Old really is beautiful for Viv Jackson.

The 48-year-old motorcycling enthusiast may be young at heart but he has had a passion for vintage bikes since the 1990s.

The Cheltenham painter and decorator told the Local Answer: “I’d been interested in bikes from an early age but couldn’t really afford one.

“I managed to get a Kawasaki when I was 15 and we used to go to the Forest of Dean – I’d have one mate on the back of the bike and another on the handlebars – but that was it until I started doing some work for Stuart Ferguson who lived in Cheltenham.

“He was doing up an old BSA at the time. A year later it had been completely restored and I was blown away. I thought, ‘I’m having some of that’.”

So began Viv’s love affair with vintage and trials bikes. He bought a 52 Thunderbird and started “pleasure riding” around the Cotswolds and beyond.

The brakes were off and he soon joined the Cotswold section of the Vintage Motorcycle Club (VMCC).

That opened Viv’s eyes to a whole new world. “The club meets every Wednesday at different pubs around the county,” he said.

“We meet from April to September and we’ve just had the first meeting of the season at the Apple Tree in Southam.”

Viv’s devotion to bikes did not stop at one. He currently has six and the most he has ever had at one time is eight.

“I had two in the front room,” he remembers, “and six in the garage and conservatory. I drew the line at the bathroom and the bedroom!”

He says he has “different bikes for different needs”.

Much of his spare time is currently spent rebuilding a 1950s James trials bike but he still finds time to get out and about on the other bikes his collection.

That collection includes a Dot trials bike. “It stands for devoid of trouble but I say it should stand for devoid of trophies. It’s not very fast but I just like it.”

A 1940s Norton is the biggest – a 500cc – and is particularly close to Viv’s heart.

“It’s a 1948 touring road bike, so it’s quite new,” he chuckled.

“I had to rebuild it after I had a bad accident on it about eight years ago. It was quite serious and I had to have a titanium hip.”

Viv belongs to the ‘no pain, no gain’ school of thought and as soon as he was fit he was back on his bikes.

His trials bikes share equal billing with his vintage bikes and he is a member of the Cheltenham Home Guard, which meets every Thursday at Cheltenham Motor Club in Upper Park Street.

He speaks with great enthusiasm about the VMCC and the Cheltenham Home Guard.

“The VMCC holds lots of events,” he said. “There’s the Felix Burke trial, which is a scatter trial, but there are lots of different rallies and rideouts.

“We ride out to the Forest of Dean – 10 or 20 of us on our old bikes – all through the country lanes. It’s pleasure riding.

“We do rallies all over the country. Up to Cumbria and Scotland and down south. We all get together and it’s like one big family.”

The Cheltenham Home Guard came into Viv’s view when he caught the off-road trials biking bug.

“It’s exactly like Kick Start, the TV programme in the 1980s,” said Viv. “You can ride old and new bikes in the trials and there are lots of other clubs around Gloucestershire like the Hawks and Stroud Valley.

“You can do a trial every weekend in the county if you want to – they have them at Winchcombe, Chedworth, Nettleton Bottom and all over the Forest of Dean.”

Motorbikes are in Viv’s blood – he went to India 20 years ago for a long holiday and rode around on a Military Royal Enfield.

“I’ll always be involved with bikes,” he said. “It’s brought me a great social life, given me engineering skills and happiness tinged with some pain.”

And why vintage bikes in particular?

“It’s too easy to get from A to B on modern bikes,” he said. “We like the struggle.”