THE RANDLE REPORT

A taster from my forthcoming memoir: 

GOLDEN PLAYGROUND: Summers of Love on the English Riviera.

RE: CYCLING

New bicycles were rare items when we were growing up. Bobby Truscott had a Triang tricycle, which he sometimes let me use, though it was limited round our way with all the steps and the rough places we played.

I had inherited a green scooter from someone. I went all over the place on it, including up to the top shops, but was often covered in bruises and scabs from spectacular crashes. These were the result of the two locating sleeves that should have kept the front wheel at the mid point of its axle being absent. As long as the wheel remained in the free area of the axle I could hurtle along with abandon. If it reached either end, it would stop dead and throw me over the top into a sorry heap.

My first bicycle was like the roadsweeper’s broom. He kept the same trusty item for twenty-five years, though he’d had to replace the head or the handle from time to time.

This bike was all replacements and still old. It weighed a ton, had the obligatory male-only cross bar, its brakes operated by pulling against the wheel, there being no calliper mechanism, and there were likewise no gears. The maker’s name was Hercules.

Learning to ride it seemed a hopeless enterprise with people such as my mum and dad and Keith Herbert taking turns to push me up the road on it, and then one of them strategically letting go before I realised I was doing it myself. You didn’t want to fall off that bike. As it was, coming to rest involved standing on tip-toes to avoid wrecking yourself on the adult-height crossbar.

Suddenly one summer, Rick’s mum turned up on a more modern Raleigh lady’s bike with state-of-the-art Sturmey-Archer three speed gears. She never rode it again and it remained round by the dustbins at the side of the house for some time before we purloined it. The chain fell off and the brakes were rubbish, but that made it all the more fun to ride off on into the unknown.

One or the other of us would get on it at the top of somewhere, cry ‘Banzai!’ and see what befell us - usually disaster and bruises for the rider, occasionally similar for anyone who didn’t get out of the way. Our favourite location for this was the public bonfire field which fell away sharply from Hoyles road and really provided a good start for what was to come.

By the time I went to Torquay Grammar, I had a more modern bike. It was great to go to school on because there were few difficult hills between Foxhole and Torre. Coming back, on the other hand, ended up with Maidenway, Blatchcombe or Marldon - all serious climbs.

Sometimes I would follow the Old Paignton Road and make my way to the top of Preston Down. It, too, involved a fair amount of mountaineering, but did at least leave you with a run down from Marldon to Foxhole.

More and more, though, I left the bike at School and walked home. I had bus passes to get me there in the morning, but was often too late to use the timed pass in the evenings having tarried too long in Torquay and, anyway, I enjoyed taking different routes home, including via Cockington, Occombe Valley or Barcombe Heights.

The home time 30 from Castle Circus was best avoided anyway because the lads from the technical school at Plainmoor had already claimed the back seat and were primed to throw satchels and other missiles at the back of your head.

Rick’s and my greatest cycling expedition occurred when my lot were going in the car to Fingle’s Bridge on Dartmoor.

We decided we would cycle and meet them there.

It was unseasonably hot and we made our first stop near the clay pits on the Chudleigh road to drain our water-bottles  before heading off up the Teign Valley in the direction of the moors proper.

Mid morning found us struggling up a very long hill, sweating and dehydrating rapidly. There was nothing else for it; we approached a farmhouse down a side lane and begged for liquid. The response to two young teenagers who’d taken on more than they realised was gently patronising, but bloody welcome all the same.

Suitably rehydrated we completed our assault on the hill from hell and found it easier going.

Completely shattered, we arrived at Fingle’s Bridge around mid-afternoon. The family had given up on us and gone home, of course. There was no way of discovering why we weren’t there, but the most likely assumption was that we had thought better of it hours ago.

We had enough money to buy sandwiches or pasties and a Coke from the kiosk, so we collected them and slumped on a nice soft area of springy moorland turf.

As we munched and swigged in welcome silence I became aware of another turf-seated individual staring at me with a less than pleasant expression.

‘Seen enough?’ says he.

‘More than enough,’ I told him at once.

A dim synapse flared somewhere in his brain cell. ‘Just bloody watch it,’ he cautioned.

‘I am watching it, and I’m not enthusiastic about what I see.’

Rick turned to make a dismissive face at him and, fortunately, he stumped off.

‘What an ape!’ we agreed and turned to considering our options. Essentially, they amounted to head for home or die where we were. So off we set again into the failing afternoon.

It was cold now and we had no appropriate clothing. We looked like we were having a gentle summer outing, but we were beginning to realise the seriousness of the situation and the urgency of getting back to civilisation where we could at least make a phone call.

Then the fog descended; the Dartmoor fog that arrives in moments and blots out everything, including your sense of direction. We leant the bikes against a wall and climbed a small tor to see if we could get our bearings.

From the top we could see less than we could from ground level. Climbing down was like descending into an enormous white lake.

We continued in the direction we had been going in and hoped we were right. Stories of escaped prisoners from Princetown wandering for hours to find they’ve gone in a circle and arrived back at their starting point exist in the essence of Dartmoor. Everyone knows them and, when you find yourself in one of those fogs, they are not hard to believe.

After another long stretch of near blind progress, we came out below the worst of the fog and recognised the hill down from Haytor toward the vale.

Of course, as soon as the fog cleared, motorists reappeared from wherever they had been holed up. 

We hadn’t even given a thought to lighting, so every time we heard a car coming behind us, we had to jump off the bikes and drag them into the hedge.

At last we were off the moor and able to find a phone-box. Rick reversed the charges to his father and hope was at hand.

We continued dodging the traffic until Stover, where we entered the gatehouse of Sanford Orleigh and stowed the bikes in the storehouse there.

We were quivering and verging on gibbering idiocy when John arrived.