An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY I will not say slept, for a cup-tie had been played that day, -and all the performers '' kept it up" deep into the night. At breakfast the next morning they were chipping one another as to their excesses and I heard one say to another "Well, I wasn't so bad as you for I didn't have to ring for a cup of tea at 7 o'clock." As a matter of fact it was my early cup of tea he had heard ordered! During the Sunday morning I walked round the old and very squalid part of the city and noticed more drunken women in that fore– noon than I had ever seen in London in a year. The Canongate struck me as dirty, dilapidated and disappoint– ing as the Castle was interesting. To my mind, however, the city as a whole is the finest one I ever saw. After lunch I took a hansom round Holyrood, a shoddy and poor palace, but '' Arthur's Seat" was grand. I may mention that the cabman stopped automatically at a private house and said mysteriously '' you'll get it there." On enquiry I discovered that he thought the raison cl' "etre for my outing was a search for a shebeen house. Then I went on to Berwick and so home. Finding that my second son (R.C.R.) was doing no good at bis book-work at B ·ccles, I moved him to Mr. Wallicb's (a relation of the rect1>r of Poringland) at Burgess Hill. My eldest son bad been doing very well both at book work and running at St. Paul's, although under 17 again won the school ' mile by 180 yards in 4.56, which was a school record. On the 19th May I bid up to £1,400 for Beech Grove at North Walsham, but did not get it, and at Whitsun took out the "Lotus" for a sail. At the Norwich Sports J.B.R. won both the half and quarter mile handicaps, in the former running his full first quarter in 59, a cheerful pros– pect for the scratch man who was giving him 70 yards and lost about 30. In June I went with my wife to the" Oaks," but didn't think much of horse racing. and I don't think went to a race meeting again. Later on I was foolish enough to buy a picture by Landseer for 150 guineas, which I was glad to sell later on for £20 or so. In August my son Roger and I rode a "Cripper" tandem trike across Norfolk to Lynn and back. It was a fearfully heavy machine, weighing as much a!:! a small motor would now, but coming home we got it to cover 16 miles in r.28.