Nobody seems to be returning my calls so I’m guessing the TV adaption has died on its arse which is a pain but one of the conversations I had with the TV people at one stage was about music and I’ve been thinking about the ideal soundtrack ever since.

Sharon found him two days later when she went back to the flat.

He’d died of an overdose; downers, and he’d shot some smack, the coroner said, so I reckoned I had been right after all.

And so our first full dress run as a new club was for Gyppo’s funeral.

We assembled in the Golden Lion car park again.

There is always a strong turnout for funerals. Not just from our club, we were all there of course, a slow cortège, riding two abreast behind the hearse, silent, solemn and grim as we rolled through the town, a police escort ahead and behind. People on the pavement stopped to watch as we passed but it was a very different feeling from that first time, some seven or so years before.

And with us were other friendly, and even not so friendly clubs. The Brethren were there in force, Dazza leading them with their wreath strapped to the pillion pad of his Harley. Down the pecking order there were members of local sidepatch clubs and MCCs, some of them customers, some of them just friends or acquaintances. Gyppo had been a popular and well known guy.

There were even wreaths from clubs like The Hangmen and Dead Men Riding. We might be enemies but we were still bikers who could respect each other.

His family hadn’t wanted a church service so there was a memorial event in a hall just at the cemetery gates. He had an open casket so we could all see he was being buried in his colours, colours that he had worn for less than a day.

Sharon had chosen the music. So the coffin left the hall for his final trip to the graveside to Bat out of Hell.

I gave her a lift back afterwards.

Nobody seems to be returning my calls so I’m guessing the TV adaption has died on its arse which is a pain but one of the conversations I had with the TV people at one stage was about music and I’ve been thinking about the ideal soundtrack ever since.

The Legion patching party at the end of the bike show was an even wilder rerun of that first Reivers one.

Dazza and the guys from The Brethren were there of course, it was almost as if they were our sponsors in a way. As the only one of the big six clubs with a presence in the region we could hardly amalgamate patch clubs in the area without clearing it with them. We didn’t exactly need their permission but it was a show of respect as before. If we had patched up without consulting them, it would be seen as an unacceptable affront to their authority, a deliberate insult if you like, and they would have to act to keep face. At the same time they knew that we would not want to lose face by having to ask for their permission like some little kid at school. So, it was a little game that we all played to observe the niceties and keep the peace. Like I say, good fences, and good manners, keep good neighbours. So as before, we asked for their blessing.

And Dazza of course was happy to give it.

We took a group photo of the new club, standing and kneeling proudly in two smiling rows in our new colours. I’ve still got a copy at home although I don’t put it up, it upsets Sharon too much. But there’s a framed one in the clubhouse bar that I look at every so often.

Gyppo looks particularly wild eyed and out of it with a manic grin. He was already speeding crazily by the time the photo was taken. Tiny had to threaten to clobber him to get him to crouch down long enough in the front for the camera.