On your bike…

When I was a kid everybody had a bike. My mum had a bike, my dad had a bike, all of my aunts and uncles had bikes, even my gran had a bike. All the kids in the road had bikes, stickered and flagged with bells and honkers.The butcher had a bike, the baker had a bike - even the candlestick maker (if there had been one) would have had a bike I expect.

Policemen rode bikes, newspapers were delivered by boys on bikes, midwives almost delivered babies on bikes. Of course postmen rode bikes as they do still, but back then they delivered huge parcels by balancing them on wooden board platforms placed on frames in front of the handlebars.

We never actually had our coal delivered by bike, but the paraffin man delivered the paraffin by bike and the meter reader made his rounds by bike.

The vicar rode a bike, the stationmaster rode a bike, even old mad Annie rode a bike, singing her head off as she rode around town in a dirty pink slip and a straw hat decorated with flowers.

Danny Dustbin, the rag man, rode a bike with a trailer, knocking on doors and carting away bits of rusty metal, broken radios and even bones. Occasionally the knife grinder would turn up on his specially adapted bike, engaging a second chain and pedalling away, driving his grinding wheel and sharpening the knitting scissors.

Mrs Mathews, my teacher, rode a bike to school, and Nappy, the gravedigger and child molester, rode a bike to the churchyard, balancing his spade along the crossbar and whistling hymns for those in peril on the sea.

The vet had a bike, Dr. Beer had a bike (although I never saw him riding it), Sadie the barmaid at the Brewers had a top-heavy bike, Jolly Jack (of Jolly Sailor fame - shut that door!) had a bike, even old Mr. Crumpet, who’d fought in the Great War and was always more than happy to tell you all about trench-foot, had a bike.

Some people (the posh ones) had two bikes – one for the weekdays and a Sunday bike to cycle to church on. The Harrington spinsters had bikes, tricycles with sun hoods in the summer, and sometimes, in the spring, you’d see visitors in shorts riding along the high street on tandems, and once I think I saw three Oxford chaps on a bicycle made for three all dressed in white trousers and college caps.

Yes, everyone and anyone had a bike in the heady days of my sunlit childhood.

Except me.

I never had a bike, never rode one, I never wanted to - part fear and part total disinterest. Oh, I could have had one; my dad would have bought me a bike in a moment, and my uncle Bob would probably have made me one, stripping the parts from old wreckers from the tip and painting it up with spray cans bought from Plater’s the corn merchants. Uncle Charlie (God bless him) would have ‘found’ me a bike and I could have borrowed a bike from the Braham boys, who had six or seven each.

But I didn't want one.

For years I was a figure of fun; pointed at, whispered and giggled about, taunted: “He can’t even ride a bike you know.”

And I couldn’t.

Years later I did learn to ride a bike after a fashion, but back then I was a non-biker in a world where everyone rode a bike.

How times change. These days’ bikes seem to be ridden mainly by men wearing lycra shorts, streamlined helmets and ‘I am the fly’ sunglasses. The country roads are awash with packs of three-abreast Mafiosi cyclists on Sunday mornings, and through the week they arrogantly weave in and out of the city traffic, ignoring red lights and popping onto the pavement whenever there’s an obstacle.

The hordes of bicycle riding children I remember from my childhood years and youth are no more, and hardly a child seems to be out peddling along the street even on the warmest summer evening.

I’m no longer an oddity. Lots of people no longer ride bikes - scrub that - most people no longer ride bikes, and children have given up cycling in favour of their gaming consoles where they still ride bikes - but virtually.

Only people who set out to ride bikes, ride bikes; they aren’t transport, they aren’t delivery, they’re no longer a necessity.

Pity really.