Rolling, growling adieu to UK Hell’s Angels founder

LONDON, JUNE 16: A slow-moving five-kilometre (three-mile) long cortege of 1,000 leather-wearing bikers took over a section of motorway in southeast Britain Thursday in a growling send-off to the founder of the British chapter of the Hell’s Angels.

The lines of Harley Davidsons, with a police escort, were accompanying the casket of Ian `Maz’ Harris, the group’s spokesman and first member, who died in a motorcycle accident on May 31 aged 50. Only 300 members were able to enter the Kent church where the funeral service was held. The rest, some of whom had travelled from Germany and the United States, gathered outside and listened through loud-speakers.

Harris, who was a regular contributor to motorbike magazines and holder of a doctorate in philosophy for a thesis on the biker sub-culture, was not honoured with traditional psalms, but with his favourite music, including The Doors’ "Riders on the Storm".

The parish priest, Father Antony Lane said of the hundreds of Hell’s Angels: "I am happy to open up the church to them. There is nothing outrageous in the service. Funerals must be expressed in many different ways."