Travel Biography - Week 41.

Turning a Disability on its Head.

In Week 1 of this Travel Biography, I opened with my admiration for the BBC Travel Presenter Simon Reeve. His extroverted, laid-back presentations without ever first attending a private school or a university have made me a fan. However, there is another presenter, Chris Packham, who specifies on natural history for the BBC and also deserves my attention.

Unlike Reeve, Packham shined well at Bittern Park Secondary School (a Comprehensive today) with his sixth form at Taunton College before progressing to Southampton University where he gained a Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology before entering the world of journalism. 

On the Spectrum - Chris Packham.

Packham's experience at his school was very similar to mine, especially in sports. Like me, he was a loner, he had very few friends, he was bullied, and he was not into team sports. Instead, he loved nature and furthered his studies in the route of his main interest. And as I refer to his condition, he's on the Spectrum, my preferred way of referring to high-ended autism, or Asperger's Syndrome.

Asperger's Syndrome, discovered by a German Dr Hans Asperger in the 1940s, is a combined mental and emotional condition which restricts social reactions, thus tending to be loners. Chris Packham, although he has a non-resident partner in Charlotte Corney who owns a wildlife sanctuary, is in his 60s, and remains unmarried. Just like two well-educated men whom I know personally. One has a PhD in Genetics, the other a degree in Mathematics, and both remain single to this day. Both are regular churchgoers, neither had ever played in a sports team (other than school games) and both are on the Spectrum. As for international travel, neither of them would go abroad without their Christian travel agent, Oak Hall, with their escorted group tours.

And rather late in my life, it took a psychologist to reveal the answer to my lingering set of questions - why was I lacking in school team sports, especially in football (soccer) and rugby? And during those dreadful pre-game team captain selections, why was I always the last to leave the shelf? And in restaurants or pubs to this day, why was I always the quiet one in a group? According to her, the psychologist eventually diagnosed my condition - I too was on the Spectrum.

And this explains just about everything, from negative schooldays experience, very similar to Chris Packham's schooldays, to the positive take on international travel, which is on parallel terms with his love for wildlife. Therefore, I can say that, rather than allowing myself to be defeated by the syndrome, instead, I unknowingly used the condition to fulfil my dreams, meet my aspirations and experience adventure as a solo traveller. And so, a bug found its home in me in 1973, when I ascended the slopes of Mt Vesuvius and walked the streets of Pompeii. Or was the travel bug already residing in my soul right from birth? And was that demonstrated by the lone walks I did across London during my childhood, described in Week 1?

Therefore, to find myself as one of a group of five keen cyclists was a step outside my realm, a detour from the normal tracks of solo backpacking. Yet, as I mixed socially with both middle and working-class friends alike, without any barriers, this proved to be good for the soul, both theirs and mine.

The Take on Long-Distance Cycling and the Triathlon.

As documented in Week 30 of this Biography, my social life in the 1980s can be divided into two halves. From 1981 to 1985, I devoted my time to the studio of Hospital Radio, then known as Radio Heatherwood of NHS Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot, also the home of the famous Royal horse-racing venue. It was while I was serving as a presenter that I have gotten the idea of raising funds for the station through physical activity. At first, this took the form of a long-distance swim at the hospital nurse's pool next to the resident's grounds during a fund-raising fete. After that, I began to run the Bracknell Half-marathon for the same purpose of fund-raising through sponsorship from my window-cleaning clientele and friends at Bracknell Baptist.

I ran three half-marathons during the first half of the 1980s, which were also the years I visited France, especially Mont St Michel, Rouen, Rennes, Clermont Ferrand, and Paris. However, while I was swimming at Arthur Hill Pool in Reading in 1986, I became acquainted with one of the trainee lifesavers, Chris Treacher, a financial advisor who was also a member of Thames Valley Triathletes, or TVT, a triathlon club also based in Reading, and at that time, met on Monday and Wednesday evenings at South Reading Leisure, and at the Meadway School swimming pool in West Reading, on Fridays. It was after training on Fridays that some of the regulars made their way to the Pizza Hut in the town centre for a late evening social over dinner.

At the Newcastle to Reading Charity Ride, 1989.

Thus, during the late eighties and into the nineties, I was committed to the multi-discipline sport of the Triathlon, a combination of swimming, cycling and running within a single race. Open-water triathlons usually had a mass start, like in any other race, a crowd of lycra-clad athletes dashing straight into the sea or large lake. The Swanage Triathlon, the Open Water Triathlon at Stubbers, Upminster, and the Bananaman Championships at Fairlop Waters in Romford, Essex, had a mass-start swim where I competed in all three of these events. 

Staggered start triathlons were normally at swimming pools, and the event was more of a time trial than a race. Such events I completed were at Wokingham, Newbury, Farnham, Winchester, Eastbourne, and East Grinstead. 

