When I was in the 8-10 years old range, my mate and I went everywhere on our heavy steel framed, rod-braked bikes. We were lucky as both bikes were fitted with a 3-speed Sturmey Archer hub gearbox. About 25 years later when I was visiting my parents, they drove my wife and I out into the countryside to visit a pub they liked. We were about 15 miles from home when I started to get a strong feeling of "Deja-Vu". "At the top of the hill, the road will go left and if you look back over the field at the bottom there will be a pond". And so there was! A few miles further on I told them that "on the left at the bottom of that hedge there will be water flowing from a pipe into a stone trough, Gary and stopped there for a drink". I was right again. My Mother was mortified that her young son had travelled so far from home alone on a bike; she thought I was round at Gary's place. His Mum probably thought he was round at my place! We used to leave the house just after breakfast, meet up and not get back home until around 5pm. We didn't take anything at all with us; no food, water, spare anythings - not even a tube! If we got hungry, we found something in a field, or an allotment, or just stole something from the pavement display outside a green grocer's shop. If we got thirsty, we either drank from a stream, any handy outdoor tap or sometimes we just went up to someone's house and asked for a drink of water. I was always the one that went because I had lovely blonde curly hair whereas my mate only had one eye* and looked a bit of a bugger TBH. We were lucky that we never got abducted, cruelly abused and murdered. But that was not how things were in the 50's (well not very often!)
modern kids are missing out
The 1980`s were great.
That`s my childhood right there.........modern kids are missing out
the 5 miles should be more like 10 though and that fire probably burnt down a whole field by accident
your den probably had Vietnam style traps around it without a thought that some dog walker could come along and fall in a 5ft hole
you probably found some adult magazines in the bushes on your way too.
if you were really lucky you might have came across a stolen motorbike someone had stashed in the woods
Don't hate, I have one myself..... View attachment 119960
That's quite a Q factor on that Jetsons cycle
picky, picky, picky!That's quite a Q factor on that Jetsons cycle
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