Interview– Mark Wilsmore

Ace Cafe, the home of motoring, birth of the Cafe Racer, the place where Mods, Rockers, The Who, streamline modern, and the new electric rebels of London all live and intersect.

Speed is an addiction for Mark Wilsmore, the man who brought the Ace (back) to life. Per usual, we also talk about the edge: "the closer you get to death, the greater you value life."

Have a look at all the places you can now find the Ace, from Kuala Lumpur to Orlando, but the real beating heart and history of motoring is just off London’s North Circular Road.

Have a look at some photos from the 2009 resurrection here on The Motorcyclist.

Watch the full videos of the Ford car night at the Ace excerpted in our YouTube video.

Watch "the best party in town" Ace bike night footage here.

And here's a great piece to watch on the Mods & Rockers.

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Listen to full episode :

Transcript:

Mark Wilsmore Forever

Andrea Hiott: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. Welcome to Forever Motoring. I'm so glad you're here. Have you ever heard of the mods and rockers? Are you perhaps a fan of the Who and Quadrophenia or of the Beatles and a Hard Day's Night? Well, it all goes back to, or at least intersects at one place. The Ace Cafe in London, the birthplace of the Cafe racer the launchpad for many races and many rock bands.

Uh, there are now numerous franchises of the Ace and cities such as Barcelona and Beijing, but the London Ace Cafe is the original and the beating heart of all those others. Today we talk with Mark Wilmore, the owner and the man who brought the Ace Cafe back to life in the 1990s. In so doing, [00:01:00] gave motoring enthusiasts as well as music lovers, a place of pilgrimage that spans the history of modern motoring.

Today as we talk about, it's even having visitors from electric scooters and groups on electric bicycles who've heard about it and wanna come, this kind of new mods and rockers of our age, showing up in trainers and knee pads and motocross gear, and disrupting the environment a little, uh, just as the mods and rockers did back in the fifties and sixties.

We talk about that a bit. We talk about speed and addiction and what it means to belong to a group. Uh, there's just so much history here. There's so many things. I couldn't include it all here, so I hope you just go and explore some on your own too. But Mark Wilmore, the owner of the Ace Cafe, is a generous and storied person, and I just happened to be in London not too long ago, so of course, I made my own pilgrimage to the ace.

And he gave me a wonderful tour and I took some videos and extra photos [00:02:00] and I'll post some of that on the website for some extra stories. But I just wanna say how wonderful it was to be there at the Ace and to fill that space and just, you know, be there for the morning and into the afternoon. See everyone coming in.

So many different kinds of people. Of course, groups of motorcycle motorcyclists arriving for their coffee in the morning or their lunch, sitting at the long tables at the bar. Also, families with little kids whose parents wanted to show them the place, people just stopping in as their daily ride on the way to work and having their coffee.

And you know, it just feels like a real community there. It's a kind of like a garage like atmosphere. There's bikes in there. Um, but it also is just a beautiful space with these beautiful windows and architecture looking out on this like very industrial London landscape. Uh, it's a wonderful place to experience and.

We talk about that in the interview a bit and what this place means and what might be coming in the [00:03:00] future for motoring and for Ace. Uh, but there aren't many places like this in the world that have lasted. I can't really even think of another place that's been around since the beginning of the car and the motorcycle where people have just stopped by for the love of motoring for all those years.

So it's a special place and it's worth checking out in person or just online. And, um, one little note before we start. Mark talks about the cafe a lot. Uh, so if you don't know what that is, it's the cafe, the Ace Cafe. All right. Everybody enjoy.

Hey, mark. Good to see you. Welcome to Forever Motoring. It is

Mark Wilsmore: a pleasure and good to see you as well across this extraordinary instrument, I think called Zoom,

Andrea Hiott: quite a vehicle within itself. [00:04:00] So this podcast is about what moves us and the ways that we move, and I always start with this question, what's something in your life that has moved you or some memory in your life when you remember being moved?

You can take that anywhere you

Mark Wilsmore: like. Well, it might sound corny, and it is an experience that I first found I thoroughly enjoyed, and that was speed or the feeling of speed, I guess. Probably would've been on a bicycle or something. And having discovered this, I can say thing called speed, you want to go faster and faster and faster.

Uh, what then invariably unfolds is that the skillset doesn't quite keep up with that ambition to get more of it. But as I've got older, I've come to realize that in essence, it it, it's a, it's an addiction. Yeah. Adrenaline. Your body produces this. I guess it's a [00:05:00] chemical that you become addicted to and you want more and more of it.

So speed is, is the thing that really has moved me. And it then comes in various ways, whether it's the sight, sound, smell that I associate with it triggering this, uh, this body reaction of, uh, producing adrenaline. I think that

Andrea Hiott: speaks to motoring in so many different ways. Uh, sort of a reason for why we do it.

Is it, do you think it's this feeling of. To feel alive or is it wanting to go somewhere you've never been before or,

Mark Wilsmore: oh, for sure. It's absolutely that is that, um, there's lots of people put it together better than I from Steve McQueen, Jack Carroll, I, I can't think of 'em all now. But what it comes down to, it seems be, it, it i is that the closer to, um, death you get the, the greater you value life [00:06:00] and, and clearly not be a very good rider of, of motorcycles.

That that's an experience that, that can be very familiar.

Andrea Hiott: What is it about that moment? I'm, I have my motorcycle license, but I'm not very good rider. But, uh, I definitely like the edge, right? Or this edge work kind of idea of pushing yourself to a place you'd never been before. And for me, there's something about all of your senses or totally present and heightened.

Does that happen

Mark Wilsmore: for you? Oh, for sure. It, it's where your, uh, as you just remarked, all your senses is entirely focused and bringing about that focus is also bringing about that, um, I would say surge of adrenaline and gives this this incredible sensation of, yes, I'm alive as it were. And then that can be found in the pouring rain when you've gotta get home or riding [00:07:00] mad Sunday at the Isle of Man.

It can be found in all sorts of different ways. And of course, in, in the environment that I lived most of my life of metropolitan London, busy roads, the, the speed that the amount of speed may not be that high, but that total focus because of traffic conditions filtering through traffic. That that can produce just as much adrenaline that I'm sure as, um, flat out on a drag strip or across Bonneville may not get quite the accolades, but uh, it's the same sensation.

