A year or three ago, I was with the Morris dancers outside a pub, idling
on my unicycle when I was approached by the man who lived next door to
the pub. He told me he had an old unicycle in his garage. A few
minutes later, I had bought it for £10.
The unicycle was handmade in about 1959, when the owner was serving with
the armed forces. I got the impression he was stationed in the
Netherlands at the time, although my history is not good enough to tell
me why the British would have an occupation force in the lowlands at
that time.
The uni has a leather bicycle-style seat, and cottered cranks. I bught
it in a rusty horrible state and stripped and cleaned it. I have ridden
it, but one of the cranks is not quite right. I'm not sure if it's a
worn cotter pin, a damaged crank, or the flat on the end of the axle is
damged or badly machined. I kept it as a curiosity, but it offers
nothing that a modern unicycle doesn't offer, other than that it was
made in the year when Buddy Holly died, Cliff Richard had his first
number one hit, and the Thatcher years were still 20 years in the
future.
In a tidy up last year, I put the uni in my storage bunbker in the back
garden. I went to the bunker today to get something else and foudn that
the damp had not been kind. See photos:
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Mikefule - Roland Hope School of Unicycling
Not happy he who thinks himself not so.
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