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Category: Ace Cafe

  1. Ace at the V&A Museum

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    Hanging Out -Youth culture then and now - 7th May -  4th September 2012

    Full Spectrum Productions presents “Hanging Out - Youth culture then and now” in the Sackler Centre at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, this free display includes a selection of work created at the Hanging Out project’s volunteer training activities, oral history workshops and events since October 2010. The display will focus on youth culture during 1950’s and 1960’s London under the sub themes of fashion, film, music, sport, protests and entertainment.

    The display will feature a wall mural produced by sixth form pupils at the Haverstock School in Camden, of an authentic 1950’s Café, based on the legendary Ace Cafe London.  They will use a variety of mediums to create the mural and include photographs by Frank Monaco.

    There will be a 1960’s garment display which will present garments from Laurence Corner, the famous army surplus retailer, such as The Beatles Sergeant Pepper style jackets and a 1960’s press cuttings book. 1950’s style garments made by the project’s volunteers will also be shown.

    To be viewed on video monitors, there will be a selection of short films by London Film Academy students, a film by Simon Friedberg about the closing of the Laurence Corner shop, music performed  by the Hanging Out project’s volunteers and photographs by volunteers from the Creative Editing Workshop which was held at the Museum of London.

    A collection of work from the ‘Images of Protest’ exhibition, held at the Rich Mix Gallery in January 2012, will form part of the display, featuring such icons as Muhammad Ali, Angela Davis and Che Guevara, alongside protest t-shirts designed and printed by the project’s volunteers at the V&A screen-printing workshops.

    As well as the display, the opening night at the Victoria and Albert Museum will feature the premiere of the Hanging Out project’s documentary and the launch of its publication. Two monologues, based on oral history interviews, will be performed by young people within the Ace Cafe mural.

    www.hangingout.org.uk

  2. Motorcycle Enthusiasts Invited to Join Comedian Ross Noble

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    in a Celebrity Ride Out from Ace Cafe London to 2012 Carole Nash Motorcycle Show at ExCel

    Motorcycle Enthusiasts Invited to Join Comedian Ross Noble in a Celebrity Ride Out from Ace Cafe London Ace Cafe London will be debuting at this prestigious show with a stand (Hall N3, Stand N373) to include with author Mick Duckworth, who will be signing copies of the recently published "Ace Times" book on Friday 3rd & Saturday 4th. The Ace 904S Thruxton Special and the Ace 675CR Street Triple will also be on display.

    TV comedian and motorcycle fanatic Ross Noble is revving himself up for a celebrity motorcycle ride out into central London to raise money for Riders for Health as part of London's biggest biking event, the 2012 Carole Nash MCN Motorcycle Show.

    Red Dwarf's and BBC1's drama Death in Paradise, Danny John Jules sporting  his trademark pink motorbike will accompany Noble and they will set off from renowned motorcycle venue Ace Cafe London in Stonebridge on Saturday 4th February at 9am and ride to ExCeL, London where the show is taking place between the 2nd and 5th of February.

    Motorcyclists from across the country are invited to join the celebrity ride out and show their support for Riders for Health, which manages and maintains vehicles for African health workers so they can deliver much-needed health care to the most isolated communities.

    The route will take the motorcycle pack down the A406 east from the cafe around to the A1020, Royal Albert Way, leading to ExCeL at the heart of London Docklands.

    The Carole Nash MCN Motorcycle Show, in association with The Telegraph, is the capitals largest biking event and gives riders the chance to meet their biking heroes as well as seeing action-packed stunts and the latest 2012 bikes and accessories from all the major manufacturers ranging from Ducati Panigale to the Triumph Explorer. The event also features the jaw-dropping Michelin Revolution Show, in which World trials icon Dougie Lampkin and TT champion John McGuinness will go head-to head over a specially constructed course that tests both skill and nerve.

    In honour of the show's new 'Enduro' theme, Lampkin and McGuinness will be joined by multiple world Enduro champion David Knight, fan's favourite Chris Walker, BSB, WSB and GP ace Neil Hodgson and record breaking TT winner Ian Hutchinson who will compete in two teams to tackle breath-taking obstacles putting their nerves and skill to the test.Noble, who is well known for his love of biking, has competed in a number of competitions including the Red Bull Romaniacs, the world's toughest enduro race, in Romania.

    Commenting on the ride out, he said: "The Carole Nash MCN Motorcycle Show is a highlight of the biking event calendar and it will be great to arrive at ExCeL in style, in a convoy with hundreds of other bikers. Everyone taking part in the ride out will be supporting a worthy charity. Riders for Health help health workers in Africa stay mobile so they can reach even the most far-flung areas to deliver life-saving medical care."

    Riders will each be asked to make a small £5 donation to Riders for Health to take part in the ride out. Everyone taking part will receive free refreshments at the Ace by using MCN's paper voucher as well as a complimentary copy of Motorcycle News.

