What was it all about, Alfie ?

I hated school, and spent as much time out of it as I could. My grammar school was a harsh place to be, and it is rare in having not only an Old Boys’ Association, but also a Survivors’ Association. I was 30 before I felt I had come to terms with my education, though the school did not justify the word.

Alfie was Alfred Ridler. He taught chemistry and I was not alone in hating both him and chemistry.

Alfie was about 60 years old when he was teaching me. He had a first-class honours degree and loved chemistry. The chemistry labs were ancient, and smelled heavily of gas. We sat at benches flicking balls of mercury about, and teasing it out of cracks in the wood.

The thing we all feared about Alfie was his patience in staying after lessons, through breaks and after home-time until you eventually got things right. We would stand in a line, our exercise books open at the latest page, hoping that we’d get Alfie’s imprimatur and that we’d be able to flee the lab.

But few got to escape first time round in the queue. Alfie would read your account with care, scribble a couple of questions on it – questions, not, not comments. He never wrote comments – and you would be left to go figure. If anyone ever asked Alfie a question, he had a set and immutable mantra: ‘Well, I wouldn’t know’.

‘I wouldn’t know’ meant that you had to go back to the bench, think the thing through, and come up with a different solution.

Though I did not know it at the time, and felt nothing but irritation and a rising sense of panic about just how late after tea Alfie was really prepared to stay, Alfie was teaching me to think.

He never declared that that was the point of his chemistry lessons, but it was. There would be an experiment. Alfie told you to watch carefully what happened, make notes, and then explain why it happened. It was the scientific method for dummies.

He alone was the teacher who challenged your way of thinking. The rest were happy to get you memorising the text book.

Alfie was very happy with the wrong conclusion if that’s what your careful thought processes led you to. He would smile benignly and nod sagely and say ‘well done’. But he wanted thinking and would accept nothing less.

It stayed with me all my life.

I could not see anything to thank him for then, and now it’s too late. But thanks, Alfie. I was a discouraging student, but thanks.

 

Old fart cycling

As a kid in the 50s, my first bike had blocks of wood on the pedals so my feet could reach them. It wasn't a cool look, but at least I wasn't alone. Most of my friends had wooden blocks on their pedals too, as most of us had second-hand bike passed down by much bigger kids.

The cycling bug didn't get me then. But when I was a month away from my 25th birthday, my car insurance was due. If I renewed after reaching 25, the cost plummeted. So I borrowed a shopping bike, cycled the 7 miles to work for a month, and was hooked.

Some time later I got the crazy idea of trying to cycle to the moon. Not literally, of course. It was crazy enough without being as delusional as that. And I am happy to say that I touched down a couple of years ago, and am now on the way back, having clocked up nearly 300 000 miles in 46 years.

Yes, I know. I will be lost in space and never get back. Let's not take the image too far.

When I started riding, in Sheffield, cyclists were a bit of a community. I suppose that cyclists had grown up in an era when military style AA staff, riding motorcycle side cars, would salute every car they saw with an AA badge on the front. So the roads were rather more friendly then than now. But cyclists would greet each other, giving big hellos to fellow cyclists whether mates or complete strangers.

If you broke down at the road side, someone would stop to offer tools, help, sympathy.

Cycling was an all-age hobby. An ancient guy who lived near me rode his single-gear bike everywhere, and on weekends would head for the coast. New kids on the block and oldies like him got on well. Friends through common interest.

Today, less than half the cyclists I meet respond to a hello, and maybe a tenth of cyclists initiate one. If you break down on the road, cyclists will go past, with only a tiny number being willing to stop and help.

It doesn't need to be this way. On a recent trip, I was passed by a posh bike - you could lift it with a finger, literally - and a young guy clad in all the right gear. He went past silently, and I felt invisible and annoyed. I gave chase, and with exploding lungs caught him up. He was very surprised. He was in the zone, not sweating or even breathing heavily, and making the thing look infuriatingly easy.

We chatted for a while, riding side-by-side, and I said that he need not hang around for me as I did not want delay him. He grinned. 'Nice to chat', he said. Then he patted me on the back. ' Well done', he said. 'Keep on going'. And with no apparently effort he pulled away as if I was standing still.

It was fleeting camaraderie, and I felt good for a week.

It's so easy to make ordinary things that bit more pleasant with a little effort.