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Bert Kent of Worthing, who was born in 1928, has some fond reminiscences of his early cycling days.
My introduction to the bike was on a Saturday afternoon at the age of five, for my father used to take me to his allotment on his cross-bar, with a sack wrapped around it. I could not ride side-saddle, because the sack would revolve around the cross bar, and sitting astride, with no stirrups, required a skilful balancing act.
I was one of a large family, so buying a new cycle, or even cycle parts, was out of the question. It may well be that children's cross-bar saddles were not a purchasable item then.
There were many pieces of vacant land around Worthing that became dumps, so we used to acquire all the parts we needed, from the many dumping places, to build or repair the family's cycles.
When father had his holidays from work, he would put me on his sack-covered cross-bar and cycle to Brighton or Arundel. It was no wonder that I acquired the art of balancing, and needed no help when I rode a cycle on my own.
The nuns that taught us at Sunday school put on a film show at Christmas, and in the summer took us on a charabanc to Fair Grounds, at Burgess Hill or Hassocks, and it was at one of these summer outings, at about seven years old, that I hired a cycle on a cycle track and rode it unaided.
Not having a cycle of my own, I would meet the senior boys at the school gate and scoot their cycles across the long playground to the cycle shed, until one day a playful young lad pushed me sideways on.
I fell in a heap on top of the cycle, and the brake handle went straight up my left nostril. I was very lucky. It could have gone in my eye. When the bleeding stopped, all I had was a very sore noise, and a letter to give to mother. Thus that little escapade ceased forthwith.
Bert Kent, Worthing, 2001
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