Lamp Posts And Other Epic Journeys

I seem to be making a habit of jumping on the back of other contributor’s ideas at the moment. I apologise for seemingly stealing anyone else’s thunder – that’s not my intention at all – but as my good friend Richard Wilden (aka Gilbert Poole) will corroborate, by biggest downfall with writing is a lack of inspiration and ideas. I find it very difficult to come up with original ideas for writing – particularly with fiction – but once I have latched onto something then off I go and there’s no stopping me. Thus, as I was reading Andrew Curnow’s latest on recollections of bike riding as a kid, it prompted me to recall an erstwhile forgotten point from my mid-teens when I made an epic journey on my racing bike. So, with apologies to Andrew, I will now recount the story of that great cycle journey from my teenage years, but my story is perhaps less endearing as it doesn’t contain any cows, bungalows or television sets.

When I was a kid I loved riding my bike. I remember exactly where and when it was when I got my first bike, and also the first moment when I rode it without stabilisers. I too, was a child of the Chopper/Tomahawk era, but I was just a little bit too young for these teenage bikes when I first learnt to ride, so my pride and joy was a Raleigh Budgie. It was of a similar design to the Chopper but scaled down, and it also lacked any gears, and more importantly the fab gear lever on the central part of the frame. It was this singular item that made me long to own a Chopper; I didn’t really care about the gears at all. Anyway, a Budgie was all I had so I made do with this diminutive version, and vividly remember each year when the adjustable saddle was moved up a notch as I grew taller.

The day when I first rode without stabilisers was a hugely liberating experience. Not only did it allow me to ride faster round corners (the stabilisers not allowing any lean, thus vastly reducing the speed at which you could turn the bike, unless you wanted to keel over and fall off, of course), it was also a milestone in growing up. All the ‘big boys’ rode without stabilisers; they were cool, they were the ones to look up to, the ones who you wanted to hang around with. As soon as you discarded your ungainly stabilisers it was like throwing off the shackles of nerdiness – you instantly became a member of the elite group of two-wheeled rather than four-wheeled bikers. In my case this was all hypothetical, however, as I was very introverted as a kid and was never part of any groups or gangs, regardless of the number of wheels my bike had. However, I do remember an incident which occurred shortly after my stabilisers were removed.

At the time, we lived in a block of flats in Southfields which was situated on a steep hill going up towards Wimbledon Common. The section of road we lived on was actually flat, but it dropped away steeply on one side, and climbed steeply up the hill on the other. Along with my newfound status of stabiliser-free cycling, I was also allowed to venture out of the car park and gardens of our block and into the outside world. At this point I was still riding on the pavement, and it was whilst I was riding down the hill on the pavement towards our block of flats one day that I made the mistake of free-wheeling with no brakes applied, and consequently ended up going so fast that the bike started to wobble uncontrollably, and suddenly lurched to one side sending it and me crashing into a lamp post.

As I sat there on the pavement dazed and confused, and, I imagine, crying my eyes out, a kindly neighbour happened to have witnessed the accident and came running across the car park and out to the spot where I had crash landed. He had also alerted my mum and my sister who were upstairs in the flat, and soon I had a small crowd of people huddled round me, gallantly comforting me in my moment of need. However, the thing that sticks in my mind about this incident was that fact that my sister kept giving me funny looks and pointing at my face whilst trying to attract the attention of my mum, who was fussing round trying to pick me and the bike up at the same time. I later found out that I had cut my chin to the extent that there was a substantial flap of skin hanging from it, and a twig had lodged itself in the resultant gash. I had no knowledge of this at the time as I was still a bit dazed, but after much molly-coddling I was soon carted off to the local casualty department where my chin was sewn up.

There are two lasting reminders of this incident; a permanent scar on my chin which is fortunately hidden most of the time by stubble, and also, rather bizarrely, a streak of blood permanently etched onto the lamp post in question. Actually, I’m assuming that’s the case; it could certainly still be seen 10 years ago or so, and I think the lamp post itself is still there today.

A few years later, probably 1985, I remember getting a brand new BMX bike for Christmas. It was an enormous surprise for me as my mum and stepfather weren’t exactly rolling in money at the time, so heaven knows how they managed to afford it. Anyway, they persuaded our next door neighbours to keep the bike in their hallway overnight on Christmas Eve so that they could knock on the door the next morning and surprise me. To this day I can still recall my astonished reaction of extreme joy when I opened the front door on that cold December morning to be greeted by this sparkling new red BMX, and in fact our neighbour was so overwhelmed by my gratitude and accompanying hugs that he started to cry and had to scurry back next door to hide his embarrassment.

