A letter and a great photo of a reader and his father, taken in April of 1972, is this month’s Parting Shot. Peter Allen tells us the story of his dad and his bikes. — Ed.

“My dad, Patrick Allen, had bikes most of his life. After moving to Ireland in 1948, he had Nortons and BSAs. The bike he had before this Norton was a BSA M21, an ex-AA patrol bike. It’s still around Cork City in Ireland. Dad and Mum went to the TT on the BSA for 10 years, and as a young teenager I learned to ride on it on our farm, as it still had the box patrol sidecar on it.

“This photo was taken just a few days after Dad bought a new 1972 Norton Interstate. We’d just gotten back from a 50-mile ride, the first longer ride on the bike, as Dad was still running it in. The main bearings in the engine failed at about 1,000 miles, but after it was repaired, Dad went on to ride it for about 10 years before it got traded in for a BMW R100 with an electric starter. Dad is now 84 and will be very excited to see this photo again!”