When you buy a brand new Ducati, there’s surely only one place to take it – back home to Italy.

That’s exactly what Bill Wicksteed and his girlfriend (now wife) Linda did in the spring of 1975, just a few weeks after picking up the Ducati 350 Mark 3 from dealer Vic Camp in Walthamstow.

Laden with camping equipment and enough clothes for a month in two panniers, the pair set off on the bike from London and headed to Sicily via the south of France.

“It was a memorable trip,” says Bill, now 77, “though it certainly wasn’t planned when I got the bike. We just thought it would be nice to go away for a month.”

A few years later, Bill gave the Ducati away to a friend who had advised him to buy it. Another few years later – he offered it right back when he emigrated to Australia.

Ducati 350 Mark 3 had sentimental value

“I said yes because it’s a nice bit of machinery, and it had sentimental value because of that journey,” says Bill. “I don’t think it was very logical having it back, because I’m not mechanically competent.”

That was more than 30 years ago, and still the bike remains, though these days it’s restricted to occasional local runs not far from Bill’s Cambridgeshire home.

“Is it sensible to keep it? No,” he smiles. “But it’s an effort to get rid of it, and we don’t need the money, so why bother? It’s probably one of the few things I’ve owned that’s gone up in value.

“I just go four or five miles, enough to make sure I’ve burned off any water in the exhaust. I just fancy doing it – it’s a beautiful thing and it makes a nice noise.”

Motorcycle aficionados might recognise the Wicksteed name.

Bill’s uncle Ivan was a fearless racer who broke the 500cc Brooklands lap record in 1938 on a Triumph he built and tuned with an old school friend.

The steeply banked Brooklands track was partly dismantled to make room for a runway when war broke out, ensuring Ivan’s record would never be beaten.

He was still racing in the Isle of Man TT when Bill was a young boy.

“I’m very proud of the connection”

“I remember a roomful of trophies,” he says, “and I’m very proud of the connection, but I wouldn’t say he inspired me to get a motorbike.”

That came in 1963, a Vespa 125, followed by a Matchless 350 on which he passed his test while studying economics and statistics at university in York.

Next came a single carb Triumph 650, and a BSA Super Rocket with a sidecar, “which wasn’t very satisfactory”.

After leaving university in 1966, Bill worked in the London Stock Exchange for a year, riding the Triumph into the City and parking it underground.

“I thought the job was tedious, so I joined an economic consultancy that did work in Africa, and lived in central Africa for a year, and then in the Caribbean for a year,” he says.

“I had a Honda 125 in Kenya, where the roads were dirt. I rode it quite a lot ‘off road’, although it wasn’t a scrambler, and went halfway up Mount Kenya on it, which was quite safe.”

Back in England in 1975, and riding the BSA, Bill started looking around for a new bike.

Torn between the 350cc Ducati and a Honda 350

“I was torn between this Ducati and a Honda 350, and this wasn’t much more expensive,” he remembers. “I had a friend, David, who was very knowledgeable about motorbikes – he had a Laverda Montjuic and a Halewood Replica, the big Ducati.

“He was a designer and a weaver, and he was very keen on aesthetics. He said these are so much better made, the castings are beautiful, the machinings are good, and the handling is much better.”

Bill placed his order, collecting the ‘wide case’ single cylinder, 350cc Ducati from Vic Camp on March 1, 1975, parting with £564 including tax.

It was one of just 2,300 Mark 3s made in 350cc and it was already out of production, which stopped in 1974.

“I never used it aggressively, but it was the sort of bike that if someone ever followed you and you really pushed it, they would fall off and you would stay on,” says Bill, who had the frame for the panniers specially made in preparation for he and Linda’s epic journey, a round trip of more than 4,000 miles.

“It was a long way, and it’s not a touring bike, with semi-drop handlebars, but it was very nice to ride. It didn’t go very fast, but it was quite fast enough riding at 70-80mph. Linda was a very good passenger, which is important, not leaning the wrong way!”