Andrea Hiott: That's a very good point because it does have to do with focus and attention too, doesn't it? I think in everyday life we get it's easy to get distracted or think about things too much or I'm not sure, maybe, you know what I mean? But, but when you're in those situations, for example, on the bike, on the, the road near the ace, you have to be present.

It forces you to just be in the [00:08:00] moment, which is not always easy to do in everyday life, is it?

Mark Wilsmore: That's absolutely. If you don't focus, you won't survive real. All. Exactly.

Andrea Hiott: There's not much of a choice. If you want to stay alive and weirdly in those moments, you realize you do wanna stay alive, which is also sort of part of why it's attractive.

Mark Wilsmore: Yep. You pinch yourself and think great for not just come through that. That's extraordinary. They thought that's gonna be the end of year, as it were. But you come out the other side. So every rider

Andrea Hiott: knows that experience, don't they?

Mark Wilsmore: Absolutely, absolutely. It's something I can speak to with some experience.

Not for the latter years. Thankfully, some years ago that my brother worked it out when we were having a bit of a discussion as to who was the better rider, as it were. Sounds a bit lib, but he, he, he worked it out that I had spent five years in hospital. When you add up all the crashes and [00:09:00] things, when you add up the times, yeah.

Amount of time. Appreciate today.

Andrea Hiott: Do you wanna tell us about that or not?

Mark Wilsmore: Take a crash? Very, very slow speed. Just started to pull away from a. Pedestrian crossing. I'm on the main carriageway and as I'm progressing across that T junction, the car just came straight out to that side road. Oh gosh. Smashed into me.

And, um, it's very painful.

Andrea Hiott: That's the thing everyone's afraid of, right? Because as focused as you are and as attentive as you might be, and as, as in the present moment as you might be as a rider, you're also putting yourself in the situation where everyone else has to be present if you're gonna stay safe.

Mark Wilsmore: Yeah. It really is a, a balance and I was fortunate to come through it with my limbs are still in place, et cetera, et cetera, and, and couldn't wait to get back on and do it [00:10:00] all again. Really? You didn't have any hesitation? No. I think it's, back to that simple word again. I already mentioned addiction.

Andrea Hiott: I wonder about this relationship, I wonder if there is a relationship between people who ride, people who love speed cars motoring in all its forms.

Could be planes too, or even just when you're a kid on the bike and to take it up an extra notch. Then maybe your friends are, I wonder if, if these sorts of people like us are more prone to addiction in other ways too. Negative ways,

Mark Wilsmore: perhaps so, but it, it seems to me it's likely to be less harmful than many other addictions.

You know, thankfully, I, I didn't, I'm gonna say tripping a heroin or something like that in, in, in my youth. So I guess I was fortunate there. I, I loved cars, the old ones, new ones from the modern Ferrari through to the hot rod culture that came out of American [00:11:00] fifties and early sixties. They muscle cars, love all that, but, You can't really pursue that as a, uh, as an addict here in the uk 'cause our roads are just too congested and you've gotta go miles out to, to be able to enjoy that vehicle and the performance it can produce.

Whereas on two wheels it's much easier to, to, I'll say it, indulge it in the urban environment.

Andrea Hiott: There's also something about being on the bike though, when you're in those wide open, beautiful spaces. Something about the motorcycle that's different than the

Mark Wilsmore: car. Oh yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. One of the terrific connections I have of being in California and riding at P c H Some years ago, the dear friend had organized a ride from LA up to San Francisco basically.

And it's gonna be over two days. There's a whole group of us all got together and someone kindly lonely, a, a modern retro [00:12:00] triumph, a Bonna Hill type bike, quite a considerable group. We all set off. It was torture. I can't think what the speed limit is or was at that time, but it's all very slow. Mm-hmm. And as we got out of the metropolitan environment of LA as it were, heading up the p c h, there's a guy, American guy who was on an old Tri Bonneville that was really scruffy and had oil leaking out of everything, engine, gearbox, suspension.

And he, his attire was exactly as the bike he pulled away from the rest of us. So off we off we went racing off. And I'm sure you're familiar with what I'm about to describe how he kind of wind up taking turns in front of each other. Who, who's the maddest, the, the bends. And as we hit the, I think it's a stretch of the P C H where it's all canyons here rising up and its twist is up and then hairpin, bend and [00:13:00] twist is down and back up again.

And he's come past me first, I think standing on the foot pegs. Oh gosh. Doing a crucifix. One of those. Yeah. Well that, so yeah, then I have to do it. I'll go in front of him and I do it, and then he does it standing on the seat. And then what? Then I do it, we do all these nutty things on those

Andrea Hiott: curves there.

And the cork

Mark Wilsmore: screw. Yeah. Oh, then it got more intense, giving it, giving some re throttle and I should never forget it was MA's turning front. It just me and him long way ahead of everywhere else. And I can remember rising up to what I know is a hair pin that's gonna go all the way around to the right, going back down into the, I'll say the canyon, really shoreline as it were.

Then rise back up, up again a hundred yards away from that hairpin. All of a sudden there, there's two guys in sunglasses [00:14:00] sat looking directly at me. 'cause it's a helicopter that's come up the cliff face. No. Oh my

Andrea Hiott: gosh.

Mark Wilsmore: And that would be jarring. My go from the hairpin to looking at them. I won't say the word but it, you know, doctor got a fall letter, were all the wind's been knocked out.

Me sails as an expression. And then, then you get to this bit where, where you make a right and then you can see for miles along the straight As the road goes down, you can see the Pacific on your left and the general rising the ground up to the land, up to the right miles and miles. It's undulating road and there's a sea of police cars ahead.

Oh no. So there's now, whatever the speed limit is, don't know, 40, 50 or whatever it is, poodle along there, recommend passing the police cars and then looking in that mirror up. And then one of them's. Lots of flashing lights and head, and of course the other guy merely goes riding [00:15:00] past, which is the right thing to do.

Don't, don't blame me. Oh, and, and, and there's little old me. I'm dressed up, I'm say a Mr. Rocker. So I've got study leather, the British, the whole, you know, white silk scarf, the open face, the all the bike has got a Georgia number plate because the bike has been borrowed from Triumph. So officially lent to me.

