RETIRED policeman Gordon Guyer has been out of the job for almost seven years now, but it’s never really stopped being part of his life.
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Some of it has to do with his hobby of restoring old police motorbikes, a hobby that’s gaining momentum at a rate of knots.
Then there’s his regular contact with a bunch of former colleagues who like to help out each other and community members in various ways in a very low-key fashion.
Another strong tie is his regular job as an instructor with Wheel Skills, a company owned by a couple of ex-cops that delivers Roads and Maritime Services-approved learner and pre-provisional courses, as well as private tuition.
A Tamworth local and one of Don and Lorraine Guyer’s 12 children, Gordon was bitten by the bike bug at the age of 16, when Helen, the eldest of his nine sisters, bought him a motorcycle to travel to and from school.
He spent 22 years as a serving policeman, leaving the force having earned the rank of chief inspector and serving the last 10 years of his career in Sydney.
“Once you retire from the police, regardless of what anyone else says, it stays in your blood for a long time,” Gordon said.
After retiring and moving back to Tamworth with second wife Kerrie and her now 15-year-old daughter, Logan, Gordon landed the instructor’s job with Wheel Skills.
Just prior to that he had purchased an ex-police bike from a friend who’d bought it at a Sydney police auction.
“He actually knew the guy who rode it, an officer named Glenn Roe,” Gordon said.
“It’s a BMW K100 and was in commission from January 1986 to April 1989.”
Since taking delivery of the bike Gordon has converted it from a dual-seat back to a single-seat, complete with all the police markings of a bike of that era.
He now shows it at exhibitions on behalf of the police, and it looks like this year will be a busy one, being the 30th anniversary since the introduction of random breath-testing.
The bike was featured at the recent Shannon’s Country Classic Motor Show in Tamworth and the following weekend at the Dubbo Show.
It’s at shows like this Gordon is convinced his efforts in restoring the bike are worth every hour he spends, as he sees the effect it has on people who’ve ridden ones like it or have an affinity with the force.
“A lot of the gear I’ve got on my bike is original, but not all of it,” he said.
“Just finding that gear isn’t easy. You’ve got to have contacts, attend swap meets and keep your ears out for different stuff. I spoke to one bloke from up in Queensland at one of the shows and he had a part that fitted my bike
perfectly and he just gave it to me – drove all the way from up north to do so.
“There’s a group of people around NSW and Victoria doing the same thing as me, perhaps in other states, too. If a particular part isn’t applicable to my project, it might be just what someone else is looking for.
“There are a few things on my bike that only the guys who rode them would know weren’t original, but eventually I’ll be able to replace all of those parts so it’s 100 per cent original.”
This group of collectors and restorers is amassing a number of cars and bikes, all ex-police vehicles, including an old Valiant Charger which was an ex-highway patrol vehicle. Some are ex-cops and others have some sort of family connection with the force.
“It’s not a business, by any means, rather it’s a fulltime hobby that’s growing and gaining momentum all the time,” Gordon said.
As well as the police bike, he’s also working on restoring another bike, a Honda XL250 found by a friend in a paddock. It’s now almost finished and his next project is already on the drawing board – well, in Gordon’s head anyway.
“Kerrie doesn’t quite know about it yet, but I hope to do up a car next,” Gordon said.
“I’ll source it from somewhere and it will most likely be a police vehicle, either from NSW or another state; I’m not sure.”
Gordon is also the father to two boys – 19-year-old Josh, who’s playing professional baseball in America, and 14-year-old Lachlan, who lives in Sydney.
Added to his hobbies and his job, Gordon also keeps busy with a sideline, making industrial earplugs – and you guessed it – his core business comes from motorcycle riders.
He’s also a member of the Blueliners – a group of police and friends that’s been established 22 years – who go on regular rides.
“They do rides all around the country and I do one or two of them,” Gordon said.
“The Wall To Wall is one I do, from the police remembrance wall in Sydney to the wall in Canberra.
“Because the last Wall to Wall ride was the first since David Rixon died, they made a special thing of it and his plaque appeared on both the Sydney and the Canberra walls.
“The money raised from this ride goes towards the police legacy fund.”
After he got back to Tamworth from Sydney, Gordon started meeting up with a few retired police mates most days of the week for coffee, to talk things over and get some exercise.
“We go for a walk and then sit down and have a yarn over coffee,” Gordon said.
“We were having coffee down town one day when this bloke came up and asked what we were up to. He said he needed a concrete path done for his old dad, who was having trouble walking out to his mailbox, so we went out and knocked that over for him.
“He offered to pay us, but we said it’d be right. We’ve done a few things like that, concreting, little jobs, fencing, some yard work. There’s one yard we do regularly, but mostly if people ask, we talk about the job and mainly just do it.
“There’s about six of us, all retired cops. Some are a little bit too injured to partake in any physical work but they make great supervisors and tell the rest of us what to do.
“It not only gives you some exercise and a purpose, it keeps the mind ticking over and keeps your spirits up, too.”