Does anyone remember the ‘Q Bikes’?
If you do, you'll recall the strip with fondness; if you never came across it you missed a great series. The Q Bikes first appeared in the Beano in 1963 and several further series followed until the sixth and last one in 1971. Apart from ‘The Iron Fish’ and ‘Red Rory of the Eagles’ they were probably the best thing in the Beano.
Images Lew Stringer
Local Oxgangs Avenue lads Ali Douglas; Derek and
Les Ramage; and Iain Hoffmann were only a couple short of forming their own RC
(Raleigh Chopper) squad - RC1 Ali Douglas; RC2 Derek
Ramage;
RC3
Les Ramage; and RC4
Iain Hoffmann.
Whilst reading the comics of an Oxgangs Edinburgh school summer holiday afternoon I used to fantasise about how brilliant it would be to have their radio communication system; and of course today with mobile phones it would be very straightforward.
So, if you have a question about the
Q Bikes
but not how they got their name (now that is a question!) - Q a
question and I'll pick
up my quill and try to present the
quintessence or the
essential quality of the team but you'll need to join the queue before I can quell or indeed quench your query so please don't quibble because I'll
be as quick as I can
to
prevent you from quizzing me further about their adventures or
their quest to fight crime
by pursuing their
quarry on
high quality bikes,
not through quantity as there were only six of them: Q1 Jonny Master; Q2 Billy Brown; Q3 Alfie Thomson; Q4 Tom
Steptoe; Q5 Judy Best,
I suppose the queen amongst them; and
Q6 Buzz Taylor; they had
radio headsets and were armed with
high powered water
rifles which
could quelch criminals with a quart of water and although
not professionally qualified yet without a quaver and no
questions asked they picked a quarrel with some queer individuals in
the quaint county lanes of Wrexton,
Cornwall,
and would not quit until they'd
reached their
quota and
on that note I'd better
go quietly and quickly having given
you a flavour of their quixotic
(good one to finish on) adventures!
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