Son Dan pointed out the other week, in his ever so discreet way, that I had had a blog for some time but that there was nothing in it. Clearly this is a poor state of affairs, so here goes….

Preliminary Waffle or The Prologue 

Barrett’s African Safari ….

Safari, it seems, is  a Swahili word used for any kind of journey, so even just a short bus ride from home to town is a safari in East Africa. So why not a bike ride? Spotting big game is just a later western add-on.

Africa ? This was probably based on the word Afri that the Romans used to refer to the Carthaginians, who inhabited a corner of modern-day Libya, an early toe-hold for them in Africa.

And Barrett  is a Norman French name reserved for  the bloke who haggled  a lot at market and was generally argumentative. As if… !

But that’s enough etymology. I used to put my classes into a coma in seconds with a dose of my pet diversion. Some of them must have found it interesting in a grudging sort of way, I suppose.

The Idea

Every kid on Well Head Drive in the 50s had a bike. You rode it practically everywhere and fell off it regularly. If your mother sent you to the shop for a loaf of Bosomsworth’s Large Sliced , you turned a tedious walk into a fun ride by pedalling there. It was fun because you could make it dangerous by shaving lamp-posts at speed, performing  exhibition skids on  patches of oil or grabbing the back of a  wagon toiling up Oxford Road. No hands? No problem. (Except in the latter case).

If you went stickle-backing in the canal, you went by bike. Scouts? You cycled there. Footie on the Moor, only one way to get there. You always knew who was at your mate's house by the messy pile of bikes abandoned on the pavement outside.

My first bike was a Philips; my second a tough, old, clanking Rudge with a Sturmy Archer three- speed. Finally I inherited brother Richard’s light-weight but unreliable road bike with drops and derailleur gears. By then, as a teenager, trips up the Dales or to Ilkley, Otley or to Harold Park in Bradford on zero-fish angling trips with mad “Sam” Spencer and other mates were regular safaris.

One day, aged about 13, David Baines and I set off south ! I don’t think we had any particular goal for the day. By mid-morning we’d crossed Huddersfield and sweated our way to the top of  Holme Moss. We swept down the other side and found ourselves in another county: Derbyshire. I’d have to cycle into Mongolia to feel the same exhileration today. In Glossop, where we laughed at a bus-stop sign saying Q this side for cemetery, we turned  left and tackled the Snake Pass. That was thrilling but knackering. The high moors, then Ladybower reservoir were splendid. We probably ate most of what we had in our saddle-bags at the foot of the pass, one of the longest descents in England. From there on we descended gradually into exhaustion. We turned back north and headed over the Strines. This lovely road is cloven with 3 or 4 river valleys that flow off the Pennines into Sheffield. It’s an étape worthy of  the Milk Race, a challenge for the fittest cyclists on the best of bikes. It wrecked us on our heavy roadsters.

I can’t even remember the Ainleys, the final climb before Halifax as the sun set . We both hit the wall that day, something I only experienced again running marathons and fell races 3 or 4 decades later. David got a mega-bollocking from his Dad, a stern, no-nonsense former WW2 lieutenant colonel  and much of the blame for our near-death experience fell on me, the slightly older partner. He probably thought I was the leader although in reality we just fancied a longish bike ride and set off.

So the idea to (attempt to) cycle across Africa, approx 50 years later, probably hatched in the days and years outlined above.

Rôle models

About 5 year ago my Dad’s old friend, now my friend, Gerald Barker, lent me a book by Anne Mustoe, who wrote several fascinating books on her bike rides in wild and exotic parts of the world. She took up long distance cycling in her 50s after a career in education. She never trained, knew little about bikes (always relying on passing males to fix her mechanical problems) and would travel for months and 1000s of miles. She had a passion for history and would follow in the footsteps of  people like Alexander the Great or  Che Guevara. She would learn a bit of Mandarin and set off west out of Beijing, sharing  accommodation with truckers en route or settling down with a family of Tibetans for the night. Weeks later she would be sailing past towering peaks down the Karakoram Highway into Pakistan. Her own inspiration is intriguing : while touring by bus in India she spotted a lone European cyclist through the window. She said, “I was seized with sudden envy. I wanted to be out there myself on the road on a bike, alone and free, feeling the reality of India, not gazing at it through a pane of glass. I made up my mind that morning that I would cycle across India. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered why I should stop at India. While I was at it, why not cycle round the world.. “ And she did.  I wonder where that lone cyclist is today. So thanks for the loan, Gerald. And how about getting that shiny machine of yours out of the garage and joining me?

Another lone traveller 

Another lone traveller who fired me up is a guy called Fran Sandham, who I heard interviewed on Radio 5. In the mid noughties he packed in his job in London and walked alone across Southern Africa from the Skeleton Coast on the Atlantic to Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean. It took him a year and it was probably the toughest of his life, but he finally limped into Dar where he collapsed into a malarial heap. He recorded his journey in a fascinating book  Traversa . I plan to follow his route, only in the opposite direction, from east to west. And on a bicycle. And not get malaria.

A dedication.

I’m going to dedicate my intended journey and this blog to John Rolands. Illegitimate John Rolands was born in Denbigh in North Wales in 1841. When he was 5 his grandfather, who was looking after young John, died. John had been abandoned by his other relatives including his mother. Ah, the good, old days! His remaining relatives took him to nearby St Asaph, tricking him into thinking he was being left with another relative. Instead he was dropped off at the workhouse where he was to spend the next 10 years.

Despite this unpromising start, he went on to become one of the world’s greatest explorers and adventurers. He was largely responsible for locating the source and the course of the Nile, for finding that other great explorer David Livingstone and for crossing the unexplored heart of  Africa from east to west and later from west to east. Also, for probably not saying “Doctor Livingstone, I presume.” His high road on these journeys was the River Congo and its tributaries. The human and natural difficulties he encountered were staggering and his survival was miraculous.  But he never gave up.

Today we would be proud of achieving so much from such humble beginnings. Not so John Rolands: to shake off the stigma of his workhouse upbringing, he made his way to New Orleans, invented a more glamorous adoption story in that city to cover up the perceived shame of his origins, fought on both sides in the American Civil War, was imprisoned,  joined the Unionist navy and later deserted from it. We know him better today as Henry Morton Stanley, the identity he assumed to cover up the shame he felt because of his unfortunate childhood.

Strangely his achievements are rarely fêted today. (Although a strange but fitting memorial has appeared by a roundabout in St Asaph recently).The guilt attached to colonialism, and particularly that of the Belgian Congo, whose interior he opened up for Europe, is part of the reason. Also there were  some inevitable and ugly incidents on his treks across Africa which have gained prominence over the amazing determination,  toughness and decency of the man. To better appreciate the prejudice that he confronted during his life and since, and his brilliant achievements in the face of it, read the recent excellent biography of Stanley by Tim Jeal.

So John Rolands, aka Henry Morton Stanley, you are my hero and you get my dedication.