The Trustees of the John Lumley Estate, Thackray Williams LLP, had published the Deceased Estate notice in The London Gazette on 1.5.2009, giving 10.7.2009 as the deadline for any claims against the Estate. Probate was granted on 19.8.2009 in the sum of £886,824, the net value of the Estate being £884,275, with Linda Gabriel, a senior partner at Thackray Williams LLP, named as Executor. John Lumley’s house was listed as sold on 7.12.2009 for £411,000. John Lumley's accountant Michael Bushell, who received an ex-John Lumley motorcycle, saw no reason to question the probate value: "...the pile of rusted motorcycle parts that I am in possession of did not lead me to believe the valuation thereof was low. I had, and indeed have, no knowledge of John Lumley's other assets". 

However, other people who had known John Lumley and were familiar with his house and its contents felt that the value of the estate seemed low, given the value of the motorcycle collection and the collection of rare spare parts. Others were already wondering about the whereabouts of the collection before John Lumley's funeral on 21.4.2010. As former VOC Treasurer Roy Huxley recalled in an email over a year afterwards: “As I had not been attending any of the meetings I was unaware of John’s death until I read about it in MPH. I attended John’s funeral and left immediately after the service. That morning, before the service, I got into conversation with another section member and when I asked if John’s bikes were going to be auctioned off by Bonham’s I was surprised to learn that all the bikes had already gone - clearly not the usual way of handling the estate. This particular member had received a Series A Comet in bits. I assumed from this that being excluded, I was no longer considered one of the North Kent or South London members. I must be one of, if not the only local members not to have been given any of the bikes."

By the time VOC Executive Committee member Dick Wheeldon's obituary of John Lumley appeared in MPH, a small group of VOC members knew where one of the ex-John Lumley motorcycles was. Two days after John Lumley’s funeral, VOC North Kent section member Tom Bull had visited Jim Poskett, a member of the VOC’s South London section. Mr Bull had offered Jim Poskett a 1937 500cc Vincent HRD Comet in exchange for a 1000cc Vincent-engined Parkin Special worth an estimated £25,000. When it transpired that this motorcycle was from the John Lumley Collection, Mr Poskett declined Tom Bull’s proposition. 

Asked how this ex-John Lumley motorcycle had come into his possession, Tom Bull explained to Jim Poskett and other curious VOC members, including Ian Poskett, Jim Poskett's brother, and Charlie Cannon, that it had “just turned up” outside his house. Ian Poskett telephoned VOC President Bryan Phillips: "The first question Bryan asked me was: 'is Colin Jenner behind this'?" Colin Jenner is the current owner of Conway Motors, a Vincent HRD dealership and specialists located in West London from the 1920s to the 1980s but now in North Kent. As Ian Poskett would later say: "The VOC management knew about this from the top down right from the beginning. But they didn't do anything about it."

Charlie Cannon said: “I got a phone call early in May from Dick Wheeldon. He explained that he had distributed the bikes and that it was all according to John Lumley’s wishes. I pointed out that it was against probate law and said he should give them all back to the estate. He said it was a bit late. I asked him about the Series A Rapide he got and he said he was going to put a plaque in memory of John Lumley on it.” Charlie Cannon also described discussing a classic car that had been parked in John Lumley’s garage: “Dick Wheeldon told me that some people from the owners club had turned up and taken it away. They had insisted on paying some money for it because it was valuable. I don’t remember what kind of car it was but Dick Wheeldon told me that the money would be donated to the cancer charities. The thing that gets me about this is that Dick Wheeldon was a Director of Derwents, the patents company. He must have known about property and probate laws.” As well as his rôle as a member of the dozen-strong Executive Committee of the Vincent HRD Owners Club, Dick Wheeldon also acts as the club's Spares Liaison Officer, working with the VOC Spares Company Ltd, set up by the VOC in 1975 to manufacture spare parts for Vincent HRD and Vincent motorcycles. 

