Storytime

The August 15th 1993 Section Ride by Paula

This is a true story. Well...kind of...

Twice upon a sunrise and set there was a page fell out of a lion's tooth. (Remember that - the first line of the story is always the most important. Everything else is irrelevant.)

Meanwhile, a cyclist (That's you by the way - I always write personalised stories) had ventured out on one of Alan's cycle rides (brave of you, wasn't it? But well worth getting up early on a Sunday for). You might try and argue with me and say you were actually snoring away, or out sailing instead (Graham and Victoria, and probably Helen too), but you were all there: George Keith, Don Dickinson, Steve Foy, Emms Arthur - you all got mentioned while we were cycling along. In fact it was a very companionable ride, and I'm glad you could all make it.

Anyhow, the Guildhall man hurried by to feed his big-tailed dog, and the trail riders gathered, and a large vat of water wandered past and stopped to chat on its busy task of bringing Salisbury into bloom. (Isn't it amazing the peculiar objects that come to life on Alan's rides? You never know what he'll stop to talk to next, or what peculiar fact you'll discover.)

Well, once the trail riders had trailed off and everyone from Warminster had got married and Paul Perret had joined his favourite Chalke Valley ride by going home to see his friends, back from the wedding, you spun around the market square and snickled off out of Salisbury, smiling at George's video cameras, and headed off into the wilds beyond, where dragons still lurk as St. George stopped for a drink in Salisbury and hasn't moved since. (Dragons are very partial to bicycles, and they certainly nibbled a few chains this ride, and even wiggled a front wheel by leaving one unadjustable brake block up in the air, so the poor girl couldn't use her front brakes without bending the wheel - or that at least was the verdict when Alan stopped to help. (An important 'Search Me?' qualification - courtesy stops to offer a mending hand to upturned bicycles sunbathing at the edge of the road, even if when asked what's wrong all you can say is 'Search Me?!')) But in truth the quarrelling brake blocks came later, on the way back. For the moment you're just cycling past the quiet Kingdom of Flowerland, all the flowers snoring in their beds on this beautiful Sunday morning. You know it's Sunday because a bit later, through one of the outlying villages, there's a vicar standing on the steps of his church wishing us good morning - obviously looking for his congregation which had probably all gone off on holiday. (We realised that practically the entire world but us had done a Lunn Poly get away when we tried to get some lunch, but you haven't got there yet, so tell your stomach to be patient.)

Miraculous how many clergy there were pottering about on this fine Sunday; sadly, one fell victim to the dragons and our poor old Bishop got turned to stone. There you found a cul-de-sac that wasn't really a cul-de-sac, just had a croft in the middle of the croft. So when you found the right half I went and surprised a resident friend. "Is she up?" I asked her gran, and granny called up. She dreamt down stairs, mumbling "What is it Granny?" "Hello," I said. "How did you get here?" "I walked out of a story," I said.

You noticed a swift nest under the eave of the house next-door, and then we cycled on. But Alan took a 'wrong' turning at the widest village of the Chalke Valley so we ended up having to tackle a rather steep hill. John reckons he's a glutton for punishment and did it on purpose, but perhaps it's just and excuse for a Mars Bar sustenance stop. He ought to be sponsored by Mars. I think his bike's made of chocolate. While Alan was nibbling his bicycle, John explained how to get an entrance form by nipping into Smith's and reading page three of a cycling magazine. Naked bikes, hey?

We hardly saw Andrew putting his head on because the wheels were free because we went through it the right way. If we'd gone the other way it would have taken a little longer. Now Alan starts telling a story about a donkey at the Cattle Market staring at a llama as if he'd seen a Martian, as we pass through Search me? land, and the ferry terminal of the year before, where the cows got hungry. Then you pass an empty field with a sign telling the bull to keep out. I didn't know bulls could read, but this one obviously could because he wasn't there now. You start cycling rather quickly.