And with those open face and the scarf, I can't hit anything because it's such a snug fit. And I can remember on the bike and this huge California Highway patrol bloke, absolutely giant, he's got his hand on his gun, which for an Englishman, that gets my, and he's standing there and I can see his, Lips moving, but I can't hear a single word he is saying.

It's rural, rural California [00:16:00] coast. Can't hear a word 'cause of the helmet. And I'm, try, tries this thing off my head. Strange, but it's a very difficult helmet to put on and take off. Anyway, took this helmet off and then unwrap the scarf and I say Sorry about that, but I couldn't hear. And he, he's obviously taken in Strange Tire, Georgia number plate.

He now hears it is like, what on earth have I got here? And he asks for my papers, you know, driver's license, insurance. The same sort of questions you get asked. Yeah. And, and I've got them in a little plastic thing and I put them in her pockets.

Can't feel, can't, I can't find it. She's got passport. It's got all, all my. Very important documents, accounting for me being in America and while I'm on this vehicle, everybody else is on the bike. They're going past, I took Levi, I'm going through that and can't find, so [00:17:00] he's asking, when did you arrive? Uh, when, when did you land in, in the US Was last Tuesday.

When when did, where, where'd you arrive? It? Uh, n a x. Uh, when do you leave on the second Thursday? I don't know. I dunno the dates or anything like that, but I know now I'm here not feel, once I got the jacket off, I can feel that the bag, the pocket lining has come away from the opening. Oh, oh, no. So it, it's moved jar.

It's, it's moved around to the back of the jacket as it were. So anyway, get these and given, and I've got my UK license, which is a very old one, and they were paper, their paper with no photos on modern UK ones now like little cars with photos and. Basically the guy's never seen either of these sorts of things before.

Basically, he gives up in the end. It seems that if, and then I've got a road safety lecture, like, I didn't know it was dangerous [00:18:00] really, but hey ho got away with it.

Andrea Hiott: Thank you. What was, what was more of, of the adrenaline rush doing the standing on the seat or getting pulled over by him from the cop? Well, it, it, it was the

Mark Wilsmore: hand on the gun bit.

Andrea Hiott: The hand on the gun was back hand on the gun bit. That's scary.

Mark Wilsmore: That instant. But one once engaged in conversation, I, I could see that he was giving up on, on mm-hmm.

Andrea Hiott: Probably the accident.

Mark Wilsmore: Char in American. It's like, what? It's not a threat or anything. It's just a weirdo that, that's I guess how he saw me.

Do you remember the

Andrea Hiott: first time you rode with a group like that? Through Rider or, well,

Mark Wilsmore: that, that, that's parts of the buzz actually. Yeah. Let's all go down to wherever he is. Brighton was in this instance for San Francisco, so who's gonna get there first? Mm-hmm. Oh gosh. Yeah. Or, or as you find bits and stretches on that journey of exciting rows with bends and twisties and whatnot, that, that's where I would say perhaps it's a male thing, I don't know, but it's [00:19:00] the old peacock who can do this best or who's the maddest comes out in, in perhaps guys more than ladies.

I, I don't know. But yeah, a bunch of you whi you off somewhere who's gonna get there first, or whose mo which is gonna pack up. Mm-hmm.

Andrea Hiott: That definitely plays back into that idea of speed and getting the adrenaline racing. It's another way to do it, I guess, or to heighten the senses, Ken can be. But, so you've been riding a long time and it was in the nineties that you found your way to the Ace Cafe.

But first I wanna ask you, what is the ACE Cafe for those who, those few in the world who might not have heard of it?

Mark Wilsmore: Well, I guess the ace that its history that screams speed, thrills, and. The, the taste, smell, sound, et cetera. Whether it's two wheels or four wheels, you can go to all sorts of places and indulge that interest.

You, you could watch [00:20:00] mo g on tv, you can watch Formula One on tv. You can buy the hat or whatever. Mm-hmm. But there's nowhere, I'm gonna say, could be regarded as home. And it might seem somewhat, um, perhaps even parochial to venture because of the history of the cafe and the dynamic of London that gave rise to that history.

A it seems to me represent a home for those with that interest. In the same way that I'll say British guys or English guys more particularly perhaps will regard Wembley as a home of football. He can play it everywhere, but. It's only one place that's kind of regarded as home, and that's Wembley. And I think it's a similar, similar vibe as it were, a around ace.

Andrea Hiott: That's what I've heard from people too. The ace is like the home of motoring and you bring up these places where [00:21:00] sports are played. It almost has this sort of sacred feeling. Or like you would do a pilgrimage almost to go there or something. And is there something like that with Ace?

Mark Wilsmore: I, I, I believe so. I, I, I do believe so.

Certainly it is for, I'm say my age, uh, speak as of Britt. As a Londoner, it certainly is for, um, my peer group and those older and, and with the passage of time, I can see it. It means exactly the same thing for the whole sway of youngsters. Today, youngsters are turning up on e scooters and they stand on scooters.

Oh, really? Electric bicycles. We have all sorts of issues around that with police. Oh, they're illegal, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, kids are just buying a bit of technology that they can whizz out on and show off on that they can afford and lay their MITs on. And there's whole sort of fashion things that seem to be spawning from that as a consequence.

[00:22:00] And, and yeah, I guess if I was 16, 18, that's probably the route I'd go is, or, um, Nike or all the track attire, these term trainers, but most of these ones that I'm thinking of that they're also wearing, um, sort of motocross body arms. The elbow pads. Chest and back protectors and, and full face motorcross lids with the big jaws and the peaks.

Oh, wow. On,

Andrea Hiott: on an electric bike or on the scooters or both?

Mark Wilsmore: On, both On lec, on electric scooters and on the electric as in bicycle type bikes. So not been, not motorcycle, electric motorcycle. Oh. Say, yeah. That, that, that, that far too expensive. They, that they're outer reach of most people, let alone 17 year olds.

So yeah, they certainly can't ride from London to Brighton on, on them. They can ride around in London on them, but they will never, never get to Brighton on them.

Andrea Hiott: No, but they can get to Ace pretty well without having to Oh, yeah, yeah,

Mark Wilsmore: that's what I'm saying. It's, and they, they [00:23:00] start gathering up there and all that showing off.

