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Motor bikes

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Transcript: Mrs Florence Starr Gets Her Motorcycle License in 1925

Eastern Suburbs Motor Cycling Club

Nelson, Randall 'Animal'

Watson, ELC

Edworthy Cycle & Motor Works

Dykes on bikes, Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, 1993

Nurses leaving Blackfriars Depot, Chippendale 1919

Mrs Florence Starr recalls getting her motorcycle license in 1925 in Liverpool, interviewed 1986

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Motor bikes

Transcript: Mrs Florence Starr Gets Her Motorcycle License in 1925

Mrs Florence Starr came to live in Australia in 1925 when she was first married at the age of seventeen. In this excerpt from her interview for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960' project, recorded by Liverpool City Library in 1986, she recalls her motorbike riding prowess.

Eastern Suburbs Motor Cycling Club

Sporting and social club catering for motor cycle enthusiasts.

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Nelson, Randall 'Animal'

Randall 'Animal' Nelson was one of the founders of the Kings Cross Bikers Social and Welfare Club in 1989. A resident of Kings Cross since the 1950s, he was he was responsible for the bikies Toy Ride each Christmas to distribute toys for needy children and known to many as the Kings Cross Santa. He was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 2004 for his service to the Kings Cross community.

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Watson, ELC

Elsie, or ELC, Watson as she appeared to prefer, was born in Elgin, Scotland in about 1870. She studied at St Andrew's University and received an L La, before coming to Australia where members of her extended family lived. She worked in Sydney at the Presbyterian Ladies College from 1890-1892, and Women's College as a mathematics tutor, from 1894-1897. She also taught at Ipswich GIrls Grammar in Queensland, and by correspondence, with an emphasis on giving women the necessary skills to attend university. In the late 1890s she left for London where she worked as a journalist, most sensationally for the Express, when, in association with reports of a missing woman in 1903, she 'hid' herself, with readers offered a prize to identify her. In 1912 Watson crossed South Africa solo on a motorcycle, the first person to do so. Watson was a socialist and a feminist, actively involved in the suffrage movement and agricultural reform. She made numerous trips to Australia to visit her sister Annie, who had also been a teacher. She was the New Zealand Press Association representative in London from about 1920 until shortly before her death in January 1945.

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Edworthy Cycle & Motor Works

Manufacturer of cycles and motor cycles in Lidcombe and in Leichhardt from 1896 to 1963.

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Dykes on bikes, Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, 1993

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By

William Yang

With kind permission of

William Yang

National Library of Australia

[nla.pic-vn3097600]

Nurses leaving Blackfriars Depot, Chippendale 1919

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Contributed By

State Archives & Records New South Wales

[NRS4481_St6674]

Mrs Florence Starr recalls getting her motorcycle license in 1925 in Liverpool, interviewed 1986

full record »

Mrs Florence Starr, interviewed in 1986 for 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900-1960' project, came to live in Austral in 1925 when she was first married at the age of seventeen. She recalls her motorbike riding prowess.

Transcript

FLORENCE: Well I did ride a motor bike before I should have rode a motorbike, when I was thirteen. And I had the first license for a motorbike of any female in Australia. When we could afford the outfit, the Harley Davidson outfit [motorbike with sidecar], I went in to Liverpool [police station] and he said to me 'You've ridden a bike - before the last few weeks' (when I had the permit to learn to ride).

INTERVIEWER: Did you have to do a test to get your license to drive the motorbike?

FLORENCE: Yes, I had a very severe test. As a matter of fact, he made me do the figure of eight three times without stalling the motor or tipping. It's very hard to ride an outfit and do a figure of eight with an outfit, because the sidecar keeps lifting off the ground. They had one chap in there who could ride an outfit, he had an outfit himself and he could ride it, one of the policemen. So I did the figure of eight three times and didn't stall the motor, although the sidecar wheel didn't touch the ground, all the time it was up off the ground. And then I said to him 'You ride a motor bike, don't you? You've been riding for years.' He said 'Yes'. I said 'Now you get on and do the figure of eight three times without stalling the motor,' and he couldn't do it, he couldn't do it. So I could ride a motorbike better than he could, yeah.

Contributed By

Liverpool City Library

[BRN: 57868]

(Detail from interview with Mrs Florence Hilda Starr, from the 'Looking back at Liverpool : an oral history of the Liverpool region 1900-1960' conducted in 1986 by Liverpool City Council, editor and project co-ordinator Catherine Johnson ; researchers Angela Imbrosciano, Verica Miiosavijevic, Kathleen Smith.)