Although I competed in triathlons around Southern England, for events held at Winchester, Eastbourne, East Grinstead, Romford, Swanage, and Upminster, train travel (all of them alone, and not with the club) was a necessity with a pre-event overnight stay at a hotel or hostel. This included Upminster, entailing the only Underground train journey completed by loading my bike on the District Line train at Embankment Station after alighting at London Waterloo. It looks to me that by loading a bicycle on an Underground train, I made history! At Swanage, Winchester, and Eastbourne, I stayed at a Youth Hostel, and at a hotel in Romford, Upminster, and East Grinstead. For Farnham, Wokingham and Newbury, the overnight stay at or near the venue wasn't necessary.

As for long-distant cycling, two venues where the 100-mile 162 km circuit was completed, the 1991 Salisbury Century in Wiltshire and the 1992 Norwich Century in Norfolk, and for each, there were only two of us in the crowd, Gareth Philips and me. We completed each circuit in good time, although there was a mandatory lunch break at the fifty-mile point. Indeed, the ride was more for charity fundraisers than fast, competitive cyclists. But what made the Norwich ride more interesting was that the city hostel was closed for a conference to be held on the same day as the ride. So I wrote to the hostel's warden, explaining about the ride organised by Bike Events. The response I received was that the conference was postponed to make way for the Century Ride. When we arrived at the Norwich Hostel, the dormitory was occupied not by men in suits but by riders in lycra.

The 1989 Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Reading Charity Ride.

But I'm jumping ahead of time here. As a member of Thames Valley Triathletes, in 1989, the father of one of the club Committee members, Don Rawson, and members of the Reading Lions teamed up on a fundraising project to buy a minibus to transport senior citizens and the disabled in the Reading area. And so, through sponsorship, a 300-mile 483 km three-day ride from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Reading cycle ride was organised to cover the August Bank Holiday. This group, a mix of Reading Lions with TVT, consisted of eleven all-male cyclists and one female co-ordinator who drove the van that stored our bikes, accessories, and a crate of bananas during the three days and nights we were away from home. I was the last to join the group after they accepted my request a few weeks earlier.

After travelling in the van from Reading to Newcastle, we spent our first night squeezed together in the lounge of a private home, obviously known by Don Rawson, and possibly even related. By the next morning, in pretty miserable but mild weather and some light rain, we assembled on Tyne Bridge spanning the river of the same name, and we set off.

And yes, I became the centre of attention when first my rear tyre punctured. The whole team had to stop whilst my tire was changed by fitting a spare tube taken from the accompanying van. Then later on in the ride, it happened again, this time with the front tyre! I became the butt of jokes as the rest of the team expressed their frustration! But that was the risk when riding a bicycle with high-pressure tyres over wet ground. Any sharp particle would more likely cling to the tyre and the wheel roll over the sharp object when wet, rather than the shard flying off when the ground and tyre were dry.

Eventually, by early evening, we arrived at Thirsk, Yorkshire, after less than seventy miles of riding. And Don Rawson got to talk with the Mayor of Thirsk, who organised a banquet for all of us after we showered and changed. Then we each bedded down on the floor on an inflatable mat inside the town's Community Hall. 

The next day, after breakfast, we set off for the next leg of our journey. This was to be over 150 miles long, totalling 216 miles from Newcastle. This was of concern for some of the members who had milometers fitted on their bikes, and ensuring that they were all properly calibrated, so each gave the same reading independently. Their aim was to crack over 300 miles in three days.

Fortunately, a strong tailwind picked up, a northeasterly, and this drove us to ride fast along the A19 dual carriageway. The weather and the ground were dry and there were no more punctures. Imagine a line of cyclists, one behind the other, riding single file and feeling as if we were an express train at full speed. That's how I felt.

We arrived at Market Harborough in Leicestershire around tea time, earlier than scheduled. This gave me a chance to have a bit of a wander around to check out the market town. Unlike in Thirsk, there was no one to greet us personally, and again, after showering and changing at a particular venue, we had dinner at a local Pizza Hut restaurant. We then finished the evening with a bit of fun and games before we settled down for our final night away from home.

All of us at Market Harborough.

The next morning, Bank Holiday Monday, we once again set off for another day's riding. The weather was good, with warm sunshine. In contrast to the previous day's ride which was flat and fast, this leg, although just over ninety miles long, nevertheless, would be hilly, with the Chilterns to contend with. By the time we arrived at Reading, which was again around teatime and on schedule, we would have covered a total of 302 miles altogether. Our aim was fully met.

In Reading, another celebration banquet was laid on, after which we returned to Don Rawson's home in Woodley, a village east of Reading. It was here that my punctured tyres were repaired and refitted before eventually cycling home in good spirits.

Indeed, I might have Asperger's, according to the psychologist, but rather than it defeating me socially, this adventure proves that I was able to turn it on its head and benefit from it.

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Next Week: On yer bike - the Big One!