Doing the stop is as they can do them on the scoters and the electric bicycles, it's taking through wheelers as well, whereas the, the scooters, they can't do wheelers. And

Andrea Hiott: you see something similar in the energy that they have. That you saw? Oh, it's exactly the same in the early,

Mark Wilsmore: yeah, it's, it's exactly the same back to the ages.

Is you exactly the same as a 70 year old, old tunnel up in 1955, or a model rocker in 65. Exactly the same as a whole sort of, uh, tribal culture evolves as a soundtrack. So it, there's a dress code, I term it and all that. A new age, new technology. Fascinating. All knows what the youngsters on these e scooters are listening to, but they're happy with that sound.

Whereas I'm kind of say they're kind of addicted to the sound of, of an engine. It's full stroke or two stroke. But with today's generation, they off does not. They, they're, they're wired into something, so [00:24:00] they're, they're still getting a stimulus. It might be a, a totally alien thing to, to me, as it were.

Andrea Hiott: You mentioned, um, the to up boys and the mods and rockers. Maybe we can just unpack that a little, that time in the 1950s.

Mark Wilsmore: Youngsters not into bikes or anything at that time, they couldn't afford 'em, weren't available or couldn't afford them. But it's that immediate post-war period where a generation, well the advent of the term teenager is in that same period.

This is massive baby bear on both sides, Atlantic, and of course these terms, Teddy boy, turn up, mod, rocker, punk hoodie, yardy, or all these terms are terms of contempt given by society to the young. They don't sit around, go all, should we call ourselves? Ah, don't happen. But having been given a label, 'cause they're bad, it's no good [00:25:00] dressing like that and all these young people.

Mm-hmm. As soon as you've got a label, a kid goes, oh, I wanna be one of them. Oh, grow me hair like this, I've gotta get a jacket like that. So it just feeds this desire to be a member of this. Dangerous group. These young, the, the response is exactly the same, whatever decade you care to go through. Since, and of course, as income improves and bikes become available, and in America it's cars, the kids go out and find the fastest thing they can afford.

In America, it's a car over a, a motorbike. And they do exactly the same thing on both sides of the Atlantic, which is go to the edge of towns in America's to the diner here, it's to the cat. And Ace is a big, still is a big car at the edge of [00:26:00] London, as it were at that time. Fast bits of road, no speed limits.

And guess what? They race each other. Speed, carnage ensues, then outcry, something must be done, speed limits the police, et cetera, et cetera. So it's nothing, nothing you under the sun. But that early era of, um, two wheels, the kids were called by the press or identify as the press, as just cafe racers. They weren't proper motorcyclists.

They'd just raced from calf to C, you know, mile up the road and come back. Mm-hmm. Just ton up boys. And of course, as soon as those terminals are used, the kids go, yeah, I'm a tunnel. Mm-hmm.

Andrea Hiott: You latch onto it. And so those were, so those were terms, the press came up with those terms, mod and rocker and even cafe racer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. I guess it's like that, right? You get labeled something and then you [00:27:00] take it on.

Mark Wilsmore: That's it. That's all. All is it ever is. And the change came. From to up to rocker. I've had similar, you know, bikes and the black leather jacket with the

brew the fifties into the sixties than it was initially known as, um, London beat then British beat and more famously subsequent, neat me beat, beat all swing blue jeans, blah, blah, blah. A very particular sound. But it's also is that teenager again, the term in teenagers invented along with this massive baby boom.

It comes, I'll say, of age in, in the fifties, they got more money, they're buying things and if one has in mind that there were no clubs and no radio stations playing the music, by the time you get to [00:28:00] 1960 in this country, there are TV shows. Playing. The music clubs have started to open, and bands are starting to appear in the halls at pubs and clubs and what, I'm sure you've heard of the the who of course.

Yes. Yeah. Well, they went to school just behind the cath, and these youngsters had been in the cath listening to the rock and roll on the jukebox. Now, this is the moment when films like the Dolce Vita and it Italian was seen as the new court, so is it Frothy Coffee? Mm-hmm. It's Italian suits. Smart. And again, kids buying soup every week.

Clothes, clothes every week. And the Italian scooter manufacturers realized that their scooters were under the two 50 and were spot on for the next generation. [00:29:00] They had a huge. And pain, new sound, new look, and got scooters. So typically if you are 16 in, I'll say 1964, you're gonna be buying Italian suit or Italian style suit.

You're gonna be listening to r and b music. You're gonna get a scooter, but it's the latest and the newest. And kids always seem to go the latest and newest, not one. I'm gonna get dirty, black leather jacket and one of those, all the old motorbikes. So that

Andrea Hiott: is, those were the rockers. I love this connection between the music and the motoring and the style.

It's all kind of cohesive, isn't it? Yeah. It kind of goes back to that sensory thing where what you're listening to and how you're moving can't really be disconnected. It also makes sense that you would be connected with other people who are immersed in that same sensory experience.

Mark Wilsmore: It's inherent with youngsters that goes with the, [00:30:00] with the age group.

It seems to me.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, it's interesting. There's always a kind of medium though, right? Like it's motoring. It's the, there's something you're doing together as a group. Either you're like the sports team, you're watching and you're cheering, or you're, you wanna belong, you know, or the style. There's always some thing that, you know, is making it kind of easier to kind connect.

Mark Wilsmore: It's the sense of belonging. Well, to belong.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah. I guess I wonder over time, if, if you, we were talking about how like these guys on the electric scooters today, it's a similar energy Yeah. That all of these things are something similar, but do we always have to have some kind of opposite, like an an opposite group in distinction to us?

Has that something you've seen at the Ace, has that changed comparing yourself or the media comparing you?

I

Mark Wilsmore: don't know. Yeah. I, I, I think that is the case. I can't say I've observed it, but I think wherever you've got Ying, you're gonna have Yang. The ace is kind of a, it's, it's ethos overrides. If you like it, it is egalitarian, it's utilitarian.

It, it seems to be viewed in [00:31:00] that regard, as it were. And who held in that regard?

Andrea Hiott: It seems like when you go to the ace, no matter which group you are in, you're there for the bigger issue, the bigger picture of motoring. Right? It's not just broadly. Yes. Broadly, yes. Yeah. O

Mark Wilsmore: okay though, I'll, I'll use, um, a, a CARite, it's eea easier, easier than that.

