A Bike Ride

A Memory of Grimsby.

I recall one of my younger days where I and a young girlfriend of mine decided to go on a biking holiday. I bought two Dawes Racing bikes which were equipped with panniers. Off we went from Royston, near Barnsley where we'd have to through some parts of Sheffield's hilly districts. We had our sleeping bags and slept in individual bags, only a few inches apart. It was eight o'clock in the morning when we were to wake up only to find a policeman standing over us. All he wanted to know was if either one of us were runaways, he then bid us goodbye. The next stage of our visit was for us to camp in some field off the roadside; we got straw and made ourselves a bed to lay on. Finally, we got to Cleethorpes when I suddenly realised that Bryony was not behind me anymore. I turned back round and after ten minutes I was to find her bike against a shop, the store had just closed and an old man had come out of the place (he was the key holder). I was to ask him if he had seen a young girl who'd been riding the bike but he said, "No, she just might have gone across the road". I waited for a while where the bike was standing and then I heard a knocking on the glass door, it was Bryony who was within the store. I thought at first that she had accidentally got locked in but the door was to open without any force. She had a carrier bag in her hand - I never knew that she was a thief and it was not as if we did not have any money because we did. Anyway, we found a place to stay it was the Harbor Lights Cafe. A young girl owned the place and had three spare rooms and was so delighted for our company she told us we could stay rent free as long as we just help her out in the kitchen. Well would you believe it; a policeman who was a relative of the owner of the cafe would always put his bike in the small yard and when he saw our bikes he put two and two together and was sure that we could just be the ones he was after! Discovering we were the ones, there was no point in saying we were not - we were arrested and put in a police cell overnight. In the morning we were placed before the court. The probation officer made contact with her family and when the report was read out in court it turned out that her parents said that she was 'nothing but trouble'. Where in the end she had been kicked out of the house. My report followed and it was decided that there was no case to answer. As for my young companion of the day, she was to have her first spell behind locked doors. I was sorry for the lass for she only 18 - I was never to see her again.