In his monthly column in the June 2009 issue of MPH, the VOC’s Series A specialist Bob Stafford, a member of the club since the 1950s, wrote: “I was so sorry to hear of the recent death of John Lumley. Although we met very infrequently he was always interesting to chat with, having lots of enthusiasm for the bikes”. Mr Stafford then wrote: “One of the bikes I was checking out recently which has turned up in a collection soon to be dispersed...”, and quotes the engine number M655, which corresponds to a 1930s 500cc Vincent HRD Series A Meteor. Further on in his June 2009 column, Bob Stafford recounted “checking out Twin engine V1014 for its owner recently”. 

Series A Rapide sold by Bonhams for over £200,000 in 2008

It would be six months before V1014 was mentioned again but it was one of John Lumley’s three Series A Rapides and was logged on the machines register of the Vintage Motor Cycle Club as well the Vincent HRD Owners Club database. In the October issue of MPH, Bob Stafford made a further reference to motorcycles from the missing John Lumley Collection, writing that the : “…new owner of one of the Twins once belonging to the late John Lumley" had contacted him about a problem concerning the motor. 

By "Twins", Bob Stafford meant Vincent HRD Series A Rapides. Bob Stafford clearly knew the whereabouts of some of the more valuable ex-John Lumley motorcycles. Mr Stafford was even more explicit in his December 2009 MPH column: "Another of the late John Lumley's bikes has surfaced and is being made ready for restoration, this came to John from Gerry Malin's collection way back and now it has come to Tom Bull as a rolling chassis, engine out and in need of various bits to complete 1937 Comet DJH 661.”

This ex-John Lumley motorcycle had, of course, already “surfaced” back in April 2009, when Tom Bull offered it to Jim Poskett by Tom Bull just two days after John Lumley’s funeral. Bob Stafford also referred in passing to a "very smart Meteor" that once belonged to Tony Fox-Male, another well-known figure from the past, suggesting that this Meteor was also an ex-John Lumley machine, but without identifying the "new owner". Bob Stafford then rounded off the part of his monthly column dealing with ex-John Lumley motorcycles by writing: "...but nothing to say about this until the new owner has been contacted, keep coming don’t they, no need to make any replicas at this point.”

Mr Stafford's reference to the Gerry Malin Collection is borne out by VOC Kent and Sussex Section Rep Norman Walker's statement to the VOC's Executive and General Committee on 5.9.2010 that John Lumley had bought some items for about £1,000 at the sale of the Malin Collection. Gerald Malin ARIBA was a former Secretary of the Vincent HRD Owners Club who died in May 1988. Gerry Malin had resigned as Secretary in the early 1960s and had sold off a number of his Vincent HRD motorcycles at the time, John Lumley apparently being one of the purchasers. When Gerry Malin died, Sotheby's auctioned his motorcycle collection off at Brooklands in October 1988. There were five Series A Vincent HRDs, including a Rapide, and a quantity of parts listed in the catalogue but none with the engine number C478 and frame number D1396 of "DJH 661", the Comet that had "just turned up" outside Tom Bull's house sometime between John Lumley's death on 7.4.2009 and Tom Bull's visit to Jim Poskett on 23.4.2009, two days after John Lumley's funeral. 

On 2.1.2010, VOC North Kent Section member Brian Hill made an eye-catching announcement on a Vincent-HRD-related internet chat board, posting that he had just “fired up A Rapide V1014” and that he would "have it finished and MOT'd in time for the Pioneer run in March."  He reposted his announcement on 3.2.2010. The Pioneer Run is a major annual event on the British classic motorcycle calendar, when pre-1915 motorycycles are ridden from Epsom Downs, on the south-western edges of London, to the south coast resort of Brighton. Many riders on later motorcycles accompany the pre-World War One machines and riders on the sixty-mile run. 

Brian Hill's exuberant announcement was acknowledged by other VOC members, including former MPH Editor Robert Watson and Dick Sherwin, who hosts the VOC's Pioneer Run gathering at his home in Sussex, on the route of the Pioneer Run. As readers will recall, V1014 was mentioned by VOC Series A specialist Bob Stafford in the December issue of MPH. This Series A Rapide was the fourteenth production Rapide to roll off the Stevenage production line. Phil Irving’s prototype was numbered V1000, the suffix indicating the vee disposition of the cylinders and the number indicating the capacity. 

