The Promenade Percy

In the beginning was the sea…or more accurately, the seaside. A promenade is a public walkway constructed along the strand to keep the sand from our shoes. Promenades attracted droves in the 19th Century – what else was there to do –  and soon pleasure piers, amusement parks, and music venues became their principal attraction, compounding the interest of a fun-seeking public.  Even in the midst of the Depression, the period examined here, Youth found a way to its opposite sex, and a tourist-laden seaside resort was a happy hunting ground for perambulators of breeding age, whether the hunter was on foot or awheel.  To the newly mobile, places like Southend-on-Sea became the hottest pickup spots outside of a London dance hall, and motorcyclists of a certain age and inclination were naturally drawn to them for the same reason: unintended procreation and forced marriage (kidding / not kidding).  Thus we have the creation of seaside promenades, upon which one promenades, in a typical Anglophone example of verbing a noun.

The introduction of any new technology brings unforeseeable cultural consequences, and so it was with the motorcycle: who knew it would become an essential tool for the mating rituals of a certain youth subculture?   Beginning in the Twenties, a subset of mostly London-based motorcyclists made their gathering point exactly these seaside promenades.  They were noted for riding ‘modern, sporting mounts’ resplendent in extra chrome and straight-through exhausts, dressing snappily, and doing their best to attract the attention of so-called ‘seaside fairies’, or young ladies expecting to be courted by just such fellows.  These mostly male riders were disparagingly called the “seaside promenade Percy”, presumably in reference to Percy Shelley, the notorious 19^th Century libertine, anarchist, and dandy, who died young and beautiful in 1822. Shelley was scandalous for his Bohemian lifestyle and free love antics, so decamped to Italy to live a hassle-free life with his young genius bride, Mary Shelley, who wrote the first, most profound, and most misinterpreted treatise on the unexpected consequences of technology, called ‘Frankenstein: or, a Modern Prometheus.”

In the typical English gift for abbreviation, our obnoxious inter-war heroes were soon called simply Promenade Percys: a perfect double entendre. Calling a young motorcyclist Percy implied their amorous antics were not the proper focus of a young man’s energies: that would be war, not love.  Or at least, a battle substitute like sport. Finger-waggers made their displeasure plain via letters and editorials in the mid-1930s motorcycle press, when Percys were compared unfavorably with ‘real men’ like Jimmie Simpson, the square-jawed hero of the Norton factory racing team, who retired in 1934 with five European Championships under his belt.  Real men, it was implied, risked their necks in battlefields and on racetracks, while Promenade Percys (and later cafe racers) merely jousted for the attention of girls. [Sadly, I have yet to discover a similarly derided Promenade Pamela]

It’s been claimed the Promenade Percy was the origin of the species of what became known as cafe racer culture, but it’s not so. I argue in my book ‘Ton Up!’ that a subculture attracted to ‘racers on the road’ is evergreen, and simply human nature.  Included in the book is an account of the joys of speed on two wheels from 1869, on one of the very first Michaux pedal-velocipedes.  While not the first, our Percy is the direct ancestor of the Ace Cafe denizens of the 1950s, and were excoriated in the press in exactly the same manner. From the Western Gazette of Feb 12, 1932: “Pukka riders must not be confused with those ‘bright Percys’, the promenade pests, who float up and down their main streets and sea fronts adorned in spotless suits with carefully oiled hair, looking for some fair damsel to adorn their pillion seat.”  A 1934 letter describes Percys “engaged in ‘Simpsoning’ up and down the seafront with their pillions bedecked in beach pyjamas.”  From 1932 onwards such letters blossomed in The Motor Cycle every Springtime, but their condemnation sounds more like envy to our modern ears.  And frankly, I can’t imagine much better than riding a chromium-plated 1930s sports motorcycle along the seaside, in a fantastic tweed suit, with my fairy damsel on the back.

[This essay is adopted from a column originally published in Classic Bike Guide.  As CBG no longer includes columns in their pages, we are adding this content into The Vintagent so more readers can enjoy the thoughts of our publisher, Paul d’Orléans.  The photographs included here are all original and unpublished photos, included in his book ‘Ton Up! A Century of Cafe Racer Speed and Style’ (2020, Motorbooks), an exploration of the evergreen love for fast motorcycles since 1869.  If you want a signed copy, we’ll set you up with one here.]