who were having a great time, full of laughs, for a hundred very active years... so why shouldn't everyone else aim for the same. George didn't bum out, and Bob didn't live in hope... they put a lot into their lives and they got just as much out.
I remember the beginning of my life's cycle with a bicycle... when I was two years old I fell off a friend's tricycle taking a corner too fast because I didn't know to lean into the bend. As I made to turn the trike, I carried straight on... but without those three wheels beneath me.
At four I had my first two-wheeler... in a very attractive red with white mudguards and a shiny bell. As I wobbled down the road (there was little danger from cars in Manchester's baby-booming suburbs after the War - few people could afford such a luxury) one parental hand would hold the back of the saddle to keep me in an upright position whilst I steered gingerly and rang the bell at every opportunity - probably to acknowledge any neighbour peering through their net curtains.
Of course money was tight... a weekly wage averaged around £5 for a five-and-a-half day week so the new bicycle lacked an important feature which, for most beginners, were expected to be standard equipment... outriggers. And the inevitable happened... the day I achieved that confident combination of forward motion without the wobble, I broke free of the steadying hand on the back of the saddle, escaped the safety of parental braking power... and was on my own, heading up the invitingly open road, still ringing the bell, but not knowing how, when, nor why to uncurl my locked fingers from the handlebar's comforting rubber grips to the thin, cold, steely brake levers which would slow my uncontrolled advance towards the brick wall which heading my way as I continued to ring a warning on my shiny, but increasingly ineffective, bell.
Fear does strange things... my mother and neighbours said I was still pedalling when the front wheel hit the wall. I don't remember what happened but apparently I shot halfway over the handlebars, making solid contact with my forehead. The only thing I remember afterwards was butter being rubbed onto the bruised and split skin before being re-saddled to ride once more up the road... mother wanted to make sure I regained my confidence.
After that memorable episode two wheels accompanied me everywhere. As my legs grew longer the wooden blocks were unscrewed from the pedals, and I rode to school, to the swimming baths, to the best train-spotting locations, to the park - ignoring the "No Cycling" notices whenever I dared, and even as a child the gaining strength of my pedal-powered legs outpaced the running power of the park keeper's legs. Freedom was being on two wheels.... yay!
My parents both had bikes... father cycling to work every day, shirt-sleeved in summer and well-wrapped in winter. A few times he was thrown when a front wheel dropped between the many railway tracks which criss-crossed the grim, sprawling industrial area where he worked.
During school holidays mother would take me for short rides to the Barton Bridge aqueduct crossing the Manchester Ship Canal or to Ringway Airport... ahh, picnics of slightly squashed sandwiches, a wedge of chocolate layer sponge cake and maybe a Penguin or Waggon Wheel biscuit followed by a Vimto drink... those were the days.
When my father had his two-week annual holiday we would camp out overnight... the expeditions from Manchester to the rolling hills of Derbyshire took the best part of a day getting there, such was the continual climb beyond Stockport, Whalley Bridge and Chapel-en-le-Frith towards Buxton and into the Peak District... and at other times through the wooded Goyt Valley. My parents were certainly loaded down with me, a heavy canvas tent, blankets, cooker and pots, food and probably spare canteens of water (the hillside streams were used by sheep) and all this on bicycles equipped with 3-speed Sturmey-Archer (Useless, Normal and High) gears. I hope they were covered with Cycleguard Insurance!
Part 2 of My Life on a Bike is here.
4:17:39 PM 
