Norman Hands
Norman was a travelling salesman
for the Trojan Mini-motor:
"My job was mainly
travelling around the country
appointing dealers -
mostly cycle agents -
for the mini-motor,
and sorting out technical faults.
Because the kind of person
that was buying the mini-motor
was a cyclist
that didn't know a piston
from a sparking plug.
So part of my job
was explaining how to maintain
and repair them.
I travelled all over the place,
very often on a mini-motor.
I would go, say,
from Croydon to Margate
and then put up at a hotel
for the night.
But sometimes we went a lot further.
Once we did a publicity stunt
when three of us went from Croydon
to Lands End to John O'Groats
and back to Croydon again
which we did in ten days.
At first the mini-motors
sold themselves.
Motorbikes and cars
were almost unobtainable,
petrol was rationed
and these mini-motor things
would do something like
90 miles to the gallon.
They were �21
and the price of a Hillman Minx
was then about �505.
But they had a fairly short life
because by 1954
the small Italian mopeds
were coming in:
scooters, mobylettes,
Raleigh pops, etc.
It stopped selling and that was it."