You pass a post in a fence with a hood on, and some children planted in a flowerbed. "What lovely flowers!" Alan says. "Look! Look! A double-bike!" they call. One of them pulls a face and says "Er?" as if she's thinking "How stupid! The bike-maker made a mistake, he put two people on that bike instead of one." All the little people have convulsions when we pass. One little man tells his grandpa "There was two bikes!" which, not being quite what he meant to say, does not draw the required astonishment so he tries again "There was one bike!" Now Grandpa just thinks he's confused. He is confused. I think perhaps we ought to ride a dragon instead, there'd be less confusion then.

John goes off now to Ford a Bridge. I thought the whole point of a ford was that you didn't need a bridge. But anyhow he wants a longer ride. Who did he say was a glutton for punishment? Some of you went off with him I suppose, but some of you stayed with us, and I guess you're the only ones who're going to understand anything I say now. Actually you'll probably all need a translation, or maybe you'll just come out on the next ride and it will all become a little clearer.

By now the vicars are all waving good-bye to their little parish congregations so you guess it's time for lunch. But, as I said before, the Lunn Poly witch has zapped everyone away, so we gave the Boot the Boot, though Malcolm recommended it (yes, see, you were there too. Thought you'd escaped 'flappy ears on the back' didn't you? Well even the dragons don't escape me.) You see Ron and Judy make the lunches, and they'd been zapped, so there wasn't any food. We were early but we'd seen a local sneak round the back by using the magic password to pass the dog, but in the end we came straight back out again as of no food making us cross.

But once we'd got to be cross, we found the food, and this was much better. Cheddar ploughmans by special request. Then we crossed the road and met a painting gunner. Alan wanted him to paint the post-box green, so the gunner told us how he'd ridden a tandem from trench to trench, but he hadn't visited the caves up the road because he didn't like going underground, and how there used to be a barber in the middle of the road. Did you know that although it costs you fifty pence to call directory enquiries from your house, it's free from a phone box? Another exciting Alan-ride-discovery. This gunner was obviously developing musical abilities; because he said after another thirty years maturing he'd be a record.

Time for the leisurely cycle back. It still hadn't rained though there was a ten percent chance apparently. Alan was trying to work out whether that chance got more or less or stayed the same, because we kept moving. He decided it was still ten percent. The sky was grey, but the breeze was warm. It was so quiet and deserted cycling along between two vast farmers-say-no-to-hedges fields, and without being able to see the sun or the dragons because of the grey layer in-between that it could have been almost any time of the day. We'd eaten all the ploughmen so we were just left with the smell of fresh cut hay. Don't you love the colour of hay? It's a sort of goldy-browny-yellowish colour. You don't find that colour anywhere in a city, only in the country, on hay. We found the time again briefly as we noticed a field on the horizon where there must have been a gap in the cloudy murk above, because all the cylindrical hay bails were shining white on their sides, and dark and shadowy on their ends, as if the sun was touching them all. They looked really three-dimensional and stood out like Christmas tree decorations on the field. Then we passed a sewage farm, and you could smell a different smell, and the sun got shy again and everything became timeless once more.

Eventually we cycled back through inhabited places again, and you could smell pine from all their fir hedges. But the actual fir-trees were flat on top as if somebody's taken a slice off. I was humming, remembering Sid's comments about portable radios that didn't have off-buttons (yes, you were there too), and picking leaves off the trees, and you were quiet as we came back into homely little Salisbury, and went our separate ways, but this isn't the end, because if you REMEMBER... Don't tell me you've forgotten... Well I'll just have to remind you.

Twice upon a sunrise and set there was a page fell out of a lion's tooth. Now twice upon a sunrise and set is a cycle, and we were riding a cycle, so a page fell out of a lion's tooth. A page is known as a leaf, and a lion's tooth is a dand de lion. So we took the dandelion's leaf up to Grandma and Granddad's, because Naddy and I always go up to see them after our cycle rides, and watch Granddad feed his rabbit, and Grandma makes us some tea and we sit in front of her coal fire and hear how we just missed seeing my aunt. She always visits Grandma on Sundays, but we always just miss seeing her. It could have been any Sunday, and everything is timeless again, so I shut my eyes and drink my Ribena and listen to the wind in the chimney and I'm cycling along past vast empty fields again. HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

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