However, this chapter of my story is not actually the one that I set out to write. The stabiliser/lamp post and Christmas BMX recollections have only just come to the fore as a result of me thinking about bikes in general; the epic journey I referred to in my opening paragraph was to take place years later when I was 15 or 16……..

During my childhood, the summer school holidays for myself and my sister were usually taken up by one of two activities; either going away to France/Switzerland/Italy with my grandparents in their camper van, or staying with my other grandmother in Kemble, a small village just outside Cirencester. Either of these two activities were a treat for us as we rarely went on holiday at any other time of the year, and although travelling to other countries with my maternal grandparents was always exciting, I also loved to stay with my other grandmother in the quiet Gloucestershire countryside.

My maternal grandparents were great fun to go on holiday with, in fact the last time I went with them was in 1991 when I was 19 years old; probably not the sort of thing that other people of my age would want to be doing, nor would they want to admit to it if they were. But I’m proud to make this revelation because they really were fun times; in later years we’d all have several glasses (or plastic beakers, to be precise) of cheap red wine every evening at each campsite, and my sister and I would assist with driving duties as my grandfather was around 70 at this point and preferred not to be the only one driving the long distances involved. My grandparents were just a great laugh all-round, not in the least bit staid or boring in their retirement years, and indeed they were still travelling by car to visit my mum when in France only a few years ago when they were both well into their 80’s. My grandmother still has several rolls of colour ciné film which my grandfather took when we went on holiday during the 1970’s and early 80’s, and watching them now still brings back very fond memories of those fun times.

My other grandmother was, and still is, a completely different character. Whilst my maternal grandparents were Italian and thus had rather outgoing Mediterranean temperaments, my paternal grandmother is English through and through, and as a result is far more guarded in her thoughts and ways, coupled with the fact that she’s been fairly immobile as a result of a leg injury from a road accident in the late 1950’s.

Anyway, I’m veering off the subject here…….

So it was one summer when I was 15 or 16 that I didn’t go away with my maternal grandparents for some reason, so I elected to go to my grandmother’s in Kemble instead. However, as my sister was doing her own thing by this stage, our estranged father had been out of the routine of taking us down to Kemble for some years, and my mum was otherwise engaged, I had to make my own way. Years earlier when both my sister and I had spent a week or two down at Kemble during the holidays, there was the odd occasion when our father was unable to drive us there for whatever reason, so he used to take us up to Paddington Station and bundle us onto the Inter-City service, the route of which took it through the tiny station at Kemble on its way through to Cheltenham Spa. Consequently I was well versed with getting to my Grandmother’s by train, but a sudden thought crossed my mind that it would be fun to make the journey across country on my racing bike.

My mum, however, was not quite so keen on the idea. As the distance from where we lived at the time to Kemble was about 100 miles by road (or at least it was via the M4), she wasn’t sure that I’d be able to complete the journey reasonably in one day, but she compromised by suggesting that I take my bike on the train as far as Reading, and then cycle the rest of the way. So it was that on a warm and sunny summer’s day in 1987 or 88, I cycled down to Raynes Park station with my rucksack stuffed full of clothes, sandwiches, drinks and a carefully planned route map, and caught the train to Clapham Junction and thence to Reading, before departing the station and setting off on my bike through Reading town and eventually out into the beautiful Berkshire countryside.

Now this may not sound like the ‘epic’ journey which I’ve been hinting at so far; indeed a school friend of mine would regularly participate in the London to Brighton bike ride whilst in his mid teens, and that particular journey of 56 miles is pretty much the same distance as the journey I was about to undertake. The difference, however, was that whilst the London to Brighton sees thousands of riders making the journey on main roads in large groups with plenty of onlookers, I was making this journey on my own, sometimes along quiet country lanes where there would be no-one around to help me if I had an accident. This was also not the sort of thing I was in the habit of doing; years of fairly regular cycling meant that my legs were fairly muscular and consequently more than capable of making the journey, but other than that I didn’t play any sports at all or take any other form of regular exercise, so I wouldn’t have said I was in tip-top condition as far as fitness was concerned. This was also years before the mass-market mobile phone age we live in today, so if I had had an accident in the middle of nowhere then I would have had no means to contact either my mum or my grandmother, unless of course I happened to crash into a public phone box which, judging by my earlier exploits with the lamp post, was not out of the question. Even considering all the above points, to suddenly decide to cycle the 50+ miles to my grandmother’s was also completely out of character for me.

