Love affair with bikes

First road-ready wheels aged 6 or 7. I can recall a lot of fuss when I was found several miles away from our home in 4 Springfield Road, St Leonards, Hastings. The only one with a car was the neareby dentist. I was off on my trike to visit uncle Jack and aunt Olive Brabon at Staplecross near Bodiam – some 8 hilly miles away. We often went for Sunday lunch with them and later when at Great Wigsell we had weekly Saturday shopping trips to Hastings, so I knew the routes. Jack kindly gave me the trike, repainted it blue and got it up to a road worthy state; including the tricky and ancient solid state cantilever brake mechanism that I never encountered again until working in Pune, India many years later. More importantly perhaps, Jack also had a fine collection of canon balls in his office, found by him whilst working in the Hop-fields around the well preserved moated Bodiam Castle. My dress style remains almost unchanged to this day. Mums ashed were interred into the family tomb at Salehurst Church, a stone’s throw from the castle, a lovely quiet spot in the E Sussex country side.

Mum taught me to ride two wheelers here, parents will recognise the back-breaking running behind the brat whilst holding him or the saddle. “It’s alright mum you can let go now”. My fearful first over-the-shoulder glance revealed she was some distance behind me, standing in the road shouting & gesticulating wildy.

Mum was doing many jobs at this time Hotel Invergordon (close to the sea-shore, bottle alley and a wonderful bombsite), hairdressing home-visits to old dears like Miss Feast, also soldering & assembling circuit boards (in Hastings, how times have changed) where there was a lovely smooth car-park for practising. It was also close to the Sunday school that I absolutely loathed and hated.

I attended ballet & tap classes at a church hall up the hill from Warrior Square Railway Station. One day the instructor pointed at some of the ballet girls and told me that I’d soon be lifting them around. I felt rather like the unfortunate sea-side donkey that eyed Billy Bunter with huge dismay and apprehension.

Neddy did not seem inclined to start at all. He looked round at Bunter with a very
intelligent eye, and seemed shy. Neddy was a fair-sized donkey; but he might have
thought that what Bunter really needed was an elephant.

Neddy either couldn’t or wouldn’t move. But as his master yanked at him he suddenly
threw up his hind heels and seemed to be trying to nose-dive into the sand.
Bunter flopped over his neck at once. Bunter, according to his own account, was wont
to “witch the world with noble horsemanship” on the hunters at Bunter Court. But
donkeymanship seemed quite a different proposition. Flung on Neddy’s rough and
hairy neck, Bunter clutched at that neck with both arms, and miraculously did not
slide over Neddy’s long ears to the earth. He hung on wildly