Circulates throughout the world Established 1903

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In the Continental test there is a picture of the trader’s plate on the rear mudguard, identifying King’s, Market Buildings, Leigh with the telephone number 71822 and the question ‘which Leigh?’ as there are numerous towns with the same name in Britain.  Well, I can confirm without any fear of contradiction that the Leigh in question is Leigh, Lancashire. The original firm of King’s was located on the old Market Square in Leigh town centre but moved to its new premises in Queen Street sometime in the mid-1950s due to demolition. Hence, they must have had a lot of traders’ tags in stock bearing the old address and carried on using them until their demise. Oddly enough I used to pass this very same shop on Queen Street on may way to school at the age of 12 and it was where I can remember falling in love with the very first Crusader Sports I ever saw. It was displayed in the showroom window when the model was launched in 1959, and I vowed at the time that I would have one.

My Crusader Sports didn’t come from King’s, but did come from Leigh, having languished for many years in the back of a friend’s garage. The Crusader Sports that I drooled over was ultimately bought by our local milkman at the time, as I found out a few years ago.

The original firm of King’s ceased trading in Leigh in the late 1960s/1970s and the shop was taken over, and is still owned today, by ESB Motorcycles of Leigh (01942 671822) and Bolton (01204 535443), who coincidentally I work for and have done so for several years. Since ESB took over they have concentrated mainly on Japanese motorcycles, being one of the first Honda dealers in the country, and today deal mainly in Suzuki and Yamaha.

It is odd how many of these old shops always seemed to have a ‘character’ working there.  When I turned into a teenage biker and started frequenting King’s I always remember a nice old gentleman who was the mechanic there and was affectionately known to all as ‘Johnny One Leg’, on account of his having one false limb. He used to ride around on a beautiful Excelsior Talisman Twin adapted with both footbrake and gear change on the same side. Whenever he would turn up at any local bike gathering he took great pleasure in telling all us wide-eyed teenagers about the time he fell off his bike and his false leg came off at the same time, and how people gasped at the sight of him, his leg and his bike lying in the road... The gasps grew louder as he arose and hopped across to retrieve his leg, which also rendered one or two of the onlookers being on the wrong side of consciousness!

The shop has changed very little over the years from its days as part of the King’s empire and draws another question to mind – how many of the original old King’s premises are still trading as bike shops today?

Sorry for the long winded answer to your question as to which Leigh it was... memories... memories!

Keith Latheron
Leigh, Lancashire