https://www.facebook.com/MVSenna/posts/pfbid0K8eBUFs4kRva1S3mQbYr1Vuk4fXV548kqzc4voMb2zx29mWYKVMDPKcRgjFVDersl - this links to his son's Fb page which has some photos and this obituary from Ron Kemp's wife. I know the son well but sad I never met Ron.
"I first met Ron over the breakfast table whilst staying in a lovely old farmhouse in south Devon in 1955, I was a sheltered 17 year old schoolgirl on holiday with my parents, he was a 19 year old Royal Air Force n.c.o. on a motorcycle holiday with a friend. He was tall with black curly hair, very good looking and extremely fit, at the time he held the course record for the R.A.F. assault course and represented them in long distance cycle racing. I didn’t really stand a chance!
For the next five years we saw each other occasionally when he would turn up at the school gates to collect me on his Triumph Tiger 100, the other girls were green with envy. During this time he met Ed Stevens with whom he became lifelong friends and also acquired his first Vincent of which he was very proud although I will never forget the look on his face when he first rode it home and a neighbour came out to see it. Eh lad that’s a big scooter he said, yes, Ron had his first Black Prince.
In 1961 we got married at a beautiful old church in Hertfordshire. It was quite a Vincent club affair, by then he was also great friends with Bryan Phillips who was best man , of course Ed and Valerie his wife were there along with George Breach, a well known winner of sprints on his Black Shadow usually running on quite a few pints of beer. (George not the bike) and Tubby Rixon a crazy sidecar racer. Ron had converted an old A40 van into a sort of camper van and we crossed over to France to start our honeymoon. There the story could have ended, that night during a fierce thunderstorm we pulled into a field gate to park in the dark and only discovered when daylight came that we were parked right on the rim of a very large quarry. Someone was looking after us. After a couple of weeks touring ending up in Venice we returned to the U.K. and as our intended house was not ready we stayed with Tubby for a month at his house called Leatherslade Farm, yes we got there just before the train robbers.
From then on our life was much the same as any other couple, we worked hard and brought up two sons occasionally attending club rallies until 1984 when we upped and relocated to a remote part of Wales and started our own company Vinparts International. Our time there is well known to most and well documented, developing improvements to Vincent spares and selling them all over the globe, we also spent time travelling and meeting many of our lovely customers.
In 2007 we had decided that it was getting time for us to call it a day, we were not getting any younger, so having totally fallen in love with everything Italian over the years we bought a derelict old farmhouse in Umbria, had it restored and moved in April 2011. Since then life has been just perfect, friends have come to stay, Ron made a vegetable garden and planted fruit trees and I adopted various dogs from a rescue home going for long walks in the surrounding countryside. We often had lunch by the large nearby lake where Ron’s love of the local red wine was fully fulfilled, and our Italian friends have been what we always knew, the most gentle helpful and kindest people ever, thank you. After Ron’s death I have had many kind messages and phone calls and half of his ashes have stayed here while Preston my son has taken the other half back to the U.K. to either be sprinkled near Cadwell Park scene of many triumphs and his favourite circuit, or maybe the Isle of Man where he managed to put up a silver medal time on his Egli Vincent on open fully trafficked roads. Not bad for an amateur!"
"I first met Ron over the breakfast table whilst staying in a lovely old farmhouse in south Devon in 1955, I was a sheltered 17 year old schoolgirl on holiday with my parents, he was a 19 year old Royal Air Force n.c.o. on a motorcycle holiday with a friend. He was tall with black curly hair, very good looking and extremely fit, at the time he held the course record for the R.A.F. assault course and represented them in long distance cycle racing. I didn’t really stand a chance!
For the next five years we saw each other occasionally when he would turn up at the school gates to collect me on his Triumph Tiger 100, the other girls were green with envy. During this time he met Ed Stevens with whom he became lifelong friends and also acquired his first Vincent of which he was very proud although I will never forget the look on his face when he first rode it home and a neighbour came out to see it. Eh lad that’s a big scooter he said, yes, Ron had his first Black Prince.
In 1961 we got married at a beautiful old church in Hertfordshire. It was quite a Vincent club affair, by then he was also great friends with Bryan Phillips who was best man , of course Ed and Valerie his wife were there along with George Breach, a well known winner of sprints on his Black Shadow usually running on quite a few pints of beer. (George not the bike) and Tubby Rixon a crazy sidecar racer. Ron had converted an old A40 van into a sort of camper van and we crossed over to France to start our honeymoon. There the story could have ended, that night during a fierce thunderstorm we pulled into a field gate to park in the dark and only discovered when daylight came that we were parked right on the rim of a very large quarry. Someone was looking after us. After a couple of weeks touring ending up in Venice we returned to the U.K. and as our intended house was not ready we stayed with Tubby for a month at his house called Leatherslade Farm, yes we got there just before the train robbers.
From then on our life was much the same as any other couple, we worked hard and brought up two sons occasionally attending club rallies until 1984 when we upped and relocated to a remote part of Wales and started our own company Vinparts International. Our time there is well known to most and well documented, developing improvements to Vincent spares and selling them all over the globe, we also spent time travelling and meeting many of our lovely customers.
In 2007 we had decided that it was getting time for us to call it a day, we were not getting any younger, so having totally fallen in love with everything Italian over the years we bought a derelict old farmhouse in Umbria, had it restored and moved in April 2011. Since then life has been just perfect, friends have come to stay, Ron made a vegetable garden and planted fruit trees and I adopted various dogs from a rescue home going for long walks in the surrounding countryside. We often had lunch by the large nearby lake where Ron’s love of the local red wine was fully fulfilled, and our Italian friends have been what we always knew, the most gentle helpful and kindest people ever, thank you. After Ron’s death I have had many kind messages and phone calls and half of his ashes have stayed here while Preston my son has taken the other half back to the U.K. to either be sprinkled near Cadwell Park scene of many triumphs and his favourite circuit, or maybe the Isle of Man where he managed to put up a silver medal time on his Egli Vincent on open fully trafficked roads. Not bad for an amateur!"
