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.
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