ABOUT

David Broughton lives a delightfully eccentric life, his story as engaging to me as his collection of vintage BSA motorcycles. He lives in an old oystercatcher cottage in West Sussex with his wife, who he met at school when he was 13, and his family. Oh, and Lola his dog.
I met David and 'Ursula', his 1955 BSA Bantam, in Bosham, we chatted about his collection of BSA motorcycles and I became intrigued enough to arrange a visit to take some photographs. When I arrived he was working in his workshop, a tiny and cramped garage, an Aladdin's cave of motorcycles and nostalgic memorabilia, as was the inside of the cottage. We drank lots and lots of tea!
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Extract from David's story, in his words...
"Little did I know that Ursula would lead me to a new career. One day I had a call from the BBC who had contacted a motorcycle club I belonged to enquire if they knew anyone with a BSA Bantam as they wanted to use one for filming. The club passed the details to me and Ursula and I had a role as extras in Rock ‘n’ Chips, the Prequel to Only Fools and Horses.
I loved doing the filming and admit I was nervous doing it. Six months after filming I decided to see if I could do some more extra work. I had no idea how to go about it so looked up the main tv companies on the internet. I saw that ITV4 were asking for real fans of their programmes and there was the opportunity to write in and say why you were a fan for a great experience.
I wrote in and visited the studios and two weeks later to my surprise was one of the very lucky winners. I spent a week filming in Cape Town being filmed walking away from an explosion for one of ITV4’s idents. I was very nervous but it was the moist fantastic life changing event. The genie was out of the bottle and I wanted to do more.
I tried to combine my teaching job with extra and acting roles for a year but realised that to be an actor you had to commit to it full-time. In October 2014 I took the very risky decision to give up the full-time job to see if I could act.
Since given up the full time job teaching computing, I have been involved in a range of acting assignments, in theatre, short films, television (drama and reality), commercials, music videos and feature films. Life is much more unpredictable but I really enjoy working with creatives and besides when I am 'resting' I can spend time restoring a BSA Round tank and a James Comet which I have purchased in addition to the BSA C15 and BSA Bantam. What more could a man want!"