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| Not much holly left for this school outing - the Merseyside Wheelers have taken the best cuts. |
Looking back now, we learn the Sixties was a period
of huge change in Britain, with a new individualism and appetite to live in a
more liberal permissive society. Indeed, and at barbers shops everywhere men, after the obligatory short and back sides, would find the hairdresser
bending to their ear to discreetly ask: “Anything for the weekend, sir?”
As with
most step changes in history, they are not always apparent at the time and it is
left to sociologists – or academics with an ‘ology of some sort or another – to
tell us some years later what the hell had being going on back then.
It was the
time of the Beatles who rocked the world with their chart topping memorable
songs and music. They rode this wave of change and became famous! Oh, yeah,
those lads. “Love me do”, was that one of their songs? Liked their stuff, still do. I remember they went past
our house in a van, once, before they became famous.
The Sixties was also a time
when people began to stand up for their civil and employment rights. As for us
cyclists our world revolved around club runs and races, bit of jazz or rock at
the weekends. And on one Sunday each year we expressed our entrepreneurial
skills by sourcing our own holly in the wild, instead of helping the local
economy by buying it from the local shops!
To reach the secret place where the holly grew wild meant cycling from Liverpool across the Wirral and across the North Wales border, a
round trip of some 40 miles. Who was on that ride with me? Eddie Richards was
there. I remember we all ganged up him on the way home, led him a merry dance. Certainly Dickhead Dave Davis was there (that was Eddie's cruel choice of name for Dave, on account of him often being the brunt of his dry wit). And he was the ringleader. Maybe Tony
T-bone Walsh and Steve Six-guns Sixsmith were also on that run.
On those runs to Wales we’d meet at the Pier
Head landing stage, to take the ferry for a bracing 15-minute sail across the
Mersey to Birkenhead Woodside. I would be wearing my winter gear of choice on bitter cold days, blanket-lined army combat jacket and winter weight training
bottoms, narrow fitting with a zip from just below the knee to the ankle. And a woolly hat.
Leaving the ferry we’d set off down the main road
towards Chester, in seven miles swinging a right, direction North Wales for
elevenses at the Eureka café at Two Mills. Off again, via Queensferry (a small
town, not a boat) to cross the bridge over the River Dee into North Wales where snow lay in the fields – although the roads were clear.
My memory is a bit sketchy
now. Did we take the climb to Hawarden, then down through Fairy Dell on the
Wrexham road? Or did we climb the Ewloe, and take the road towards Mold? When I
Googled the map for this area last week the road junctions had changed beyond recognition. Huge
roundabouts at what were simple road junctions in my day. Must ask a local how
they manage. Perhaps Tony Bell will fill me in.
Anyway, not far along which ever
road we took we joined a disused railway line on an embankment. Checking the
internet for information, I’m pretty certain this old railway line was part of
the Buckley Railway laid during the 19th century, serving brick works and other
industries. The line linked directly to Connah’s Quay on the River Dee four
miles away and it included some very steep gradients.
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| Who did this? No one owned up. |
A snowball fight delayed departure by a good
20 minutes, including five minutes to recover someone’s bike buried under the
white stuff. No one owned up to doing that! We must have a cut a strange sight
on the ride home as light faded – a convoy of holly bushes moving slowly.
Eddie
called out he was stopping to adjust his load which was blocking his rear lamp.
Do you remember cycle lamps back then? Bloody awful Ever Ready’s and Pifco junk
which would fly off the lamp brackets and if they didn’t do that, they would
often flicker and go out. I’ll catch you up, Eddie called out.
He was doing so
quite nicely, was about 10 lengths short of regaining the back of the club run,
but that’s as far he got the first time. It was all Davis’s fault. He was on the
front, but looking back to check on Eddie’s progress, watching for the beam of
his front lamp on the pitch black road. Eddie had a few too many beers the night
before and wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
We waited until he was almost on,
then Davis accelerated our group, pulling us, all laughing, well clear, cutting
our esteemed club mate adrift. When Eddie had vanished backwards into the
blackness we eased off. And when he began to close again the pace lifted and he
got no closer, the red lights of the club run just ahead of him, dancing out of
his reach.
Again the pace dropped to allow him almost to get on, when we
accelerated hard once more. An angry shout from behind revealed he had twigged
what was going on. “You frigging bastards…you frigging shitheads…..”
His cries
carried across the empty fields and we all laughed mercilessly and kept on
riding. Another torrent of abuse came out of the darkness until at last we
relented. Eddie clawed his way back on, whereupon he let us know what he thought us,
of Davis in particular, who he just knew to be the ring leader.
And he issued a
stark warning, a threat. Just wait, come April, you’ll see, when I’ll be fully
fit, I will tear your frigging legs off. Alright, Eddie, it was just a laugh!
When that day in April came he wasn’t fooling. He half-wheeled us all to death,
he did, burned us all off, one by one.
He was, after all, a three times winner
of the Liverpool and District TTA Championship.
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