty.

I would love to get my hands on one of the factory fresh wrapped L1A1's in the (I think) Marine Corps firearms collection.

I have the same book, it was a good and inexpensive purchase. At one time I had about 13 WD motorcycles in my collection but I've now slimmed down to 6. 5 of which are Royal Enfields from 1939 to 1944. The proceeds from selling my bikes have now gone into my Very Early Production Ford Jeep from March 42. I bought that so I could take the family out......or at least that's what I told the wife, in reality I needed somewhere to mount the M2HB!

So whats the 6th one BP ? I convinced the wife the Matchless would wean me off buying Enfield's etc, that was until the L42 arrived...... which really has put a stop on things.

6th one isn't really a WD bike but I suspect it may have been one of the bikes pressed into service in 1940. It's a Rudge Witworth 500cc. It had traces of a semi gloss kaki green in some hard to reach places. I thought it may have been one of the WD trials bikes to begin with but the numbers don't match known records.

Sounds an interesting bike, with the khaki green I'm guessing its mostly original with original number plate etc ? maybe not pressed but volunteered into service such as Home Guard etc.