Walter

I had a long chat with Walter at lunchtime. It was actually very hard to get away because he barely paused in the delivery of his stories – not that I really wanted to escape because he was so lucid and engaging and thoroughly animated. He says he likes to just sit and watch people go by – especially the ladies! He is so full of life.

He told me a little of his service in the Navy at the end of the second world war. He joined the sea cadets in 1939 as a twelve year old so by the time he got called up for active service, when he turned eighteen in December of 1944, he already knew everything there was to know about knots and the like – far more indeed than his seniors who had mostly got called into service with very little training. He described the terrible reality of bayonet training and was very happy that the war finished so soon after he joined up. The only Germans he encountered were prisoners of war and he remarked that they all seemed decent enough men, pretty much just like him – which I’m sure was the case.

He was born in 1926 and reckoned that was a pretty good year to choose. I realised that my father was born in that very same year - which was a bit of a shock to the system really. There was definitely a bit of my dad in Walter's laugh and his animated persona. I lost my dad over thirty years ago now, when he was younger than I am now. It was odd to confront the fact that he would now be 87 years old.

Walter also told me a little of his upbringing between Shipley and Bradford as an illegitimate child. He said that those kind of “irregularities” were very common in the years between the wars. He lived with his mum but saw his dad regularly and took great delight in telling me how often he found his dad at home with a different woman – often in a state of undress! His dad said his mum was an impossible woman to live with – and he wouldn’t argue with that. He said he loved it when he was finally able to leave home and join the Navy. I find myself wanting to know more – and I’ve no doubt I will hear more. I think I’m a marked man now!

My memory is getting worse. I didn't mention that on last night's ride, just outside Colne, someone had been cutting a hedge and had left thorns all over the road. It could not have been worse if they had littered the road with tin-tacks. It was impossible to avoid them and I duly ended up with one right through my front tire. I was just about to pull the thing out when I realised that I couldn't hear the hiss of any air being released. It had wedged in the tire and through the tube so cleanly that it had formed a seal. I decided to ride on to see how far I could get (it was already almost 9pm) and actually made it all the way back home. This morning I rode into work without giving it any further thought (the tire was still hard), only to find it going flat on me within a few miles. Not the best start to a day, which bar my encounter with Walter, never really got much better.