Or it could be Harley night actually as well. It, it, 'cause there is, um, invariably friction between demographics and it's an age demographic rather than necessarily a vehicle one. Or, or it's cla they say classic CARite where again, overwhelmingly there, there's a soundtrack that goes to it. That there's a, look, there's an age group.

And of course if you are 18 and you've got two, you've got an R one M or something, ba ba ba. And [00:32:00] of course the guy is yaking about the car or the Harley it's like, doesn't quite fit. Yeah. Because the 18 year old thinks he's impressing them. He's actually what

Andrea Hiott: annoying them thinks a whole different kind of energy then those electric scooters and bikes compared to something like a Harley.

Mark Wilsmore: Yeah. And, and, and I guess the role of my role in the, the AC is to manage that, is to manage that space. We know we're gonna get a load of puppies, so, so if you're an old guy, don't mo about the noise. Uh, and then going back to the guy nailing his R one M to death, if he pulls in, have a quiet word or have a, if he's not pulled in, have a quiet word with his peer group.

'cause there will be a peer group in very aate or two of his, um, I heard, yeah. Be. There's time and place and somebody ain't it?

Andrea Hiott: I bet you've learned how to negotiate all kinds of different personalities over the years [00:33:00]

Mark Wilsmore: and, and, and, and, and, and most get it. Most get it.

Andrea Hiott: There's something about the space itself that people respect.

This communal feeling

Mark Wilsmore: you keep himself. 70 year old knows that if he survives, he will turn into exactly the same as Oh, that, that big lump of 55 year olds who have the same interest.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, yeah. Over time the new comes and the older. But it says people are there for similar reasons, aren't

Mark Wilsmore: they? Yes. Yes.

And similarly you're saying the 55 year olds, well, don't forget. Used to do that. Yeah.

Andrea Hiott: And maybe that's why they get annoyed. Yeah. Yeah. In part, and there was always this, uh, I mean, going back to the, the history of the ace, it's basically been around since motoring. It's, it was there in the thirties, right?

As just one of the early stops. For people with ear, with automobiles. But then you mentioned the war, it actually got destroyed during the second World War. Right? Right. '

Mark Wilsmore: cause the railway bridges nearby. Right. And coincidentally flattened the a and [00:34:00] ing didn't send his come and get the ace.

Andrea Hiott: No, but it was connected to the roads, so I guess Yeah.

Mark Wilsmore: And all the, the seven railway bridges right. By and the bridges. Yeah. Which of course if they've got, if they've got those, that would been a major problem that they entirely missed. But interesting you the roadside motoring because motoring per se absolutely changed society. I'll say Henry Ford with his model T.

Mm-hmm. Over here, Austin. Yeah, it is. The Austin said we had the baby. Austin. Austin. But it absolutely accessibility of vehicles in that immediate pre-World War II period. Motoring. Absolutely changed social malls.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, because, yeah, because what you were before, when you wanted to go get escape, right, go away, you had to take the train and you were sort of moved communally from A to B and then now what you're talking about is where each individual can [00:35:00] decide for themselves.

Rather it's with a car on a, on a bike.

Mark Wilsmore: Not just that either. I'm thinking of the social laws of, okay, there would be a chaperone, invariably be, be a chaperone. It wasn't the done thing. Um, you might meet opposite sex at certain things, but the social, that all changed with the accessibility with cars being so accessible.

Yeah. Just the idea that didn't happen before the first world war. It happened from the, like late twenties and in particular in this country in the 1930s where it becomes, it built premises with this then new road network that had been. Built the Arterial road network, a forerunner of Brittany, today's motorway system, this new road network.

There was buildings designed as motoring stops [00:36:00] for lunchtime traffic. So you'd have a table and, and the Swiss places. A lot of these were really Swiss places with architecture Redland of the great liners of that era. The ACEs kind of on that ocean liner style. Mm-hmm. Spring line modern you also had on those arterial routes to coastal destinations, um, um, huge premises built where coach parties go stock for lunch on the way to that seaside.

So it totally changed, not just physically. It changed what was exactly socially and. Post World War ii, where, where owning a vehicle became accessible to greater numbers of the working class, and in particular to this baby boom of teenagers. Indeed another social moral has changed, as you just [00:37:00] described, the, um, individual as it were, albeit mm-hmm.

Peer group, rather than, I'm gonna do this, it's invariably a peer group thing mm-hmm. That you and mates are gonna do something. Um, a, a total transformation in a period of about 50 years. And the ACE was built in 1938 as a wholly new motoring concept. Really nothing like it had previously existed, where you had a cafe, a filling station, a gas station, motor workshops, and motor showrooms.

It was huge. The cath was only an element of that,

Andrea Hiott: an event space, like a real, A

Mark Wilsmore: destination. Huge. Absolutely huge. On a one of Britain's busiest stretches of the road on which there was no speed limits, all the traffic. The road had been specifically designed, that is the north circular, so that [00:38:00] the heavy truck traffic didn't go into the city because until the advent of the North Circular Road, the trucks going in and outta the Port of London were all going through the city of London.

Andrea Hiott: Oh, I see. So that road was actually built to

Mark Wilsmore: alleviate that. Alleviate that clogged up. The city was completely clogged up. And then when you get to post World War,

Again, going to the change of society. The teenage move from the tunnel up, I'll say to the mod and the modernists. And

Andrea Hiott: they rebuilt the ace, right? Not too long after the war when, because all this was happening, right? So cars, everything was coming back a lot more motorization. So it was 1949, the ace was rebuilt.

Yeah. Beautiful place. Quite a unique place.

Mark Wilsmore: Well some think of it as art deco, which is not quite correct, but I've come to understand that it's a style known as streamline modern. It is redot of the great ocean liners of [00:39:00] that period. It's Bauhaus, it's Cobusier, the streamline model. It's a very particular It is, yeah.

Functional look that's t of, um, the decks and the space that you'd sit in the overall space, not the decoration of the ocean liners of the 1930s and the 1950s, as it were. And what adds to that is, is if you see the ace. All that glass at the front of the ace is directly south facing and it overlooked.

It's a little bit higher than the car park in front of the cafe and in front of that car park, east, west as it were. You've got the North Circular Road. So if you are in the cafe, you can see who's in the car park and who's on the road. And if you're on the road going past, you can see who's motor's in there is a direct connection.

