Mary Motorcycle

mary motorcycle Rediscovered

Round the world on a BSa Bantam, from 1967, aged 26

Left: we're guessing this was a posed picture for the press Top: The seasoned traveller – 1973 in NZ Above: 1976 and back home, 40,000+ miles after setting off Below: Afghan stable hand

You know how some people achieve overnight fame? Or, having done something extraordinary early in life, get rediscovered by a new generation? That is Mary Sievier all over.

Her story sounds like something out of a novel. Back in 1967, aged 26, she decided to travel to Russia on a motorcycle (despite the fact she couldn't ride one). Buys a Bantam, gets rejected by the Soviets so sets off for India instead, with just £80 in her pocket. Works for six months in Istanbul to raise travelling funds before riding through Iran to Afghanistan, where she works for another two years. Back on the Bantam, Mary makes it to India, ships the bike to Mombasa and rides down to South Africa, then around Australia, NZ and south-east Asia. Finally (prior to deciding to get married in Hong Kong) she rides across the USA, and eventually makes it back to her mother's house near Chichester in 1976, eight years after leaving. The Bantam is rolled into a shed and isn't touched for 45 years.

“The thing is,” says Mary, now a very upright eighty, “the press at the time always had the same questions. How often was my money and passport stolen? And how often was I raped? None of that happened to me. Yes, there were situations, but I handled them. Having a posh English accent and being six-foot tall helped – men don't like being looked down on!”

After that first flurry of press attention, Mary faded into obscurity. Ted Simon finished his big trip and wrote an acclaimed book about it, while countless other overlanders followed in his footsteps, but no one appeared to have heard of Mary Sievier.

That's all changed this year. A chance encounter on Facebook saw her invited to speak at the Overland Travel Festival and the Bantam was restored – once again, she was 'Mary Motorcycle.'

Wobbly Start

“I was in my early 20s and worked as a court shorthand reporter. I had to cover a lot of the domestic abuse cases so I heard the four letter word a lot, but had never seen it on paper. The Chief Clerk asked me to come into his office one day. 'Miss Sievier,' he said, 'we don't spell the four letter word with a 'ph'!'

“The Daily Telegraph was running a holiday competition where you had to write about a trip. I'd already hitchhiked across Europe and through Tunisia and Libya but didn't want to do that again,

Top left: Blue Mosque, Istanbul – Mary and bike in foreground Top: Ready for the road – note Helly Hansen sailing outfit Above Left: early days on the Greek/Turkish border Above: Coast road (track) in Yugoslavia Left: Attending a public dog fight, Afghanistan Right: All the optimism and determination of youth

certainly didn't want to cycle and didn't know how to drive a car, so decided on a motorbike. I would ride to the USSR, which was just starting to open to tourists. Two police motorcycle mechanics advised me to get a Bantam, because it was simple and light enough to load into a van if it broke down. CMW Motorcycles in Chichester (still going strong as a Royal Enfield dealer) sold me a Bantam D7, taught me the basics of riding, and I was off. Then I did the RAC/ACU training scheme, which was fantastic. I had crashbars and legshields fitted, with panniers from Millets, and wore a Helly Hansen sailing outfit which was waterproof, turned out to be accident proof and also very strong.

“The Russians refused me a visa so I decided to ride to India instead. I remember catching the ferry in Portsmouth and staying with a friend in Paris, but the first day was awful. My red leather handbag fell off the back and was run over by a truck, then all the other luggage fell off as I was circulating the Arc de Triomphe, with a gendarme shouting at me. All I wanted to do was go home, and I had the wild idea of just getting a job in France and pretending to friends and family that I was still on the road. But there is such a thing as pride. Many people had said I would never manage it, so I was determined to carry on.

“I think the RAC worked out a route for me, which got me through Eastern Europe and eventually to Istanbul. I knew I'd have to work, and an American family got me a job at the American military dependants' school.

“After six months I'd earned $600 – not enough to get to India, but it helped a lot. I wasn't able to ride through Lebanon and Syria because of fighing, so took a more northerly route to Tehran. I arrived at the British embassy at about 9pm and the official on duty said, 'Hello Mary, welcome to Tehran.' They were expecting me, and I don't really know how.

“I kept going to Kabul. I'd been on the road nearly a year by now and had got over my travel nerves. I'd met other travellers and was determined to get to India. But again I had to work and earn some money, and ended up staying in Kabul for two years. Getting a job wasn't difficult though. Word got round that the English girl who had arrived on a motorbike wasn't a hippy smashed on hash, and I had three job offers. The social life in Kabul was fantastic – all the ex-pats wanted to meet the English girl on the bike.

