A boy, a bike and a point to prove

One of my most poignant childhood memories is something I think of as The Great Venture.
It began with a put-down from my father.
I cannot remember exactly what was said. Time has erased the words, but not the feeling. Whatever it was, it lodged itself somewhere deep inside me. For months afterwards I carried a private determination to prove him wrong.
I said nothing about it.
I made no grand declarations.
I simply planned.
Then one morning, at twelve years old, I woke up and knew the day had arrived.
My grandfather lived 43.5 miles away. About 70 kilometres. To an adult with a car, it was an ordinary journey. To a twelve-year-old boy on a bicycle, it was an expedition.
I set off alone.
At some point along the way I bought a postcard and a stamp. The postcard was important. It was proof. Grandad could post it back to my father so he would know I had actually done it.
What I didn't realise was that Grandad would be on the telephone to my parents the moment I arrived.
The journey didn't go smoothly.
I suffered a puncture and found myself sitting at the roadside without a repair kit. Refusing to give up, I stuffed the tyre with grass to give it enough shape to keep going.
It worked.
Not well, but well enough.
When I finally reached my grandparents' house, I stayed only briefly. Long enough for the puncture to be repaired properly and long enough to catch my breath before turning around and heading back home.
I remember fragments of the return journey.
A place called Indian Queens.
Darkness.
Exhaustion.
At one point two soldiers in a Land Rover stopped and gave me a lift for a couple of miles. Looking back, they must have wondered what a twelve-year-old was doing cycling alone so late at night.
I remember being desperately thirsty.
I also remember helping myself to a bottle of beer from a crate in the back of the Land Rover while riding with them. Nobody seemed particularly concerned.
Different times.
My final memory of the journey is the last hill before home.
A long climb and descent near Navvy Pit.
The night had turned cold. The handlebars had no insulation on them, and my fingers had become so numb that I couldn't squeeze the bare aluminium brake levers.
Coming down the hill, I couldn't properly brake.
Instead, I shuffled the bicycle sideways, dragging my feet along the road whenever I needed to slow down.
Not elegant.
Not sensible.
But effective.
When I finally reached home, my father was already in bed.
My mother was still awake.
Waiting.
She had a pan of hot stew sitting on the Aga for me.
I don't remember much conversation.
I don't remember congratulations.
And the conversation with my father never happened.
He had left for work before I woke the next morning.
But it didn't matter.
The point had never really been the distance.
Or the postcard.
Or even reaching my grandfather's house.
The point was proving something to myself.
And when I climbed off that bicycle at the end of the day, tired, cold, hungry and utterly exhausted, I already knew what I needed to know.

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