On their way to Italy, the couple stopped off at an uncle’s house in Juan-les-Pins in the south of France to drop off some of their heavier, cold-weather clothing before heading into Italy and further south towards Sicily.

Meandering through Italy

It took about a week to meander their way through to Italy, camping along the way and stopping off at Siena, among other places.

“In Siena, I drove into the Palio horse race area by mistake – they weren’t racing at the time – and the police were quite pleasant: ‘On no account are you to come in here’,” says Bill.

“But then a chap said ‘follow me’ and we went into a church and suddenly there was a massive procession of people in brightly coloured clothes celebrating Anno Santo – the Holy Year.”

Naples was a less happy experience, but they again enjoyed the kindness of Italians. Maybe riding a Ducati helped their cause…

“Naples was ghastly because the road had tramlines and tombstone-like paving slabs that were all tilted and threw the bike about, and Italian drivers were not too wonderful,” says Bill.

“South of Naples it poured with rain and we stopped at a campsite. He said ‘no it’s closed, chiuso’ and we looked very miserable, but then he said ‘you can sleep in here’ and he opened up a room. The next morning we said ‘how much’ and he said ‘it’s closed, you don’t have to pay’.

“People were really nice all the way”

“Further on, we nearly ran out of petrol at Reggio Calabria, on the mainland just north of Sicily, but they woke up the garage man from his siesta to get us petrol. People were really nice, all the way, just genuinely nice people.”

Bill and Linda travelled all around the island of Sicily, including Agrigento, Palermo, and Syracuse, and climbed the recently-erupted Mount Etna on foot.

“We looked in, right on the edge, and you could see the red of the lava,” says Bill.

Having stuck mostly to main roads on their way down through France, on the return journey the couple took a more circuitous route.

“We came back over the Massif Central by mistake, into snow,” says Bill. “It was fine, but the bike was a bit skiddy because it was quite heavily laden with Linda on it too. I just remember thinking ‘I’m not going to throw it about!’”

Mechanically, the Ducati behaved itself impeccably, though the “very tight” new engine took a bit of kicking over.

“I don’t remember getting fed up with the riding during that month, and we were already experienced campers,” he adds, following up this trip with a journey across the Serengeti in Tanzania in a Datsun 120Y, “a terrible car”.

Back in the UK, the couple moved to Wales and Bill used the Ducati more sporadically as time passed and children came along, a Saab 96 the daily transport.

Lending the 350 Mark 3 to a pal

“Then my pal in London, David – who told me to buy it – needed a bike,” he remembers. “He had fallen on hard times for some reason.

“He had it between 1983 and 1989, and looked after it well. He remade the seat, because the old one wasn’t very good. I don’t know where he got it because it’s got ‘Ducati’ on the back and it never had that before.”

Since David went to Australia and returned the bike to Bill, the electrics have been converted from 6V to 12V (“so I could actually see”), and the semi-dropped handlebars have been replaced with bars at a more comfortable height (“easier to ride as you get older”).

The Ducati was also treated to a re-stove enamelled frame, new wheel rims, a new tank badge, and a paintwork touch up.

Going on the odd summer jaunt

It was in fairly regular use until about five years ago, since when it’s just kept ticking over with the odd summer jaunt locally, where it sometimes attracts attention from those in the know.

“When I had problems with the fuel filter and it cut out, other bikers would come along because I’d stopped, and we’d have a good chat because they’d be interested, but most people aren’t,” he says.

“It’s different from what people think of as a Ducati nowadays. The fancy bike back then was the Desmodromic, but they had small Desmos too, so this was a bit of a one-off for Ducati – it was more of a poor man’s bike, which wasn’t really their market.

“I imagine they were seeing if there’s money to be made in that kind of bike, and there wasn’t so they went back to making faster machines.”

A few years ago, when Bill was using the Mark 3 more regularly, he admits it would have been a huge wrench to let it go.

“I thought at the time that my son-in-law might want it because he was a motorcyclist, but they’ve got children now so he’s not keen,” he says.

“What does it mean to me after all these years? An argument with my wife, who thinks we should get rid of it because I’m probably not very safe riding it!”