Bicycles - 3 sleeps to go ...

In Clarence Street in Sydney, there are at least three cycleries. This was glimpsed through the doorway of one of them. My father's first job, at the end of second year high-school - aged 14 - was to work in a haberdashery warehouse. He was one of those back-room johnnies, who cut lengths from bolts of cloth for salesmen who travelled around our state, trying to flog longer lengths to small stores. He vowed never again; never again would he take a job where the superior checked the cleanliness of his finger-nails each morning. So, upon his demob from the army at the end of 1945 - with a wife and son to support - he set himself up as a fruit & veg man travelling in his converted tabletop Bedford from street to street in suburbs close to where he lived, selling produce to "the missus". He was bemoaning to me, late in his life, that when he came back from the army, he should have opened a bicycle shop. As you can see from my photo yesterday, he was a cyclist from way-back. He had the build for it. He had the sales-savvy for it. He could strip and reassemble nearly anything, no matter how many wheels. He had a truck licence, a car licence, and a motor-bike licence. We all have our shouldas ...

Sharp, hot stink of Fox

My jaw dropped as I watched these little beauties rattle gracefully down the grass track and onto the concrete apron of the old WW2 airforce base on Lake Macquarie, just north of Sydney. If only my father were alive to see this!! Scrabbling through my folders I unearth the photo taken in 1942 after he joined the army at Middle Head in Sydney to train as a 'DonR' - a despactch rider. But now, for the life of me, I cannot think of the type of motorbike Dad had. My head says a type of BSA, but the indistinct logo cannot be distorted into anything remotely like 'BSA'. The title of this post comes from 'The Thought-Fox' by Ted Hughes: Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox It enters the dark hole of the head.