WHAT I TREASURE

My dad’s Brooks cycle saddle by Andrew Gallant

My Dad’s bike was a sturdy Raleigh with 3-speed Sturmey-Archer gears, rim brakes and a leather Brooks saddle. When I was a nipper, he’d treat me with rides out and around the local Essex countryside – to Hythe quay to see the cargo boats; to Rowhedge to sit and look across the River Colne and to Fingringhoe, my favourite, to pick watercress and blackberries. While Dad sat astride his comfortable Brooks saddle with its springs squeaking under him with each turn of the pedals, I sat on the cross-bar on a solid wooden seat he’d crafted out of a piece of mahogany. It was shaped like a saddle but was bum-numbingly hard during our long rides out.

As we passed under sun-dappled canopies of trees lining the road, he’d sing me a little ditty: “Mile after mile, over the stile, we’re going well on Shell, Shell, Shell!” Although Dad never learned to drive, this jingle struck a chord with the travelling man in him.

After coasting downhill into Fingringhoe we’d stop by a small lake, fed by a nearby spring. Dad would park his bike and pull a brown paper bag from the saddlebag. We inched our way to the source of the spring and Dad knelt in the damp grass, foraging in the clear, cool, bubbling water. In minutes,

he’d fish out bunches of fresh watercress. He’d try some and then offer me a few tangy, peppery stalks. He’d wash clean the watercress, destined for our salad that evening, in the running stream nearby.

Foraging was second nature to Dad, who’d grown up in the hard times of the late 20s and early 30s. Indeed, he foraged my first bike dumped at the side of a lane and re-built it from the twisted wheels and bent brakes.

As summer reached its height, our Sunday afternoon bike rides would include the harvesting of blackberries. These he placed in yellow-lidded Tupperware, the precious cargo oozing blood red juice if we chanced upon a bump in the road.

Back home, Dad would lather his saddle with leather soap to keep it supple and to protect it from the elements.

In time, I inherited my Dad’s trusty ‘treadly’, but found it too cumbersome for buzzing around town. So, I traded it in for a sportier BSA model. However, what I didn’t trade in was the Brooks saddle, transferring it to my new bike. And with every trip made, daily to school and work, or at weekends for pleasure, a little part of my dad would always ride with me.

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