Almost a spill

It was probably around late 1939, I had owned my second hand KSS Velocette for some time and so far had avoided having a spill, but on this particular evening I came very close!
Previous to motorcycles, one of my hobbies was building radios and as part of this, I had bought a new Garrard electric turntable and playing head unit, (these were the days of easily broken vinyl records and needles!) and using my carpentry skills I installed it in a portable case that also had storage for several 10 inch records,

At this time girls were becoming an interest in my life, and having a portable electric record player was a passport to party invitations. The fact that I didn't have a sidecar yet was no obstacle to the transport of bulky articles, and I had the record player on the petrol tank, balanced on my knees with several 12 inch long playing records sitting on top of the player.It was well after nightfall and a pitch black night and I was riding at my usual smart clip along an unlighted narrow pot holed paved road across the Adelaide foothills, thoughts on the pleasant night ahead, when suddenly into the feeble illumination of my headlamp wandered a herd of cows, this sort of thing was quite usual in those days, but to me there appeared to be only moments from me coming to ground surrounded by broken records, and possibly worse!

By luck or instinct I found myself in bottom gear and sliding sideways towards the nearest cow, in imminent danger of laying the whole plot down on the road, when by some miracle of chance and timing just as I was about to fall, contact was made with the cow's soft belly, and the bike with me still hanging on to handlebars with elbows on my musical cargo was flipped upright and the cow with an anguished bellow leaped forward, and somehow I found myself in full control of the situation riding along leaning on the cow. I easily regained my balance and rode around the front of the cow, and after picking my way through the rest of the wandering herd, continued on to the party, counting my lucky stars as I rode.

But I didn't fully escape injury as I found out a few moments later. As I changed gear it was obvious that I had a pretty sore ankle and I didn't do much dancing that evening!
Next morning in the light of day, the first thing I noticed was a deep dent in the side of the Velocette's silencer box that corresponded neatly to the inside of my now swollen ankle, which apparently managed to become sandwiched between the cow's fairly solid back leg and the silencer at the moment of impact! I never did bother to attempt to remove the dent as I joined the RAAF shortly afterwards. There is at least one photo of me in uniform sitting on the bike where the dent is clearly visible.

Clearly I was very lucky to have ridden away from what could have been a much more serious encounter. Around the same period a local rider wasn't so lucky, losing his life in the same sort of accident, but his was on a main road in the built up area of a local suburb. Stock animals on our local roads was considered little more than an inconvenience by the locals, many of whom owned animals, which were none too secure in the badly fenced paddocks of the post depression years, but it was only a matter of time and stiff fines were introduced for wandering animals and for a while the council pound seldom lacked animals, until local farmers realised that the days of accidentally allowing their stock to graze 'the long paddock' were over!