Len Vale-Onslow

Who was Len Vale-Onslow?

Leonard Leslie Hubert Vale-Onslow MBE was a motorcycle builder. He invented the SOS racing bike in 1926. He repaired and test-rode motorbikes and lived above one of his shops in Birmingham, England, close to his three children, six grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. In 1999 he was awarded the MBE for being Britain's oldest worker and in 1999 he also became the oldest subject of This Is Your Life.

When Len was a youngster, his six older brothers ran two garages in Birmingham and they made him a small motorbike. They used to take him to Sutton Park and taught him how to ride it. He was too young to fight the First World War, though he drove a munitions lorry at 14.

He lost one brother on the Somme and another was invalided out of the forces. In the Second World War, he was pronounced unfit to serve by doctors who, as it turned out, were all to die before him.

When he was 26, he designed and built a motorbike. The frame weighed 19 lb and cost 19 shillings. It was so light, that he took out a world patent on it. When WWII started, he sold the manufacturing business and he and his wife started selling motorcycles.