Nullabor Rain

“But I was always intending to get back on the road and eventually got to India. I'd been warned off travelling around the country by bike so put it in store for a bit while I travelled around. I had saved

Above Left: The whole family came out at a remote filling station in Northern Territory Above: some Australian tracks were a challenge Left: shropshire? Nope, Northern

Tasmania

Left: Mary sent this picture to

Playboy – they didn't respond

quite a lot of money by this time, and wanted to see the world, so shipped the Bantam to Mombasa and went all through Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, where Idi Amin had just come to power. Everyone said that I musn't go to Uganda, that Amin is shooting people and kicking all the foreigners out – I thought I would be fine because I was only passing through, and I had no problems whatsoever.

“There were some difficult moments though. Crossing Lake Kivu by boat, at one overnight stop ashore there was some sort of party going on – the captain locked me in his cabin and told me to keep my head down. In the Belgian Congo one mayor insisted I put the bike on a train rather than ride. 'There are people up in the hills,' he said, 'who don't know that we are no longer shooting white Belgians.'

“After Zambia and Rhodesia I got to South Africa where it was the apartheid era and not much fun, but the South Africans had been brought up with it and knew nothing else. I was warned not to ride through the Transkei as a white woman on her own but felt perfectly safe. I did run out of fuel once – a lot of white people drove past, but a black father and son stopped and syphoned some petrol from their own car to get me going.

“From Durban I shipped the bike on a cargo ship with three passengers to Melbourne, but didn't have to pay for it as passengers were allowed 40 cu ft of luggage in the hold, and with the front wheel and luggage rack removed the Bantam just qualified. When I got there the editor of one newspaper told me I'd never get round Australia in a clockwise direction – I would either give up or die. But a motorcycle shop in Adelaide put sleeves inside the tyres, which stopped me getting punctures – I only had two on the entire world trip – and when I got to the Nullabor, which I'd been told would be hotter than hell, it was raining and so cold I had to put all my clothes on. There were filling stations every 200 miles, so that was all right.

Bull Dust

“The Bantam was brilliant, though it was serviced along the way and BSA helped by sending out parts. For some reason speedometers kept failing (I had three). About halfway between Perth and Darwin the bike just stopped. It was quite late in the afternoon. I kicked it over, got a good spark and knew I had petrol but didn't know what else to do. I had no food or water with me, which was very silly, and was starting to dehydrate. Just as it was getting dark a Land Rover came along. The driver was monosyllabic but agreed to take me and the bike to the next town, dropping me at a petrol station and driving off before I could say thank you. He probably saved my life.

“I did fall off in Australia – got complacent as I was only 30km from the end of a dirt road section. The difficulty was in telling normal sand from bull dust, and I hit some of that, falling quite heavily. I can't remember much except that my leg hurt and I had to take the mudguard off to make the bike rideable. I managed to ride to the next police post, and on from there. When I stopped for fuel, because of my leg injury I wasn't able to get off for them to add oil – they had to lift me off the bike, fill it up, and lift me back on. The hospital in Darwin said I'd be fine, but I was in agony.

“Eventually I got to Hong Kong, was there for three years and met David, the man I was going to marry. I had no intention of riding any more but it was he who said I should ship the bike to North America, cross the States and ship it home. Then in my old age I could say that I had ridden around the world on my Bantam. I hadn't set off to ride around the world, but he insisted.

“So that's what I did, shipping the bike to Los Angeles then riding in a straight line eastwards to Savannah. I was having to get the battery charged every third morning or so because the alternator was only charging intermittently. Anyway, it got me to Savannah, was put in a crate and shipped to Harwich. My sister and I picked it up, took it to our mother's house in Selsey, Sussex, I flew back to Hong Kong and never rode it again until 2021.

“There wasn't that much interest in what I'd done – The Telegraph (the reason I'd bought the bike in the first place), said they had lots of stories about people going round the world on motorcycles so didn't want another one. One motorcycle magazine, MCN I think it was, did interview me, but that was about it.

“Am I pleased that I persevered and carried on to ride around the world? From what has happened in the last six months, yes. I have met so many nice people, it's been very interesting and totally overwhelming.”

Mary is planning to write a book about her round the world trip – watch this space.