A Surrey Cycling Fantatic

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Polytechnic Cycle Race H.Findley

In 1938, under a nom de plume, a cyclist kept a diary of his Surrey travels. Anthony Greenstreet examines an intriguing snapshot of a bygone era.

After the cycling frenzy that enveloped Surrey’s roads during the 2012 Olympics, it is pleasant to recall the deeds and thoughts of a Surrey cycling fanatic three-quarters of a century ago. In 1939, 'John Sowerby' achieved what he called “my spot of fame” with the publication of I Got On My Bicycle (Frederick Muller Ltd): his diary from 20th April to 17th October 1938, when he was 57.

John was a bachelor and a psychiatric patient, lived rent-free near his parents' home in Surbiton, had worked only intermittently since he was invalided out of the army in 1917, existed on about 10 shillings (50p) a week, probably had TB and weighed only seven stone. He was, nevertheless, a long-standing fanatical cyclist – seldom satisfied unless he had cycled, through all weathers, his average 40 miles a day – who lived only for the pleasures, hazards and novelties of the road and for his encounters at the wayside tea-huts that sprung up in the 1930s for cyclists, motorists and hikers. In his youth, before the Great War, John had thought nothing of cycling through two nights from Surbiton to Bristol.

"Cannot think how people can get through life who do not cycle,” he wrote. “There's nothing else like it and bicycles are the most wonderful thing ever made ...Feel there is no real peace to be found except on the road."

His diary is both an interesting human document and a fascinating account of conditions in southern England as mass tourism began to take off. Much of his cycling took place in Surrey – a county to which John was devoted.

On 15th June he wrote:

"What a lovely county is Surrey. What scenery – hills and valleys, lakes, streams, woods, heaths, heather, old-world towns, wonder roads, by-passes, roundabouts, bottle-necks, seats in the right places...”

How strangely his view on the pleasures of cycling reads today.

“It is good to be on the road… especially these great arterial roads and by-passes with plenty of traffic – keeps one alive. Swarms of coaches, buses, lorries and smaller fry all around one, and if one day one of them does hit me out, well, I have enjoyed their company ever since they came into being; and the roads would be dull indeed without them…” (24th April)

John was not a ‘speed merchant’ and generally rode at a steady eight or nine miles per hour. This enabled him, though his sight was poor, to pick up a great many lost coins, purses, tobacco pipes, cycle accessories and discarded clothing – which, where appropriate, he would scrupulously leave at a police station.

John faithfully recorded any incidents along the way. Thus, on 2nd May:

“I got back to Kingston Bridge and found some excitement. Policeman standing in the middle of the bridge keeping all traffic in line … Just round the corner a couple of fire engines – no fire – but a wall of a half-demolished house had collapsed and sub-buried and otherwise injured five people (so I was told). I found that two ambulances had taken away the injured but the crowd remained watching debris being carted away and half-expecting to see further bodies.”

Esher was a favourite destination for John’s shorter outings.

“After tea feel so invigorated that I must needs be off again on the by-pass – this time went to Esher. If one is not set on a longer journey; well, go to Esher, it  is very interesting there, with seats on the Green; but alas! the powers that be have made the occupants of these old-time cottages vacate their dwellings – in the cause of ‘improvements’, and one in particular will be greatly missed. I refer to Clarke’s tea house, where all the ‘bus men and lorry-drivers were well catered for and a good tea was to be had, and there’s no other place to take its place that I know of…” (May 25)

He was there again on 1st July.

“After reviving effects of tea, I felt the day was yet young (7pm) and went off again out on the by-pass down Esher way, where I stuck about on seats and found friends to talk to. One, my elderly ‘ice-cream’ friend, had not had a good week – weather too windy and cold for the ice-cream trade. He had not taken 10 shillings all day. Last week was better; he took £19 10 shillings for the week which meant 19 shillings (about 95p) for him, besides his 3 shillings and 6 pence (about 17p) a day regular wage. Very long days, however, for an elderly man...”

John passed through Esher again on 5th August: “… got away about 4pm to Esher – then Hersham, where many boys and girls were fishing, paddling, catching minnows wholesale by the simple expedient of throwing a glass jar attached to string, out in the stream (the jar, containing bits of bread – comes up half full of minnows).”

Cobham was another favourite place.

“Went off about 5.30pm and proceeded by by-pass to Cobham. Stayed a bit on the bridge (noticed a tablet saying the first bridge on that site was erected by Queen Matilda about the year 1100, as an act of charity, because one of her ladies-in-waiting had been drowned trying to ford the river).” (Jun 17)

And then, on 17th July:

“… I got on to Cobham – through the lanes that wind all about through the most delightful bits of scenery and emerge in the middle of Cobham. Here I was at once in the thick of the main road returning traffic, whole clubs of cyclists about, hundreds of them.  I got on nearly to Esher but pulled in for a rest where all the cars pull in. There I had a good time, sat on the grass bank, with one 2d (about 1p) Wall’s ice brick and a pair of cyclists to talk to a bit.”

On his return journeys to Surbiton, John would often pause at Hampton and look across the river to Hurst Park.

“At Hampton by the church I went down that slope to the little park by riverside. Steamers carrying cargoes of happy children home from their day’s outing ‘upstream’. Bathing huts opposite, swarms ‘going in’ – delightful islands with colourful bungalows, launches, cruisers, rowing ‘eights’ at practice … and, of course ‘the never-out-of-sight’ planes droning overhead.” (Jun 16)

On 5th August, he paused on Hampton Court Bridge.

“More beauty to imbibe on the bridge – a perfect evening. Took a lot of trouble to retrieve what looked like half a crown in mid-roadway at Hampton Court, but which proved to be a Royal Arsenal Co-Op disk for three pence.”

On 7th September John rode through western Surrey. On his way back to Surbiton, he stopped for tea on the Hog’s Back. It had been a bright and breezy early autumn day and a splendid ride – so good that when a fly fell into his unfinished cup of tea, he rescued it, set it on a newspaper to blot up its dampness and saw it properly on its legs again before he left the tea-hut.

Sadly, however, as autumn drew on, John’s summer good health ended and his old chest troubles returned. I Got On My Bicycle ends with the bleak entry: “17th October 1938: to hospital.”

We shall never know whether John ever sallied forth again from Surbiton to enjoy the pleasures of Surrey’s roads.

Anthony Greenstreet has self-published a series of historical essays about Surrey called ‘Browsings’. For info email annegreenstreet286@btopenworld.com