One Man's Mountain , livre ebook

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149 pages

English

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'One Man's Mountain' is a powerful and energetic memoir describing how what seem to be distant and unachievable dreams can become real and develop into a life's experience that is way beyond what was thought possible.The book depicts life's experiences leading from war-time to normal peacetime living. An ordinary suburban lifestyle enables the writer to explore and adventure on two wheels and brings to life a competitive spirit, which causes the writer to see and develop an ambition. The goal to be achieved centres upon an island in the Irish Sea, yet seems beyond reach. The difficulty is that it combined the need to ride and earn a living! Yet strangely, work and play relate.

Sujets

Memoir

Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Distributed by eBookpartnership
Date de parution	21 février 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781839784330
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Extrait

One Man’s Mountain

Graham Bailey

Photograph used in cover design and title page: ‘Ago’s Leap’ 1973 Senior TT taken by Victor Blackman later gifted to the author, Graham Bailey, with the comment, ‘It’s OK, there’s no negative. It’s yours.’ What a privilege!

One Man’s Mountain
Published by The Conrad Press in the United Kingdom 2021
Tel: +44(0)1227 472 874 www.theconradpress.com info@theconradpress.com
ISBN 978-1-839784-33-0
Copyright © Graham Bailey, 2021
The moral right of Graham Bailey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
Photographs are author’s own and by kind permission of Mortons Archive.
Special thanks to Victor Blackman for the cover photograph
Typesetting and Cover Design by: Charlotte Mouncey, www.bookstyle.co.uk
The Conrad Press logo was designed by Maria Priestley.

Lovingly dedicated to Rosemary, my beloved wife; Mary and Clare, our dear daughters and their dear husbands, James and Pieter-Bas; and also to our precious grandchildren: Ruby, Naomi, Evie and Amy, Jesse, Lizzie, definitely  mountain climbers of the future.