This Series A Rapide is logged on the Vintage Motor Cycle Club's machine register under its original plate EUC 574, which is a central London number issued in 1938, suggesting that it was sold through Vincent HRD’s London agents Conway Motors, then based in Shepherd’s Bush, West London. Conway Motors survives, having been acquired in the 1980s by VOC member Chas Guy and relocated in Kent. After Chas Guy’s death in a racing accident, the business was acquired by VOC member Colin Jenner.  

In March 2010, according to a Thackray Williams source, Mr Hill reportedly stated to the executors of the John Lumley Estate that this machine, re-registered as CSV 582, was incomplete, consisting of parts stored in boxes for more than forty years. However, publicly available DVLA records show that CSV 582 seems to have been licensed for the road on 1.2.2010, the next date of liability being 1.2.2011. This suggests that Mr Hill acquired a tax disc for the machine, a process requiring presentation of valid insurance and a valid MoT test certificate. Moreover, the machine had been issued with its first V5 registration document in the name of J S Lumley on 24.2.1984, when it was given its age-related number, replacing the original 1930s number. In order to re-register this Series A Rapide,  John Lumley would normally have had to present a valid MoT certificate and valid insurance, which would have been rather challenging in the case of an incomplete motorcycle, dismantled and stored, according to Mr Hill's March 2010 statement, in boxes since the 1960s. Prompted by Mr Hill's announcement, VOC member Charlie Cannon contacted Thackray Williams LLP. 

It would appear that Brian Hill's January 2010 announcement came as no surprise to some members of the Vincent HRD Owners Club's North Kent Section attending the John Lumley Pie and Pint Meet. Held on 27.9.2009 at the Anchor & Hope public house in New Ash Green, Kent, the section's annual section fixture had just been renamed in honour of John Lumley, a generous homage given that all any of them seemed to have received were piles of rusty old scrap. Writing in the November 2009 issue of MPH, the ubiquitous Dick Wheeldon saluted Brian Hill's efforts with regard to a Series A Rapide that had been dismantled since 1969. Mr Hill had been unable to afford the £50 asking price for the Series A Rapide back in 1969. 

However, as the records of charitable donations made in respect of the late John Lumley to the The Hospice in the Weald show, Mr Hill did at least make a donation of £1,000 to a cancer charity in return for the Series A Rapide he received as a consequence of John Lumley's startling deathbed decision to disinherit his brother, giving half the value of his Estate to his VOC friends instead. The Hospice in the Weald had received £4,500 in total on 28.4.2009, sent in by Tom Lumley. John Lumley's funeral had taken place on 21.4.2009. Betty Lumley stated that she had given the keys to Dick Wheeldon on 8.4.2009. Tom Bull had offered Jim Poskett an ex-John Lumley Series A Comet on 23.4.2009. 

Ian Poskett's ex-Ginger Woods Series A Rapide

VOC member and John Lumley Affair whistleblower Ian Poskett, who owns an immaculate 1938 Vincent HRD Series A Rapide with a provenance involving famed TT racer Ginger Woods, remarked:"Even if it was in boxes and covered in rust for the last forty years, I'd have given a hundred grand for it. Look at it this way: you can get all the engine and cycle parts now, newly manufactured. If you have the important bits, the engine and the front frame, with the factory numbers, another twenty or thirty grand and a bit of work and you'll have a two hundred grand bike, won't you?Or you just buy a Meteor or Comet basket case and use it as a donor bike. " 

Indeed. The only difference between the Series A singles and twins chassis was the front frame, beefed up and stretched to take Phil Irving's new veetwin engine. John Lumley had three Series A Rapides, all allegedly incomplete and dismantled. Three of John Lumley's five Series A singles remain missing. As for Mr Poskett's valuation of a very incomplete Series A Rapide project, comprising just the front frame and the motor, it is common knowledge that a former VOC Aldershot Section Organiser, Jeff Smith, made John Lumley an offer of at least £100,000 just six months before the former's admission to the hospice. Typically, John Lumley ignored the proposition, having already signaled that his motorcycles would go to his heir in line with the terms of his Will but that he wanted Colin Jenner of Conway Motors to put them back together before any sale in order to realise the best possible prices.