Yeah. And if you've come travel through London, you know, crowded, busy streets and big [00:40:00] buildings and all the rest of it, you get to the ace and into that car park. And because of that, the topography there of south facing over roads. Now the new, beyond the old road, you've got the new Aqua Urban Motorway, you've got this fantastic sensation of space.

What otherwise is massive metropolitan area, cram full 10, 12 million people in this ted little space at the age, you've got this feeling of the enormity of space and that. Mm-hmm. That's kind of a relaxing, chilling sensation that can, can get me as the old bloke. Anyway, I get down there, ah, this is world nice.

Yeah.

Andrea Hiott: There's, in the, I think reminds me of the sports metaphors or the places of like communal worship or coming together where there's something about the space, right? Where you feel connected inside, outside. I don't know, there's something spatial spatially special I've heard, [00:41:00] but how did you end up in that communal space?

How did you become part of it? Did you end up being part of the rebirth of the a

Mark Wilsmore: Well, it, it, it, it's very much to do with the interest in bikes and rock and roll and. And, and, and the t rods and whatnot. Mm-hmm. You know, I had a 32 foot, I had a 32 3 window. Four Oh big wheels and all stuff. Okay. I've got a 67 SSS Chevelle.

Uh, were you

Andrea Hiott: doing choppers and stuff like this too or were you No, not choppers. Okay. Not in that world. In the real classic

Mark Wilsmore: world. Speed. Okay. Choppers aren't about speed. That's all about, I don't know what it's about. It's a lot of noise, but it's a different thing. Yeah. It's not my, it's not my thing. I can see what people do and I've No friends are into that kind of stuff, but there's nothing

Andrea Hiott: about Yeah.

But you're in this very classic Yes. Like the machines.

Mark Wilsmore: I would always say classic. Uh, yeah. I love the classic machines. I love speed. Yeah. So yeah. I've had, you know, bike or ride most of the times R Rs three triple, [00:42:00] so it's full face. No

Andrea Hiott: wonder you've had so many close calls.

Mark Wilsmore: Speeds. And, and as I've got older, it's harder and harder.

Mm-hmm. Start old bikes. Kickstart going back to ace. It, it, it's with. With the shared interest,

Andrea Hiott: you were riding with a motorcycle group and Yeah. Back in the eighties and nineties, you were part of this group of riders and your shared interest in hot rods and motorcycles that eventually led you to the Ace.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And doing the cars, you were, you were already part of this community of if bikers or, um, you were part of this community of, of, of bikers and you were going from place to place, but the ace had closed again by then, or it had changed a bit, but you used to ride by it. I think it was still like an auto shop.

The, the building was still there. And, yeah. During this time you were organizing a lot of events already, right? Sort of things like you would eventually be doing at Ace, these big car events and motorcycling events. Yes. Motory

Mark Wilsmore: and, [00:43:00] and in particular with the bikes, I became Mr. Organizer. I can't think where the first taste of coming over into Europe on a bike.

But then say it's fucking brilliant, the bikes are racing at Dutch TT or the island of man, and gradually I'm then organizing more and more friends. This is all obviously before mobile phones and Internets and mm-hmm. Emails hard to, I organized, you know, perhaps 30 of us to go to the Dutch tt. That's where we'll meet what the route is, giving everybody a root, root thing with meat here and we're gonna meet Mr.

Organizer. And that, that was going to Dutch TT Island, man, TT the bowl door.

Andrea Hiott: Wow. You went to Isle Man, that's a whole other story, but Okay.

Mark Wilsmore: All over the place. And as Mr. Organizer, and with this one observation, it's also that same peer group with [00:44:00] bikes in its interest. We'd go off to meet up at least once a week, and that'd be of an evening race through London from.

Rock and uh, uh, rock and roll venue, which was bikes and cars, parking all around that as well. Up in Camden or more accurately morning in Crescent, which is Batman of Camden. Then when that finished and hardly did everybody, anybody drank on a bike either, which I've come realize now is you, you buy a bottle of beer, you perhaps drink the neck, but you're not interested in it.

Mm-hmm. And what I come to understand now is that, um, alcohol kills adrenaline. That's true. So none of us will be, you know, drinking it when that's closed at 11, that then be raced down from Central London to, um, soho and Bar [00:45:00] Italia, which is a coffee place right in Central London. And that's just as all the theaters are emptying and all rest of it.

So it'd be posing about and you little bikes and all these girls around the rest of it. Cetera. And then after, I'll say 40 minutes of that, it's then down to Chelsea Bridge and the tea stall. It's all changed now. You've got security things, you've got cameras, you've got all sorts. You can't do what was once done.

Andrea Hiott: And the ace was still out there on the North Circular Road still sitting there and it's beautiful architecture, but it wasn't being used uh, as a cafe. It was uh, more like an auto shop. So you could still go and sit and look and

Mark Wilsmore: think, oh, wouldn't it be great? You sit and look at a building and go, it'd be great if, if, and the key bit is in the tail end of 93 at tripods.

Trione is National Club. And, um, guy there used to go to the Ace. So [00:46:00] mock me and my friends for our black leather jackets and all that. Wanna be rockers 'cause he is a real one from then. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You love when he rubbish ain't you? Blah, blah, blah. He says to me, knowing I'm Mr. Organizer, I realize now, um, do you know when he ate shut?

No. I dunno. When he shut, I can just about remember it when it was open, going past it from dad's car or van or something. Um, then he's taken a, Mickey is locked. Dunno what you're talking about. Then he said, well, it's shut in September 69. Think about it. He said, so what? He shut in 69? What about it? Think about it.

Think about it. So he then leaves me. There's something I'm thinking about it and a few moments later I've realized that, um, the following year, 94, it'll be [00:47:00] 25 years since it had shut.

Andrea Hiott: 25 years after the Ace Cafe had shut after the heyday of the mods and rockers in the fifties and sixties and seventies, it had shut.

Um, but so it was now an auto shop, but you thought, Hey, maybe the cafe should open again. And it's,

Mark Wilsmore: that is the light bulb, ah, reunion. Ah, oh shut, eh, I've got it. Then he say, yeah, he says, yeah, yeah, without, without. So I'll organize that. It's dead easy because at that time I was a serving copper and I knew two other serving coppers because of their interest in bikes who were traffic cops.

