Post: Blackberry Joe seems to be enjoying the company of Tom Idle and Charlie, and in fact becomes the close friend of several others who began to call themselves the ‘We.R.7′, a bunch of hard riders and rough stuffers who people the books already published of Charlie’s. A great crowd !
Sunday, October 25 Willington
Joe came over at 8.30am this morning, for at 10am we must see Tom at the little canal bridge on Chester road, beyond Warrington. At Four Lane Ends, it came on to rain heavily, we got into our capes and proceeded. At Atherton, under pressure from Joe, we stopped at a Temperance Bar, and despite the chilly morning, quaffed a tankard of Ginger Beer. Ugh! It was icy cold. Then we pedalled away through Glazebury, and stopped when the rain did to get out of the capes, and stopped again to get in, and so on, climbing in and out of them several more times, until, patience exhausted, we shoved them in our bags and said ‘blow the rain’. Whereupon, a tropical deluge soused us and once more we dragged the oilskins out. But it cleared up, so that when we reached grey Warrington, the sun was steaming our clothes and all chilliness had gone.
We met Tom on the road, and as he had a 20 tooth freewheel for me, we stopped while I screwed it on, and then Joe got his pipe on, and settled down. He is still on the improve, is Joe; his latest is a change of gear, bringing it down to my prime favourite, 59.8” free, with 66” fixed on the other side as a reserve. Mine are 59.8” fixed and free, and I find it an admirable gear, not too low, especially for fixed in winter.
To our alarm, up came F. Eastham, the club bore and his rear-lighted pal, the same couple who fastened on to us last Sunday night. We proceeded with them, whilst again I had a fierce argument with the red-light maniac. Every time we meet now, we have a set-to on the subject, but he is so pig-headed that I never hope to convert him. He can’t see reason!
Along Chester road, we (Tom, Joe and I) hatched a plot. Well knowing their hate of sloppy tracks which they have, we decided to devote the day to tracing the muddiest ways we know – and some we don’t in the hope of shaking them off. But that was not necessary, for we reduced our pace to that of the ‘C’ section, and knowing that they class themselves as hard-riders, we got for ourselves a name as potterers. They left us on the Delamere turn beyond Frodsham, speeding away Chester-wards, whilst we forsook the main road, and faced the climb between the headlands – Frodsham and Helsby.
As we climbed higher, walking, the sunlit lane in front and behind became a veritable riot in colouring, drawing cries of delight from us, whilst the headlands, first well wooded, changed into swelling fields of deep brown and red. On the summit, we found a tea-place, and had lunch in a shady, bower-like shed, whilst Joe sighed about the pretty girl who served us. The sighing changed to growling when we were charged 8d each for a pot of tea! Then we sat on a gate for a while, and admired the view westward across the Mersey and Dee, to the Welsh mountains, and to the sunlit plains around Chester.
Then came a downhill dash, with the Vale of Delamere Forest on the left, to Manley, a bridle road, and the duck pond at the end of the switchback. Then the shell-shocked lane, the bounds of which some vandals have been deforesting, by Ashton Hayes Park, a constant reminder of Autumn Glory, to the glossy, noisy Chester road at Kelsall. A moment later this highway was behind and we were heading for the low, wooded hills, at the foot of which is Willington. Willington district is glorious, Willington village is nothing to get noisy about, but the village lasts but a moment, the district can be made to last half an hour. We stopped at Quarrybank fork-roads to admire the scenery and light bits of paper with a magnifying glass, the sun being at midsummer strength, then rushed down between banks of rhododendrons to the Tarvin-Tarporley road, immediately crossing, and joining a bewildering series of lanes in a level, marshy uninteresting district, but with the rock of Beeston Castle before us and the trail of beautiful hills that mark Peckforton Range. We never seemed to get any nearer to the castle, always we seemed ‘so far’ away. But we reached it at last and stood on the little green gazing up at the lofty, beautiful scene. Then round to Beeston Smithy, down to the station, and the old Eaton road, diverging to Oulton Park.
As it was still very early, I promised Tom and Joe a diversion, a bit of rough-riding, and at once I led them across Oulton Common, on a road that earns the definition of a ‘track’. It earned other names too, from Joe, who knows how to speak in a fluent and highly coloured way, when occasion demands. I told him that this was a first class highway in comparison with what was coming soon, and I was threatened with a swift and terrible demise. So when we reached the main road, crossed it, and proceeded along an ill-defined path full of deep bog-holes and tree-roots and boulders, I got well in front and stayed there! It led us a merry dance, but even Joe began to forget his revenge when he beheld the colours and beauties of the woods and bracken. To say it was gorgeous or magnificent is a poor way of explaining, and a pen could only convey the slightest idea of Autumn in these woods.
But as a kind of retribution, my front tyre expired, to the joy of Joe and Tom, who calmly sat on a gate and tried to pull my leg whilst I transferred a liberal tonnage of slime from the wheel to my hands and clothes, in front of a grinning array of village youngsters. Still, a puncture is ‘nothing a pound’, and very soon I had it mended, and was wiping my hands on Joe’s stockings, a thing which Joe didn’t seem to like, though I have seen him do it!
Then we fled down a hill that, in wetter weather, doubtlessly forms the bed of quite a respectable cataract, crossed a sunken stream – which was not sunken enough to avoid getting our feet submerged, and came on to the Tarporley-Warrington road at Cotebrook.
For two miles we skipped along this smooth highway, Joe and I holding a fast pedalling competition. Then we dived through a gate and joined the route of July 5th, over Abbot’s Moss. This was rougher than ever, bringing violent oaths of a glowing nature from the unimaginative Joseph. When we reached the end at Whitegate, he offered to fight me, until Tom the peacemaker strode in.
Mrs Jones at Whitegate made us a sumptuous tea – one thing about this place is that nearly everything is home produced, and can be relied upon for being ‘tre bon’ The little girl about 8 years of age, has the most wonderful head of curly, flaxen hair I have ever seen. She knows it too! With lamps lit we sailed away to Northwich, then by various lanes to Great Budworth, High Legh and Broomedge, where Tom left us and we concluded the ride home in good time. “Day by day in every way, it goes better and better!” 105 miles
