Boy soldiers by Richard Van Emden

It’s great to come back from a holiday and find that an as-yet-to-be-identified friend has posted a book through your letterbox. Following recent conversations, I think I know who it was, because it continued a theme from the First World War in a book of poetry (also reviewed here) about the pals battalions from Hull.

Richard Van Emden’s painstakingly researched Boy soldiers of the Great War delves into the murky waters of underage boys being sent out to the front, some as young as 13/14 years, when the government’s clearly stated policy put the minimum age at nineteen. Why did so many thousands slip through the net? The answer to that seems to be that they simply lied about their ages during the selection procedures, and the army was so desperate to have recruits, they seldom questioned the veracity of their answers. Besides, recruiting sergeants stood to earn handsome bonuses for the number of recruits they signed up. Reason enough to turn a blind eye.

But why did the boys lie about their ages? It would seem that the arousal of patriotic fervour by Kitchener and the recruiting department, and the dull unrewarding lives these boys led in civvie street, created the perfect setting for them to step forward and embark on what seemed to be an exciting adventure at the time. After all the war, everyone was assured, would be over by Christmas of 1914……….

The war cemeteries of the Somme have a liberal sprinkling of graves of underage boys who lost their lives on the battlefield, and the awe-inspiring monument at Thiepval has a veritable litany of young boys whose bodies were never found.

Raving in Ibiza?

The mention of Ibiza terminally categorizes the island in many peoples’ minds. Made famous by the hippies in the 60s and 70s, it has never really recovered from its image of being the clubbing and raving capital of the Med.

Santa Eulalia

A small island it may be, but far from the enclaves of sweating, intoxicated youth, you will find a landscape brimming with interesting contours, sparkling white villages, ancient buildings that betray the presence of Phoenicians, Carthaginians and marauding Moors and Turks.

Large towns, like Eivissa and Santa Eulalia, proudly present their lofty fortified citadels, built during a period when safety from invaders was paramount. The many secluded Calas (Bays) with their protected beaches, make perfect places for bathing. The surrounding buildings are so perfectly white, they betray a winter spent applying the fresh coat of whitewash before the tourists return in the spring.

With tandem

Each village will have restaurants with sunny terraces, boldly advertising their $10 euro ‘menu of the day’. Choose not just where the locals eat, but where the local workmen eat, and you will enjoy a hearty three course meal, with wine and coffee, and find yourself leaving the table as the clock strikes 5pm. Well, this is Spain, after all……

We even did some off-roading!

Or is it? Yes, everybody speaks Castellano (Spanish), but the local language is Ibecenco (a dialect of Catalan), and all education is imparted in the local language. In fact, what is currently ruffling a few feathers is the attempt by local government to impose a tri-lingual education, adding English to the portfolio of languages. And we are not talking about giving English lessons as a foreign language, but the use of English as the medium of education for some subjects. An ambitious plan when you consider that the use of fluent English is as alien to Spaniards as is the use of fluent French to British people.

I puzzled over the use of the word ‘pitiuso’, and later discovered that it is an ancient Greek term for describing both Ibiza and Formentera. And the latter is only a 30 minute ferry ride from Ibiza, and by bike you can just about cycle the whole island in a day, taking time out for a meal and bathing.

Formentera

After three days on a tandem, and one day on a solo, we had covered large tracts of both islands, seeing them in a uniquely different way, and pedalling ourselves daily to an appetite that fully justified the long, leisurely lunches which, naturally (after a glass of wine or three) made the homeward journey a veritable ‘breeze’………;0)

A bespoke journey Down Under

If you are free, and live locally, do come and join us.

This will be the first of several presentations…….so it may benefit from the freshness that comes with not knowing exactly where the script is going to take me……;0)

Primaveral encounters….

When you ride off-road (known as “rough-stuff” in some cycling circles), you stumble into all kinds of surprises, and some remind you that Spring has finally arrived.

I nearly ran over this grass snake…graceful little creature

This little egg was probably the victim of a predator

My first cowslips

Grafham Water framed

Of course, we are a serious danger to other road vehicles…….

Back on the trails

The old Raleigh is rapidly becoming a hack for scooting along trails in the local area.  And we have some great trails, the most popular being around Grafham Water, a favourite amongst occasional and weekend riders.

But radiating from this 9 mile circuit is a raft of less used trails that take you deep into the countryside.  This morning the sun was bright, there was a gentle breeze from the south and, for once, it was warm enough for uncovering the legs. It can only get better!

Into the Remote Places by Ian Hibell

As an adventure cyclist myself, I love to read about the adventures of others, both for inspiration and for the caveats thrown up by some of the more outlandish and, in some cases, death-defying journeys people tackle. After reading Into the Remote Places by Ian Hibell, the journeys I have done to date pale into feeble insignificance compared with the following:

• his full-length trek (south to north) of the American continent, crossing the Darien Gap in the process. The Darien gap had never been crossed by anyone on two wheels before. Why? Because it is a swathe of undeveloped swampland in Panama, measuring 100 x 31 miles, that is impenetrable as an overland route. It is the only gap in the Pan American Highway running the length of the continent. Hibell crossed it (along with two New Zealanders) with their loaded bikes.
• he was the first to cycle from North Cape in Norway, to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. This included nearly losing his life in the desert, being pelted with bottles in Nigeria, and facing up to the dangers (both human and animal) of some of the most remote places in the world.
• he crossed South America from Peru to Brazil, risking his life by crossing the great Atrato Swamp, which is so impassable that not a single road has been built to cross from one side to the other. Animal tracks were the only guide.

This book is now out of print, and existing copies are now changing hands at more than 10 times its original cover price. If you can beg, borrow……or even buy a copy, it is well worth reading. Sadly, after decades of taking calculated risks on his expeditions, Ian met his end unexpectedly on August 23rd 2008, at the hands of a hit-and-run driver in Greece. The world lost a true adventurer.

Ian Hibell

Life is like riding a bicycle.

Hargrave, Northamptonshire

Honestly, there was no prompter off-stage when Jenny said to me this morning: “Let’s get the tandem out and cycle somewhere for lunch”. As I picked myself up from the kitchen vinyl, I looked out at the bright sunshine and simply had to agree with her……this was a day for cycling somewhere for a pub lunch….after all, it was my day for cooking

Upper Dean, Bedfordshire

Now the tandem had been hibernating for the past 4 months in the garage, so the dust and cobwebs of its winter inactivity had to be brushed off, chains and gears lubed up, tyres inflated, and a general check that everything was as it should be. The conditions were perfect. Cloudless sky, a gentle breeze, cool temperatures……so good, in fact that, now’s the time to unearth some of those time-honoured statements, made by notable figures in the past, that helped to improve the ‘street-cred’ of cycling:

Albert Einstein is credited with this: Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

And this from H.G.Wells: Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I have hope for the human race.

Even Ernest Hemingway had something to say: It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.

And Arthur Conan Doyle is surely right when he says: When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.

And the last word from John Lennon: As a kid I had a dream – I wanted to own my own bicycle. When I got the bike I must have been the happiest boy in Liverpool, maybe the world. I lived for that bike. Most kids left their bike in the backyard at night. Not me. I insisted on taking mine indoors and the first night I even kept it in my bed.