Yeah. And the traffic unit at that time had a big depot, not a police station, but like a traffic police place just by Hangar Lane, which is just up the road from the Ace. I'll speak to them 'cause they're gonna want this to happen and, um, I'll organize it. [00:48:00] So, Having got me little thoughts around that, that evening, I'm thinking, yeah, I'll speak to Ian, I'll speak to trigger, avoid the local police.

'cause there'll only be problems and I can do that. So I've got that I say filed in my mind now that's gonna happen and it's then I'm thinking, this is gonna be huge. There'll be thousands come and it's at that stage. I then go to myself, excuse my language again, fuck me. This is the key to reopening.

This is gonna be a big thing. So that, that all happened that night at trial of owners of this conclusion that this is got

Andrea Hiott: happen. You just couldn't have seen it coming. It just hit you and, but once it hit you, it was like you

Mark Wilsmore: couldn't forget it. I'm actually, that's what I'm gonna do. Um, and it has to be done.

Andrea Hiott: You believe in something like fate, like that you were supposed, that was a thought was gonna come to you no matter what, or is

Mark Wilsmore: it more just change? I dunno. I, I, I believe in luck, I say believe in, it's not quite right term. Um, [00:49:00] I accept that there, it's luck, it's fate. Uh, I do sort of subscribe to that, but it could have been anybody, it could be anybody else.

'cause I'm of a, I I'm just typical of, of an age group, of a social group and you just happen to be me. That's, it's

kind

Andrea Hiott: of found the right person. This idea, the person who could actually make it happen because, uh, this reunion and then reopening the ace turned into a very big event. It's like thousands and thousands of people came

Mark Wilsmore: to this day.

People and, and I'll know, but you never thought this nun would turn up. And I'd say, how do you think all these mobile toilets got here and all those crowd barriers, do you think, I didn't realize what this meant is I'm from this world of motorbikes and motors and what role bump? I know what that gonna mean to people.

So, so that

Andrea Hiott: reunion, was it just packed with people? Did everyone I. Emerge,

Mark Wilsmore: um, is at least [00:50:00] 12,000 bikes. And we were very lucky. You've got this old road in front of the car already mentioned, and this then new urban motorway, which hadn't quite been completed. So with the local traffic police getting involved, it was brilliant.

'cause they said that bike can park here, here. Mm. Smart rules absorbed all this, which today with all the rules and rubbish that we've got around everything now that that would not happen. That could not happen. Um,

Andrea Hiott: soly, so you had this reunion, it was a huge hit, I think, as I remember, everyone then really wanted the ace to reopen.

Yes. But how, and then you just went at it, you just found, found the money, found the backers, found a way to make it happen. How long did that take? Yeah.

Mark Wilsmore: Oh, goodness me. Well, first off, had to persuade the people who owned the place to set. Yeah. Um, Again, help through the peer group, [00:51:00] you know, peer group and bike, foot and roll, whatever.

You find out that that guy's a dustman, but that guy's an architect.

Andrea Hiott: You had everything you needed, I guess, in the group

Mark Wilsmore: and, and, and outlined plans we could very kindly done for us. They got submitted and it got approved. Luckily, they got approved, yes, that, that got approved. All the ordinances and it is at that stage that then it's rushed around to try and find money to come up with, to buy the blooming thing.

But it was relatively easy looking back because got a, what's called, was then called a commercial mortgage and the tire company had been in there for many years, was a national company. They had just renewed their lease for further 25 years, so they had to come up with a deposit, quite a significant deposit.

[00:52:00] Their basically, I'll call it rent paid the mortgage,

Andrea Hiott: another puzzle piece fit. That's what I mean. I know Fat's kind of a heavy word, but it just seems like it was the right moment. You took it. Everything sort of fit together. Yeah. This has been nearly 20 years. It's still going. Not only that you have franchises.

Yeah. More or less. And now it's almost like even people like me, everyone knows what the, everyone knows the Ace Cafe. Even if you don't know exactly what it is, you kind of hear it, you know it. So it's quite something that outta that, that little moment of decision. Everything fit together.

Mark Wilsmore: And yeah, it was all created at that, um, very early moment.

I thought it was

Andrea Hiott: actually also already the motoring community that came together and k kind of use their own skills to get it going. Yeah.

Mark Wilsmore: A chunk would kind of, um, I would say pr more my, well this sounds a bit gratuitous in some ways, but I'll say [00:53:00] sort of working classy, um, types than another chunk of that same overall peer group was more arts people.

And out of that, it's outta that, it's outta that mix of the two, the, the, the, the graphics and the doers and whatnot. Mm-hmm.

Andrea Hiott: You had it, you had all you needed. And Linda, your wife, I hear she's also a big part of the whole cafe For sure.

Mark Wilsmore: World. Absolutely. Yeah. None of it possible without, right. So it is a,

Andrea Hiott: so she was doing all the communication and everything too.

Yeah. So you were with the helping each other from the beginning.

Mark Wilsmore: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like them.

Andrea Hiott: Absolutely. And over these 20 years, you've had so many different events. I couldn't even imagine trying to list them. But 2001, Is when you opened it

Mark Wilsmore: full on Full Monte, I called it? Yes. Yeah. Full Monte.

That's good. Full whole thing. But that, that first car club based it up, all [00:54:00] clubs, whatever they are. Fishing clubs, car clubs. Bike clubs. When they first sort of get together and there's dynamic drive and passion. Was it It, it's brilliant. And then as the years go by, kid start arriving as it were in in the

Andrea Hiott: groups.

Yeah. Everybody starts raising families and and doing all the thing, but now they've all come back again. So it's kinda like what you were talking about, that thing of poem you were talking about. There's this place everybody can kind of come back to, even over the years, it might seem like everyone's drifted apart and if the story is lost, the narrative, but then you have displaced this continuing continuous actual place.

Yeah. And it keeps the narrative going. Right. And the ace is part of that, but also, I mean, it is also part of creating that. And then you also have this tie to the very beginning of Motory. How do you think it's, how do you see the future with all of this? Like we've been talking about speed and acceleration, but we've also been talking a lot about community and the people [00:55:00] around you, and I don't know, when you think about motoring in the future, do you think these same things continue?

