His first club run for ages allows Charlie to meditate on the merits of clubruns as opposed to riding with his special friends all the time.

Nothing sensational today, just an afternoon run that got so good it became an evening one as well.  Just the odd 60 miles, as casually as one would walk to the corner shop for a loaf of bread.

Being the CTC run leader today, Charlie takes his responsibilities very seriously but still takes all the time in the world to appreciate his surroundings.  Today is a ‘tour de force’ of descriptive writing.  I defy anyone to better Charlie’s descriptions of the route and the countryside as he saw it today, with all, well nearly all, traces of last weeks snow melted and gone.  This is how Charlie Chadwick can bring any scene to life, and he does it so well.  I feel it is like a painter except that Charlie uses words instead of a brush.  But the picture is placed before one just the same.  And what better scenery than that found in the Cheshire lanes to put his skills to such good purpose.  And let us remember something very important too – Charlie is still some four months short of his 20th birthday.  As I said in the Foreword to Charlie’s first book: ‘Charlie Chadwick was an amazing man’.  And everything he turned his hand to is confirmation of that phrase.

Sunday, October 11                                        Chester

We were resolved on a potter today, and had an idea of going to Chester and showing the folks on the river how to handle a boat.  Or is it ‘how not to?’  (Shut up, Joe).  Ben and Joe came at 8am for me and proceeded to let the neighbourhood know it despite my pleas for peace.  However, we pottered away over the setts to Atherton, cinder lanes to Butts Bridge, then good tarmac to Warburton, where macadam gave us the fourth variation.  And all the time Joe had been what he calls singing songs – the noise was there alright, if not the tone.

Tom was waiting at Broomedge, 9.30am with a bicycle that was spick and span – a brand new ‘Grubb’ with BSA fittings (just like my bike!).  Speaks well for my machine, for owing to the satisfaction I have experienced with my Grubb, it has been instrumental in him deciding to emulate my purchase, as well as three other friends over this year.  As the Grubb advert says, “Ask the man who rides one”.  With hopes of seeing it splashed a bit before the day ended, we started along the usual High Legh-Budworth bylanes, the while Joe held forth loudly about ‘My Darling Clementine, or Serpentine, or Caroline’ or something.  I am not well up in modern songs.  Great Budworth was old, quaint, and quiet as ever, we pottered cheerily along to Joe’s accompanying lyrics which fairly roused the countryside.  From Little Leigh we joined the little direct lane that swoops down to the River Weaver with a surface that is alternately a mud bath and a chaos of little boulders called cobbles.

Across the Warrington-Tarporley road, and up the hill to Milton, with Joe carefully scrutinising every blackberry bush, and when he found none he dived into his copious saddlebag and produced a large parcel which he calls a snack, and all the uphill way through Norley he was munching away.  Delamere Forest, as anticipated, was a veritable wonderland of colours.  From the little duck pond at the end of the ‘switchback’, we went through Mouldsworth to the village of Ashton Hayes, where, in the village street, Joe punctured.  Which was good, for we could pull his leg about it, like he does ours, so I found a comfortable seat and presided over the proceedings.  Then we carried on to Tarvin and did a ‘blind’ on the main road to Chester.  Here we found a lunch place, placed our bikes in a tumbledown old shed and proceeded to make merry.  Joe had some brown bread of a brand known as ‘Moorma’ (more, ma); he got his leg pulled over it.  We made it into a popular song, for us.

Then we went down to the River Dee, procuring a boat from a chap who, if he had known us, might never have trusted us.  He did ask if we could row, and we answered him in the affirmative without a blush.  The boat had two sets of oars and a rudder, so as a kick-off, Tom and I took the oars whilst Joe and Ben had a row over who should twiddle the rudder.  We had first turn for the best men always row, besides, as we told the others, they could watch and learn, then when their turn came they would know how it is done.  It is a bit of a job getting a boat under way with one like Joe sat in the back.  Tom rows too slowly, with the result that the oars constantly got in each other’s way; I row lightly and quickly with a grace that others might do well to copy, but of course one cannot expect three dull blighters like they are to see beauty in rowing.  When I explained that to them, they only laughed coarsely.  Still, except for that (Tom’s rowing), and the rowlocks being unsuitable which made the oars slip and send us backwards, and a crab or two, or going a bit too deep, we should have done fairly well, but Joe did not use the rudder in a right manner, with the result that we zig-zagged all over the river, to the rage of other boaters who got unreasonably mad about it.  And Joe would not listen when we told him.

Yet we gradually left Chester behind (to the relief of Chester), embarking on virgin waters.  Scowling fishermen lined the banks, and because we happened to pass near them they kicked up a frightful row, swearing with a violence that might have been better employed.  Joe told them that it was their worm that wasn’t trying, which made them rise in a body and get so aggressive that I thought they were going to swim out to us.  So, being a peace-loving quartet we crossed over to the other side and promptly got in another row for being on the wrong side of the river.  Finally, as a compromise, we kept in the middle.

Near Eccleston Ferry, the river became very beautiful, lined with autumn-tinted trees that bent their branches to the water.  We passed Eccleston Ferry and got near the grounds of Eaton Hall before we decided to turn back – we had been out over an hour as it was.

Joe started to row then, and I must say that he did very well – nearly as good as me, but Ben! – we had to sack him.  And so, aided by the current and my skilful guiding, and hindered by Joe’s sea songs, we meandered back and reached the landing stage after two and a quarter hours on the water. We did not delay for we were afraid that Chester was full of fierce anglers who positively ached to get hold of us, so we slunk through the back streets to our bikes, rescued them and made off.

Four miles later, feeling safe, we stopped at Mickle Trafford for tea.  Joe discovered that he had left his bag open in the tumbledown old shed at Chester, and the rats had eaten his tea.  A few chewed bits of paper proved that!  Anyway, he got a full tea for 9d, so he had little room to grumble.  On the Chester road on our return journey, Joe made the following verse up to suit the chorus to a popular song:

“Oh the rats have been at my Moorma, while I’ve been away!

We started to blind, and picked up some more cyclists, but when a motor pulled up suddenly and sent Tom into a bank and us in a mix-up, we proceeded more steadily.  I broke my brake cable again near Frodsham, then we struck a mist and had to go easy to Walton, where Tom left us.  After Warrington we struck a dense fog, and simply crawled to Leigh.  Then home after a merry day.

85 miles