Pair of lads on a 'built like a bridge' Francis Barnett from the mid twenties. For those that don't know, the built like a bridge triangulated frame Francis Barnetts were ingeniously designed for cheap manufacture: the frame was made up entirely from straight sections of tubes bolted together. The forks were the same design too with a big rubber buffer for the springing. A sound piece of design and in practice very strong and durable. The boast was that broken down the frame would easily fit in to a golf bag but woe betide the restorer who doesn't make drawings before dismantling! Most of the earlier bikes were fitted with 148cc Villiers motors with later ones up to 344cc two stroke twins. Francis Barnett even had success at Brooklands in the hands of British Two Stroke Club founder Tommy Meeten. A testament to their strength is that folks have even built home-brewed specials with engines as big as 750cc v-twins fitted. A proper design classic.

This isn't a quality photo by any stretch of the imagination but I like these images of regular folks and their bikes. The everyman's camera wasn't a precision instrument back then and in the pre-digital age you had to take a picture and then hope it came out well. If it didn't you probably kept the photo anyway as it had cost you. Very few are the photos taken by the common man of the era that are fine in artistic quality but they all tell a story and are snapshots of a lost time.  

Here's the 'abridged list' catalogue of Francis Barnetts for 1954.