An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 55 to pay a fine which went to the funds of the club, already increased by the fines for using the "accursed word,'' i.t., ,calling the dressing room after it had been finished by its -0ld name of loft. For a wonder I didn't go to Norwich this Christmas, but instead printed a pamphlet on the History of St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich, for the benefit of the restoration fund. I was again a)t Lamport on February, 1883, and saw a meet of the Pytcbley, but none of the pictorial jumping which I had been ed to expect. Nor have I ever seen it .on any subsequent' occasion. Northampton I find noted in my diary as "a filthy hole.'' On the 21st February, Dr. J essopp visited me at Selhurst. On the 10th March I was elected a vice-president of the A.A.A., though my name had been omitted from the 1ist by my friends; and at the T.H.H. on the same day Waddell's whitewashing motion was carried by one vote. At Easter I paid a short visit to the Beloe's at Hun– ·stanton, where his1little daughter upset us all driving up the bank, to the Grabbes at Merton, aud thence cycled to Norwich. All the spring I was seedy again, Dr. Slight thinking I was suffering from liver, but I cycled a great deal, and on ·6th May Willoughby \. and I rode over to Abinger Hatch to see our partner, Eyre,'who was invalided there; a very fine performance for Willoughby, who was an absolute novice, but rode 47 miles. Later in the month, at Whitsun, I rode from scratch .at the Norwich 2 miles tricycle race, but could not catch Winter, to whom I was giving 125 yards. and bad a nasty fall over the ropes, cutting my leg. My little son, J. B. R., made up for it by running second in the boys' quarter, doing 53 for ¼ less 105 yards. In June the Canadian La Crosse team visited the ·T.H.H. at Roehampton, and on the 20th I dined for the first time with the Goldsmiths at the invitation of Mr.Wigan. I rode my old "Fleet" up Reigate Hill with Lacy Hillier, who on a 63 Humber did not quite get up. I owed much of my cycling to Hillier, who kindly gave me much valuable ·advice as to style and pedalling. In July I went to Cromer to bid for some cottages at Sheringham, having the idea of making them into an 1 Willoughby was a cousin of W. H. E.