THE GREAT BIKE BOOK

 THE GREAT BIKE BOOK

by Richard Banks

      The first time I saw the old man he was sitting on a wooden bench outside Holy Trinity between the churchyard wall and Rayleigh High Street. He seemed deep in thought, and gloomy thoughts at that. In fact, I have never seen such a despondent expression. Although the focus of his unhappy gaze appeared to be directed across the road at the Half Moon public house, he was as oblivious to the comings and goings of its clientele as he was to the high performance sports car which came screeching to a halt in front of a red traffic signal. The lights changed to green and the car roared away through the thickening winter haze that was beginning to obscure the moon-like luminance of the church clock. It was no night for lingering, especially for someone of his age, so I decided to see if he was okay. As I crossed the road towards him he raised himself up and with a sad shake of his head headed-off through the church lychgate and down the pathway that led towards the old church. By the time I reached the gate he was out of sight.

      It was not until several weeks later that I discovered, from a long-standing resident, that I had seen nothing less than Rayleigh’s very own ghost. He was, by all accounts, an unusually prolific ghost who was unstinting in his personal appearances even to the extent of wheeling a bicycle into the library on one stiflingly hot summer’s day. Indeed, few of the people who saw him ever knew he was a ghost. He looked real enough and although his clothes could hardly be described as modern they were not sufficiently dated to attract much attention. As to who he was, nothing was known. Neither local records, nor the colourful recollections of the town’s old stagers, succeeded in identifying a single credible candidate for Rayleigh’s ghostly cyclist. The only clue to his identity came from several eye witnesses who claimed that the words ‘Donaldson Flyer’ were emblazoned on the frame of his machine, a name unknown to local cycling clubs and the British Cycling Federation. It was a mystery that might have remained a mystery had it not been for a remarkable twist of fate that brought me to a hotel in Dumfries some two years later. 

         I was on holiday and heading for the Ayrshire coast when an unseasonable mist descended from a grey sky, reducing visibility to a few yards. Within an hour I was lost, and with the evening darkness beginning to gather I was resigned to spending the night in my car at the side of the road. I pulled over and turned-off the engine and in the quiet of a country road heard the unmistakable tones of a traditional Scottish Dance Band. To my immense good fortune I had stopped within fifty yards of the Blair Inn, a small pub cum hotel, which that evening was hosting a wedding party. They had one vacant room left and I lost no time in checking in. The landlord’s wife, good soul that she was, cooked me dinner, which I ate in the relative peace of the small snug bar next door to the wedding festivities. There were several large black and white photographs on the walls which, for the want of nothing better to do, I examined in detail. In one, a group of about forty country people were gathered in the hotel forecourt, apparently prior to boarding a coach which could be seen in the background. It was an unremarkable photograph, in which I was fast losing interest, when I saw a familiar figure standing slightly aloof from the group with bike in hand. It was him, unmistakably him, the same old man I had seen on that winter’s evening in Rayleigh! 

     “Have you finished, sir?” Unobserved by myself the landlord’s wife had entered the room and was standing to one side of the table where I sat. 

     “The photograph…” I stuttered. 

     “Yes, sir?” She gave me a queer look that made me get a grip on myself. 

      “The photograph,” I repeated. “Was it taken long ago?”

      “Just after the war, sir. All the young men were just out of the forces, and my father, who was then the landlord here, organised this day trip to the coast to celebrate.” 

     “Are you in it?” I asked. 

      “Yes, sir, bless you, although you won’t recognise me. That’s me, the little one in pigtails, at the front with the other children.”

      “And what about” - I scarcely dared ask, would she remember?

       “the old man with the bicycle, who is he?”

      “Oh,” she replied, without a moment’s hesitation, “that’s Willie Donaldson, a real character if ever there was one.” She began to clear away the dinner things.

      “Did you know him well?” I said, trying to delay her departure and keep her talking on the subject of Willie Donaldson. She seemed surprised at my interest but needed little prompting to continue talking. 

      “He was the village blacksmith and a bit of an inventor on the side. That bike there is one he designed and made himself. The Donaldson Flyer he called it, much to everyone’s amusement. He tried to get it patented, but it cost too much. A pity that; my father said it was a good machine that might have sold well had Willie been able to get financial backing. However, you can’t keep a good man down and after he retired Willie decided to go travelling on his bike and to write a book about it; a kind of travelogue that would be of interest to other cyclists. Said he was going to call it the Great Bike Book of Britain and that it would make him rich and famous.” 

     “And did it?” I asked. 

     “No,” she replied with a twinkle in her eye, “but not for the want of trying. In the next two years Willie travelled far and wide, keeping a daily record of his journey in a log which he kept in his saddle bag. He used to send my father postcards from different parts of the country, which were read by all the village folk who used the Inn. After a while my father hung a map of Great Britain in the public bar and charted Willie’s progress by sticking drawing pins in the places he had passed through. One of the customers kept a count of how far he had cycled. By the time Willie reached Essex he had done over five thousand miles. The last postcard we got from him was posted in Southend, near London. It was the day before the Queen’s coronation. That evening he reached a small town called Ranleigh, or some such name, where his bicycle was stolen. The poor old chap hung about the place for several days, hoping to catch sight of it, but it was never seen again. Even worse was the loss of his precious manuscript with which he had hoped to make his name. He returned to the village soon after but was never the same man again. A few months later he was dead; died of a broken heart they say. I don’t doubt it, life can be cruel. What a pity he wasn’t to know that within a few weeks his saddle bag and the manuscript within it would be found and returned to the village. Of the bicycle there was no trace.”

      “And what became of the manuscript?” I asked. 

    She laughed, “It’s right behind you sir, in that glass case on the wall. No one knew what to do with it, so in the end all the regulars clubbed together to have it put on display. It wasn’t quite the fame he was hoping for, but I think the old fellow would have approved.” 

      I left the hotel the following day without disclosing the story of Willie’s ghostly apparitions. After pondering some while on what to do, I eventually wrote to the landlord and his wife, setting out the facts as I knew them and enclosing all the supporting evidence I could muster. With their agreement, and the support of the local antiquarian society, we had Willie’s manuscript published on the worldwide web, along with an account of his life and his equally colourful afterlife. To date the site has received over 400,000 hits and has achieved something approaching cult status.

      Willie’s ghost still continues to haunt the precincts of Holy Trinity, but we think that he quite likes the place now. He was last seen smiling broadly at the brass plate that we had fixed to the church lychgate. It reads, ‘Here is remembered William Donaldson, author of the Great Bike Book, who visited this town in June 1953. May he rest in peace’.

 

The End.

 

Copyright Richard Banks