The School Playground


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Limey was saying that "...if you were lucky enough to get (or inherit) a bicycle - the world was your playground." Which reminds me of a bike I once had. I had 'Double headlights'; one lamp on the fixed fork bracket and one on a clamped-on fork bracket. One night as I was tearing down Gedling Lane from Mapperley top towards Arnold, the clamped-on bracket worked loose and spun into the front wheel. The wheel locked and I decelerated from about 30MPH to zero in less time than it takes to shout Geronimo! I went head first over the handlebars and did something like a somersault as I flew through the air like a trapeze artist. I came to my senses a short while after hitting the ground and my mate was laughing like a drain. That was better than a Charlie Chaplin stunt he laughed. Boy was I sore - the amazing thing was that I was relatively undamaged apart from my street cred as a great cyclist. :o))))))))

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Tough life, bein' a bone................................. !rotfl!

Good whip and tops with a proper leather lace can still be found but the tops are a bit on the light side to get a real good motion going when i was working as a play worker for city council one of m

...and if you were lucky enough to get (or inherit) a bicycle - the world was your playground. To me it was better than an airline ticket!

I went head first over the handlebars and did something like a somersault as I flew through the air like a trapeze artist. I came to my senses a short while after hitting the ground and my mate was laughing like a drain.

Very reminiscent of what happened to one of our 'gang' on one of our regular Sunday afternoon bike rides. This was descending a similar hill - George's Lane down into Calverton from Dorket Head - just at the point of the ominous-looking right-hand bend near the bottom. Said pal went flying over the handlebars - finally coming to rest in...a large bed of nettles... We didn't laugh much. :)

'The youth of today' etc etc.

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Blazing hot day on my bike wearing plimsoles and shorts...nowt else.Flew off my bike into a ditch in Kegworth six foot deep in nettles.I had hundreds of stings and a local farmers wife smeared them in butter....no it doesn't work. Amongst the most painful couple of days of my life.

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Limey is right about bikes back then, we went riding far and wide, Wysall woods, Fishing to Radcliffe on Soar, wouldn't like to try it now though down the A453. If I still had young kids I would probably not allow it, too much traffic and too many creeps.

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Date...................................................Jan 16th (Approx)

Time....................................................6.30am (Ish)

Scene,............................................... Walton Crescent, Carlton.

Weather..............................................Icy

Lighting condition...............................Pitch Black, 1973 power cut during winter of discontent

Mode of transport...............................Raleigh Wayfarer

Reason for being in area....................Paper Round

Result.................................................Lost control on steep decent on ice, collided with wall and somersaulted onto back, clearing the wall in the process!!

Injury .................................................Dented pride, buckled front wheel.

Red Crosses on Photo.

Date...................................................Jan 17th (Approx)

Time....................................................6.30 am (Ish)

Scene.................................................Walton Crescent, Carlton

Weather..............................................Icy

Lighting Condition..............................Neon Street lights (No power cut )

Mode of transport ..............................A borrowed sisters (girls) bike !!

Reason for being in area....................Paper Round

Result................................................ Couldn't stop, decided to "Bale out" ie jumped off before reaching 'busy' road at bottom (Station Road) carried on skidding on bottom alongside bike straight through all the traffic without colliding with anything!!!

Injury..................................................Needed new underpants and decided to walk the paper round till the weather got better !!!!

Green Crosses on Photo

6709636461_593c990ef5_b.jpg

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Are we an incompetent lot of bikers on here? I was forever falling off my motor scooter as well as my pushbike. The best was on my way to Southend one day. Got as far as , IIRC, near Old Dalby (a steep downhill going south, can't remember the name of the village but on A606; don't have map to hand ). Close to the top of the hill I had cause to brake and the scooter went from beneath me trapping my steel toecap between the running board and road. It dragged me a way down the hill, breaking the steering column top plate. I tidied myself up, thumbed a lift into Melton Mowbray but couldn't get a spare part so I used the mirror clamp to hold the plates together and continued my journey to Southend - there was a bird waiting for me so I had to continue, come what may! That bodge repair lasted ages.

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Eeny Meeny Miny Mo...Catch a politically correct ethnic minority of either gender and sexual preference disabled or mentally disadvantaged person by the toe.

I discussed this down the pub last night and left my Afro-Caribean aquaintance "Toeless Terrence" feeling decidedly discriminated against....So perhaps we could add a rider to that well known phrase or saying to the effect that the person should be caught "....by the toe or in the advent of the toes being non-existent, any suitable part of the anatomy to be decided upon at the time of catching." And just in case the ethnic majority are also offended maybe we should include them too - "Catch an ethnic minority, or majority, of either etcetera..."

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"If he squeels put him in a safe house till after the trial, then put him in witness protection for the rest of his life , which ( Judging by just about every telly programme you see where 'witness protection' is used ) won't be very long any way !! "

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My dad made ‘Winter warmers' to keep us warm in winter, a paint tin stuffed with rags, long wire handle added, swung around with a great whooshing sound-great fun!

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I never saw these but I had them described to me in about 1974 by a chap who used to live in the Meadows. He said they were very popular down there in the 1950s.

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In the sub-zero winters at Wm. Crane the ice slides would be made, dozens of kids hurtling toward the school wall at incredible speed, each slider getting braver by the minute, until the dreaded time when a Master would declare an end to the proceedings and ceremoniously poor salt on our creation!

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I recall one particular vicious winter: February, 1956:

we kids had made a magnificent ice slide stretching halfway down Watford Road, Aspley - right outside my grandmas.

In class - William Crane Juniors - I prayed during lessons that the slide hadn't melted. When the school bell rang for dinner I dashed to meet the other kids from off the road queuing up for some more fantastic rides on the giant slide. Even grandma calling us in for dinner was boring, all we wanted to do was slide and hope the freezing cold weather lasted forever - also hope no cruel neighbour chucked ashes or salt on our prize possession.

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I remember one particularly snowy night in the Nags Head on Carlton hill. That bad nothing could get up the hill, we were all out pushing buses etc , after a bit of a lock in , me and my mate Alan then spent a good hour builing a slide down the middle of Chesterfield Street !!! ( Yes we were both around 21 at the time too , he says with head bent in shame drawing an imaginary line in the floor with his toes !!)

It was a good 300 foot long down the middle of the road. We woke the next day covered in bruises where we had fallen over the night before , but neither of us felt 'owt at the time as we had "Liquid courage" inside of us

6731023245_0dde9abcea_b.jpg

See that red line ??

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