Even so, there I was, happily riding out of Reading station and weaving my way through the late morning traffic until I reached the A329 and headed up towards Pangbourne. I’m ashamed to admit that after my long-winded and convoluted preamble to the story of this supposedly epic journey, I can’t actually remember too much about the journey itself. I certainly remember stopping to have my lunch next to the Thames at Streatley; it was a glorious day in a glorious spot in the English countryside, though I’m afraid I can’t recall what filling I had in my sandwiches. Something that very much sticks in my mind, however, and would also add to the reasons why my decision to make this journey in the first place was rather strange, was the fact that my racing bike wasn’t exactly in 100% working order.

The nuts which held the spindles in place which the pedals were attached to had a habit of working themselves loose from the central bolt, and after years of this happening, the square section of bolt which stopped the spindle from just going round and round without engaging the chain began to wear at the corners. Thus, every few miles one of the pedals would suddenly give way under my foot and hang limply in mid air. This necessitated me packing my trusty spanner in my rucksack before I’d left home, and I seem to remember I ended up sticking it down the side of my sock so it was handy rather than keep unpacking it from my rucksack.

As I approached some of the more familiar villages on the near side of Cirencester several hours later (Kemble being a couple of miles out of the other side of the town), I stopped to telephone my grandmother to tell her that I was nearly there. As much as my legs could cope with the journey, I was feeling rather tired overall by this point, but was still enjoying the serenity around me. When I eventually reached Kemble a short while later, a very relieved Nanny Cox was waiting for me on the doorstep, and had prepared a meal for me which was waiting on the dining table. If it had been my Italian grandparents, it would most probably have been some home-made chicken soup with pasta, or garlic roast chicken and roast potatoes, but as it was my very English grandmother, it was a plain un-garnished salad with grated cheese, cold ham and beetroot. But I wasn’t worried about that; I tucked in heartily to my feast and was grateful that she’d taken the trouble to have something prepared for when I arrived, though it was hardly going to get cold if I’d taken another hour to get there and thus it was obviously a well thought-out decision on her part. Besides, I didn’t have the more discerning palate I have nowadays so probably wasn’t really fussed anyway.

Other than that I don’t really remember any specific details of my journey, but I do remember how wonderfully free I felt as I cycled through the English countryside. It really was one of those liberating experiences, a bit like if you were to go the Scottish Highlands or North Wales and stand alone on top of a mountain with nothing around you for miles and just breathe in the isolation and purity of your surroundings. The journey took me about 7 hours overall, though looking back on it now I’m sure this included the initial train journey to Reading. If that’s the case then I was on the road for around 6 hours; I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad time considering the distance involved, but I certainly hadn’t set out with the intention of breaking any records.

On this occasion I seem to remember staying at my grandmother’s for a week or two, but I made the return journey home by train all the way from Kemble to Paddington, primarily because my mum had insisted, but if the truth be told, as much as I’d thoroughly enjoyed my journey down, I was certainly fed up of the wonky pedal problem by the time I’d got there so was actually relieved to sit on the train for an hour or so instead. However, I did do a lot of cycling in and around Kemble village during those two weeks, and although I can’t recall any particular memories from those journeys, I certainly enjoyed myself once more.

It’s strange that I often forget about this adventure from that summer holiday during my mid-teens. As I’ve already mentioned, it was completely out of character for me at the time, and also at odds with my general apathy for sports or physical exercise. But cycling was an exception, it was always the exception. I suppose it was the filler between walking everywhere as a child and eventually learning to drive when I was 18. It was my independence as a teenager, in fact it was as independent as I got as a teenager because I was still a bit of a loner until I got to high school.

I must buy another racing bike one of these days and get out into the English countryside again. I’ll never really be able to repeat my summer expedition to Kemble because my grandmother is now living in a residential home. OK, my dad still lives in the house as he has done since he retired about 10 years ago, but it just wouldn’t be the same.

As the Doctor once said, "Nothing can be eternal."