1
Unusual aromas, things that go bump in the night, Doodlebugs and V2s
I t was the distant sound that got to me.
Having recently moved from our war-time and immediate post-war homes south of London in Bromley, Kent, the family was now settling into our new abode above Dad’s office. It was nearer to London in Upper Norwood S.E.19. Crystal Palace, and the now-empty site of the glass and wrought iron building, which had moved from Hyde Park following the Great Exhibition of 1851, was a mile or so down the road. This mysterious noise, rising and falling on the wind, seemed to emanate from that direction. One moment the sound was low pitched, a muted roar, which then developed into an angry staccato rising rhythm. Minutes later the air was filled by a higher note; what sounded like a swarm of equally angry bees travelling at high speed.
Some time later, during an exploratory walk down Church Road towards ‘the palace,’ one’s senses were assailed by a smell difficult to describe but strangely pleasant, and to my youthful senses, a little intoxicating. This aroma, carried on the breeze, came from over the boundary wall of the palace grounds and seemingly accompanied those strange yet wonderful sounds. You’ve got it. I had discovered that Crystal Palace had its own motorcycle and car road racing track, and it was just a ten-minute walk from home. Your scribe, almost unwittingly, had become well and truly hooked on a sport about which he had heard not very much.
Once, soon after the war, when messing about with my pal Kenny Drew on the Sundridge Park Golf Club in Bromley, he had motioned towards a distant place over the hill and talked about his older brother who had gone to watch the racing at a place called Brands Hatch. That was the limit of my knowledge of things motor racing!
Throughout the war years, the family lived in a rented semi-detached house at 7 New Farm Avenue, which was in the south of Bromley. I recall watching from the front window as men of the local Home Guard, exercising along our road, would duck into our front gate, crouching with their rifles at the ready to gain protection and shield us from the enemy !
It is impossible to know exactly when a small child’s memory ‘kicks off’ but I can recall one night quite clearly. There was an air raid going on and the family, plus several neighbours, were gathered in the darkened back room overlooking the garden. The little lad was snuggled up well away from the glazed French doors and was aware that the sky was lit by many different flashing colours. The air was filled by the sounds of what I now know to be enemy aircraft, with anti-aircraft guns trying to knock them out of the sky.
The sound of the engines was strangely off-beat, and in later years, one learned that a ‘frightener’ tactic of the German Luftwaffe was to run multi-engine aircraft with the motors set slightly out of sync. Thus, a strong unnerving off-beat rhythm was set up to frighten those below. Even today, if a large multi-engine piston engine aircraft passes overhead in dead of night and the atmospheric conditions, cloud and wind, cause an offbeat engine note, one can get the willies , as the long-remembered sound pushes through the clouds.
At the end of our road, you could turn right along Cameron Road, climb the steep slope, and enter Stone Road. This road was where the ‘posh’ houses were and the road surface comprised flints, stones, and earth packed down; not tarmac finished as we understand roads nowadays. Behind Stone Road, farmland stretched towards Hayes, bounded by Pickhurst Lane, Hayes Lane, and Mead Way. Crossing Mead Way, the open land stretched even further southwards, almost to the village of Hayes.
As little children, the farmland was one of our many playgrounds. On occasion, it would have been 1944, we were able to make use of a trench dug across a field which the Home Guards had probably constructed (‘there’s a war on you know!’), and watching from its protection, were able to observe the odd V1 ‘Doodlebug’ flying bomb, as it approached the end of its destructive journey towards London.
Dad worked on the buses, having joined the LGOC London General Omnibus Company in the 1930s. He was what we kids proudly termed, a gold badge inspector; the real title was Chief Depot Inspector. He, like most of the other folks in what had become London Transport, did what was known as ‘shift work.’ One of his duties was to ride on buses, check running times, and keep an eye on things. I recall that because he was a people person, he seemed to get on alright with the crews. I remember that on the way home from an evening outing by bus, the driver would sometimes draw to a standstill at the end of our road, nowhere near the official bus stop, and allow Mum, Dad and the two children to get off, with a friendly farewell from the Conductor, ‘OK, Mr Bailey, this should do you.’
On Sunday19th November 1944, Dad set off for ‘late turn’ and apparently his duty was to ride on a double-decker along the regular route 94, which ran between Grove Park and Southborough near Petts Wood, where the route would terminate at the Crooked Billet Public House in Southborough Lane. The bus would be parked up at the stop by the pub, allowing the crew their break before its return run towards Bromley and back to Grove Park. This long-established and historic public house was popular and well frequented. As it was a good evening weather-wise, Dad decided to hop off at the earlier fare stage, which was at the Chequers Public House in Southborough Lane, stretch his legs, and take a bit of a walk to re-join the bus at The Crooked Billet in time for its return trip.
Sadly, at approximately 9:12 p.m. from The Hook of Holland, Herr Hitler had launched one of his Vergeltungswaffe-zwei/Vengeance Weapon 2, the rocket propelled V2 flying bombs which would travel at over three thousand miles per hour. At about 9:18 p.m., as Dad approached the Crooked Billet on foot, this bomb impacted with devastating effect on the forecourt of the public house. Dad arrived upon the scene of the tragedy quickly, to find that an alphabetical list of casualties was being prepared and that his name was on the top of the list of dead and injured. Twenty-seven people, including a sailor who was home on leave from fighting at sea, and three soldiers, based at Thornet Wood Camp, lost their lives. Many more were injured, yet Dad was spared.
I was unaware of Dad’s delivery from this tragedy for many years but was blessed by his love and fatherly care throughout my childhood and teenage years. It was an early, but as then unrecognised, lesson in my experience of God’s love and hand on my life. (It should be added that it was reported that Adolf Hitler took his own life on 30th April 1945, five months and twelve days after the lives so cruelly taken on the borders of Bickley and Southborough).
Historians in the twenty-first century are very keen to describe just what this country was like during and just after the war years. It is claimed by them that it was drab and grey, without any colour at all. Perhaps their research had been somewhat selective and was certainly not experiential, because, although certainly many young children would not have appreciated the situation that the grown-ups faced daily; for us children, being around in those years was quite full of colour and fun!
Sadly, however, as soon as peace returned to little old England, the owners of number seven, who had been down in the West Country for a short break, decided that they wanted their house back! (‘Was it really six years, dear? You said it would be just a short holiday!’)
I believe that in those days, so soon after the time of war, the law allowed that the family resident at number 7 would have been fully entitled to sit tight. Dear Dad, who was such a peaceful guy, not wanting to make a fuss, decided graciously that we would move out. I was later to learn that Ronald Arthur Bailey, with his quiet and friendly manner, was a man of strong principle who could and would stand firm when necessary. Another lesson to be learned by his son. So, there you go!
We were on the move. Thus, in 1946, we arrived at our new home on the ‘other side of town’, at 64 Park Road. From my bed, through the ceiling and gaps in the roof, I could see the sky. And we didn’t even have a bathroom. This little lad, in his seven long years, had become so used to such a luxury. Apparently, a kind builder, putting to rights the bomb damage, somehow managed to fit us up with a lovely bathroom in what had been one of the bedrooms.
The Bromley playground for a lad after the war; there were places to go, apart from