On yer bike!

While I’m reminiscing in things long past I should perhaps tell you about our first vehicle. As I’ve mentioned we lived on the edge of a field in a caravan 22x7.5 feet behind a hedge with a hole in it as our front gate. Through the hedge was a corrugated iron sheet acting as a bridge over a deep ditch, beyond that was a lane that ran down the side of a disused airfield. Sorry about all the detail but it is relevant to the transport situation.

We bought a tandem from Mum and Dad’s neighbour for £6, no it was a good one, things were cheaper then. This was our family transport though I did have my own bike when I wanted to be independent. When we went shopping in the village which was the other side of the airfield, we used to set the tandem on the main runway and if the wind was right I would sit bolt upright, hold my coat open and we would sail down the run way at a fair old speed. On the way back against the wind we would use the lane with high hedges.

In the field where we lived there were no facilities and as the first summer was really hot the farm who supplied us with water from a bore hole rationed us to one bucket a day, my how we must have smelt! To some extent we used to visit friend to use their baths and even if they weren’t friends and they had a bath they soon became friends. One couple we knew lived up a hill a little way along the lane and away from the airfield, of course they had a bath. Returning one evening from them Mike was on the front of the tandem and decided to let it go. We whistled along the lane until we came to the corrugated iron bridge which Mike completely missed, the tandem went into the ditch catapulting me over the hedge, Mike into it and completely wrote our machine off. From then on Mike walked!!