So

Mark Wilsmore: motor vehicles are being designed out from the ground up now. This is where the unknowns are. I venture around electric stuff because electric scooters, they're illegal to use in the public domain except in test boroughs. I know where that is now. But, so in

Andrea Hiott: London streets, they're illegal now.

Mark Wilsmore: They're illegal except in very specific what they're calling test ones.

And those scooters have to come from T F L or whoever is operating a thing, but they're endemic everywhere. Similarly with electric push bikes everywhere. And of course they can keep those in a flat. Lift. And so you don't need the parking space for that. Yeah, so low. Everything's changing and is designing out [00:56:00] private motor vehicles.

As the already said, youngsters are getting these e vehicle, he scooters, the pushbike things. So the motor, I'll say of social change is there, but the outcomes won't be much different from what history shows us is that they'll want to get together, they'll want to lark about and show off, and there'll be a fashion scene with it.

There'll be a music scene with it, and that will just, I believe, continue add infinitum. The craft that Ace has to be able to manage into the future is going to be increasingly young electric stuff, which is a change because of the legislation at the moment. Mm-hmm. And. Older guys who do like their, like to fill their belly.

So it's managing those two quite different. Do you see a way

Andrea Hiott: forward, do you see a way for that to happen that might [00:57:00] be Yeah. Still in line with all these things you've talked about that you care about? I

Mark Wilsmore: think, I think, oh yeah. That, that, that, that I think is reasonably straightforward. The headaches are then thrown in with the workforce headaches, which you may have read about and be aware of, I don't know, but post Brexit mm-hmm.

We don't have the, the workforce, you don't have the people to, to illustrate this, where, where we all have, um, deliveries on, on a weekly basis, for instance, from the brewery barrels of beer, bottles of beer and bottles of fizzy pop of some sort, or whatever it is. They don't. And um, then realize actually we haven't got any barrels of that and we haven't got any.

Then you chase up, oh, well, that, that we've got no forklift drivers at the depot. Sorry, you haven't been able to deliver this week because you've got no drivers. So the whole logistic chain that I'm say feeds us is completely buggered up for all the same reasons as just [00:58:00] related with staffing and whatnot.

Andrea Hiott: So whatever problems we're gonna face in terms of all these issues that you're talking about now, that will be sort of the problem that the motoring community has to solve

Mark Wilsmore: too. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It, it, it is not just aids this, this is a, a societal problem that in this instance, my nation is grappling with and we're gonna send refugees to Rwanda.

It is completely nuts. And, and I would go further and say it's absolutely hypocritical. What we're, what we're doing very hard is this thing, it's dissonant either on your play. It's not magic, it's people involved down it.

Andrea Hiott: If you, if you had kind of the perfect future for the ace, what would it be? For you, what do you see?

Do you see a nice transition into this electric or other forms of motoring that actually could solve some of these problems you've just discussed? Or would you like to see it just continue as it is?

Mark Wilsmore: It, it cannot continue as [00:59:00] it is. Okay. Uh, and thinking of that, of the consumption of, um, as much as I love petrol and whatnot, and it won't continue, we are going through agony, a period of change, but we've, in societies, we've managed to gone through those umpteen times before, and I suspect the, the petrol burning engine will go the same way as horses in as much, it'll be two polar extremes of society that will have them, they're super rich and.

Don't give a monkeys, I'm over it a bit here, but two extreme, nothing in the middle. And of course, if you look at photos of cities in, in 1880s, 1890s, they're stuff full [01:00:00] with traffic jams. It's all horse drawn. And you go back and look at those same cities, 30 years later, they've got traffic jams for the, particularly in America, full of cars.

So we've had these transitions before and, and I'm sure they've always been, they've been a headache. You know what, what are those stable adss gonna do? Ah, get a job in one of these new things called a garage, except you've been through it all

Andrea Hiott: before. That's a good point. Yeah. So you see, you see this as another one of those transitions?

Mark Wilsmore: Yeah. It's all it is. And, and, and, and it's one we've got to embrace. We, we call, you know, where, where I have to live in North London, fourth floor in a block of flats at the top of the hill. I look from one window I can see across London to the south Downs on a day like we have today. Nice, clear, sunny day.

Mm-hmm. But it dawn and at dusk on nice, clear, sunny days. You can see the pollution as the sun transitions [01:01:00] and it moves through, there's light moves. You can see it when it gets high in the sky, you can't see it. But it's not like, um, smoke one would associate with chimney stacks and factories because it's such small fine stuff.

But you can see it. It's as black as could be there. You can't deny it. No. It is there. You can see it in certain like conditions and it's killing us and we're all in, you know, it's like I don't deny these, this is either this or the road's gonna kill me. I get it. Mm-hmm.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah. I see what you mean. You're just clear-eyed all the choices that you

Mark Wilsmore: make.

Yeah. And, and this is affecting mankind. This is affecting mankind. We're doing, and we've got a route to get away from it. Yeah. There'll be other problems with it and we'll find out that electricity is, I don't know, makes everybody's there for hell or something. I, I, I don't know what it's gonna do, but there will be other problems come along.

But this

Andrea Hiott: communal, this communal meaning and need that we've [01:02:00] been discussing will continue and we'll have to find a way to Absolutely. We'll still find ways to address that, I guess. Yeah. Even as

Mark Wilsmore: we, the Romans had problems with youngsters racing through the forum. That's 2000 years ago. That's documented and documented ever since they've been for London, it's been, the London Apprentices has been, it is the, it's the same age group throughout history.

Mm-hmm. They want to go fast. They want to get whiz out and they wanna be with their mates. And yeah. I trust that the Rhythmia are gonna be confident enough to ensure the ACE is able to be that place into the future. Well, I

Andrea Hiott: think it will be, and it'll be interesting to see how it changes too, and how it also remains this kind of, um, narrative of the heritage of that change over time from the very beginning to wherever we end up.

Mm-hmm. Well, thank you so much for your time today. It's been really nice to talk to you and

Mark Wilsmore: it's been really well therapeutic for me. It

Andrea Hiott: has [01:03:00] been therapeutic. That's a good word for it. Maybe that's the, the new Motory. Yes. Some kind of therapeutic motory. Cool. Yeah. All right. Well I hope you have a great day there.

It looks like it's a beautiful day, so,