The picture here of the Crown Hotel at Llandegla which was a great food and refreshment stop for cyclists and others could not have been left out of this cycling history.

Standing on the left, is Charlie, centre is Tom Idle and I cannot decide whether the rather more portly gentleman to the right is a cyclist or a gamekeeper !!  This pic taken at Ullswater at Whitsun in 1928.  The uncaptioned rower is almost certainly Charlie as he never could resist going for a row!  One last great photo of Tom and Charlie taken in Chee Dale Derbyshire in 1928.  And this is the end of this particular photo album.

When Charlie stuck this sepia photograph in his album, he used the word ‘Significant ?’   Why ?.  Well, Margaret is definitely smiling. But neither of them could have known that seven years later they were to marry in 1936.  But there must have been an attraction, even then.  Incidentally by the time they married Margaret had acquired the nickname of Jo, as Charlie in all his writings refers to her as Jo.

One of Blackberry Joe’s Dieting  Days  !!!

                 Charlie taking on all comers !

Charlie writes  “The Wigan trio started camping at Easter 1927, when they toured in Lakeland equipped with the finest available lightweight outfit.  Gradually the rest of the boys fell in with them, myself the last – I was loth to forfeit the early start and the absolute liveliness of the light bicycle.  But the spell of our type of camping took a grip, and our scope of distance was widened, rather than lessened by the carrying of camping kit.  The Wigan lads chose wisely, 12 years of cycle camping to date has proved to us that the same outfit, with slight modifications, is still the best for the purpose”.

Below, the Wigan Trio’s Itisa.

Mardale Church lies at the bottom of a huge reservoir.  The pic immediately above is of Ullswater from Place Fell.  And the last picture below is Ullswater from Kepple Cove.