wanted the engine fixed and so he came to Conway Trott's shop for a service.

Although Mr. Trott had never seen that make of bike he knew he was competent to repair it.

Vehicles and engines were his expertise and the fact this engine came from Asia didn't concern him at all. Engines were engines, weren't they? Nevertheless, the bike looked like a good one and he made a note of the manufacturer's address, conveniently printed on the side of the bike. He wrote away and, sooner than he expected, received the agency for Yamaha in Bermuda.

From that one encounter, the present flourishing business -- officially known as World Distributors but recognised as Yamaha -- has grown and prospered.

The Trott family has been in Bermuda since the middle 1600s, and it was the Trott family that founded the Phoenix Drug Store with the Young family. But after the War, Conway Trott (who died in 1972) was keen to break out on his own and in 1947 he started a business dealing with vehicles.

"He was the first person to bring cars to Bermuda on a commercial basis'' says his son, Toby, who now owns the company.

"He saw that the Americans had introduced the idea of motor vehicles to Bermuda in the Second World War and even if the Americans left, cars were here to stay.'' The Americans stayed, and so did cars. "When my father entered the business there were some cars on the Island but they had been brought in privately,'' he said. "He brought in Austin Cambridge cars. Dad would import the cars, teach his customer how to drive and more or less give them their driver's licences. No TCD in those days.'' In 1960, Mr. Conway Trott started Bermuda Tyre Company with the Goodyear Tyre agency. In the same year, he introduced Bermuda to the Velo Solex, a unique auxiliary cycle that had the engine geared on the front wheel, from which it could be detached to change the auxiliary bike back to a pedal cycle.

At one time the company had a thousand of these little bikes for rent, from their premises on Trott Road.

Then came the Peugeot cycle agency. But it was Yamaha that proved the winner over the years, with the Yamaha V-80 arriving on the scene in the early 1970s.

"Now, there's a bike that has hardly changed in all that time'' says Mr. Toby Trott, "and it still sells extremely well. There was a time when we could hardly keep up with the demand.'' The practical running of the company is entrusted to the president of World Distributors, Bill Ziepniewski who has been with the firm since 1976. Claudius Bean is the longest serving member of the business -- he came to work for Conway Trott in 1947 and now is with Bermuda Tyre Company; Head Mechanic Marvin Trott has been with the company since 1970; and Andy Stoneham has worked for World Distributors for eight years.

And the next time a Yamaha zips in and out of the traffic in front of you, ponder on the chance encounter with a yachtsman that started it all.

Mr. Toby Trott in front of a portrait of his late father, Mr. Conway Trott, the founder of World Distributors.