We are saddened to report the death of Vintage Motor Cycle Club founder and motorcycling legend, Charles Edmund ‘Titch’ Allen.
Mr Allen’s influence on the vintage bike scene extended not just to the UK, but throughout the world. Born in 1915, he left school with no qualifications, but still secured a position as a trainee reporter newspaper in his native Loughborough where he also became involved with the Loughborough Motor Cycle Club. Along with many other motorcyclists, he responded to the war-time appeals for dispatch riders in the motorcycling magazines the ‘Blue ‘Un’ and the ‘Green ‘Un’ and signed up to the Motor Cyclist’s Army Register and, after many trials and tribulations actually served as a DR concluding the war as a sergeant and with the BEM.
He claimed that his acquisition of a 1930 Scott in 1942 was the catalyst for the formation of the VMCC, and Titch and his wife, Jess, organised the inaugural meeting of the club at the Hog’s Back on 28th April 1946. Titch envisaged a sporting club where sporting, historic motorcycles would be used in competition – an ideal that came to be frustrated. It was also at this time that Titch began his life-long love affair with Brough Superiors, making a complete career change as a sales rep for Jim Ferriday, the irrepressible owner of the ‘Feridax’ motorcycle accessories company.
His involvement with the emerging and developing Vintage Motor Cycle Club was, at times, a tempestuous affair, with numerous confrontations with equally strong-minded individuals at various stages of the Club’s development. Titch admitted that his singular devotion to old motorcycles and motorcycling led to the breakdown of his marriage and subsequent separation from Jess. His life was also hit by tragedy with the death of his oldest daughter from cancer in 2005, and the loss of his eldest son in a freak road-racing accident on the Isle of Man in 1992.
Recognition of his contribution to motorcycling heritage came in the form of an OBE in 2004. The presentation ceremony took place, appropriately, at Donington Park - a racing venue he had been associated with for 75 years. Reluctant to give up competitive motorcycling, nevertheless, Titch retired, first from road racing and finally from grass sidecar racing. His interest and enthusiasm never dimmed, and, in 2006, he appeared in a sidecar outfit at the Past Masters’ Parade at the Festival of 1000 Bikes at the age of 91.
There can have been very few people who have been able to indulge a life-long obsession to the full whilst earning a living and raising a family and who have left behind a remarkable legacy.
There will be a private family funeral and a memorial service at a later date.
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