    To take part in the ride out, riders are invited to meet at Ace Cafe London, on the North Circular in Stonebridge, on 4th February for a 09.00am departure.

    www.ace-cafe-london.com

  3. MAG "Fred Hill" Memorial Run from Ace Cafe

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    Sunday 12th February

    Meet at Ace: 10.30am to depart at noon for London's Pentonville Prison

    Many people will recall the extraordinary example set by Fred Hill in defying the compulsory helmet law throughout the nineteen seventies and eighties. Nowhere in the world has anyone made such exceptional sacrifices in the name of biker's freedoms.

    A former army dispatch rider during WW2, Fred worked for many years as a mathematics teacher before leaving to enjoy what he doubtless expected would be a quiet retirement. Incensed by the compulsory helmet law, Fred rode everywhere in an old beret, collecting literally hundreds of tickets, which he stored in a large suitcase. Fred's refusal to pay the fines for helmet-less riding constituted 'Contempt of Court' for which he was given custodial sentences thirty one times.

    Some of the sentences were very short, as little as 24 hours on one occasion when he was held in an unlocked police station cell and told by the desk sergeant to - 'bugger off when no-one's looking.' Other sentences were much longer however and the company which Fred found himself amongst in Her Majesty's hostels was not always the finest. Fred loathed prison life and once wrote a disturbing account of his experiences for Magnews. 'What is a man deprived of his name, his freedom of movement taken away, his every privacy invaded, every move spied upon, locked away in a filthy cell for 23 hours out of the 24 hours- and half of these miserable hours spent in darkness.'

    A member of MAG, Fred's face was a familiar sight at MAG demonstrations all over the country. Fred always made speeches at the demonstrations, dressed in his arrow - patterned prison suit he would treat the crowd to theatrical helpings of his Yorkshire wit, always maintaining a characteristic good humour even when being booked. Though in every other way, a law-abiding citizen, Fred would encourage the crowds he addressed to follow his example, as the law would have to be repealed if enough people simply ignored it. In so doing he risked the more serious charge of incitement to break the law, though such a charge was never brought against him. Once in the dock of a magistrates court where a lady magistrate berated his lawlessness, Fred took the opportunity to remind her that if it hadn't been for members of her sex breaking the law some years ago, she wouldn't be sitting where she was.

    With the passage of time, police in Fred's neighbourhood frequently turned a blind eye to his indiscretions. though when he went further afield he would invariably be stopped. In order to cover the necessary distances Fred replaced his Honda 50 with a 250, aboard which, on one occasion, he battled all the way to the Gower Peninsula in Wales and back, a distance of about 500 miles in one day despite appalling weather.

    Demonstrations of support by MAG members were frequently staged outside prisons in which Fred was held and a commemoration of his efforts is made annually at the gates of Pentonville Prison on the anniversary of his death. Fred Hill was seventy four years old when in 1984 he died from a heart attack suffered whilst in custody in London's Pentonville Prison . Despite the tremendous news angle of one man against the state, the national media, with the exception of two columnists, Mathew Parris and Auberaugn Waugh, suspiciously blanked the tragedy.

    Fred was imprisoned 31 times, his final sentence of 60 days, proving too much to take, was half completed. The prison governor had warned Fred that the harsh prison environment could be the death of him, to which Fred replied that, 'it didn't matter where a man died but how.' An enquiry into Fred's death resulted in a coroner's report which concluded that Fred's prison experience had not contributed toward his death.

    Whether the helmet issue is important to you or not, we all owe it, not only to Fred but to ourselves, to sustain a ceaseless call for the reform of this outrageous legislation for, as Fred wrote - 'what is a man deprived..of his freedom ?'

    Motorcycling is about freedom. Fred understood that. We must never forget Fred's example lest we forget why we ride motorcycles.

    For more information about MAG (Motorcycle Action Group) and the many and various campaigns they deal with on behalf of motorcyclists and motorcycling, check out: www.mag-uk.org

  4. Ace Exhibition Available to Tour!

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    Following its success through 2011 and noting that 2013 is the 75th, Diamond Anniversary of the cafe's opening in 1938, the evocative and popular exhibition "Coming of Age at the Ace Cafe", by Coventry Transport Museum and Ace Cafe London, is available for worldwide hire.

    Innovative and immersive, this major, new, seminal exhibition is of modular design and is therefore scaleable and available in full or in part thereof, and items sourced elsewhere may be readily and easily accommodated within this unique exhibition.

    For more information, check out the link

    Contact Gary Hall @ CEO Coventry Transport Museum

    www.transport-museum.com

  5. Ace Cafe at Helsinki Motorcycle Show

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    Ace Cafe London, teaming up with Ace Corner Finland, is delighted to be able to confirm attendance with stand and display at the forthcoming Helsinki Motorcycle Show, 2nd - 5th February 2012.

    The Ace presence and display, together with the Finnish Motorcycle Museum and Ace Corner Finland includes an array of Ace Cafe, Rockers and StoMoCo items, and will feature the recently published, comprehensive, 312 page hardbound "Ace Times - speed thrills and tea spills, a cafe and a culture" by author Mick Duckworth.  Mark Wilsmore, MD of Ace Cafe London will be available on Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th to sign copies.

    Drop by and say hello and meet the Ace Corner Finland Team at Hall 7, Stand E30

    www.ace-corner-finland.fi

    www.moottoripyoramuseo.fi

    www.finnexpo.fi