Ted has never owned a motor car. His late wife, Baryl, drove a Vauxhall and later a Ford. However, he preferred to travel by bike. “Why do you need a car when you can go anywhere on your bicycle?”

Ted had his first ride when he was five years old. It also resulted in his first accident. There was a field near his home where he used to play. A neighbour’s teenage daughter asked Ted if he would like a ride on her bike. He agreed, even though this bicycle had no saddle, no pedals, and twigs instead of spokes in the wheels. He steered this vehicle through the entrance to the field and collided with the back of a man carrying a pitchfork. Ted grazed his cheek on it, and the girl took him home for treatment.

Ted’s father, George Geoffrey, made a bicycle for his 8-year-old son so that he could ride to Browick Primary School. When Ted was 11, George bought him a 26-inch, fixed-wheel bike from the market, which was on the site of the present-day Postmill Medical Centre.

Ted used to race this bicycle against his friends in the gravel pits; the prize for winning was a bookmark! Wally King won most of the races, and Percy Chapman did well, considering he could only use one leg for pedalling (Percy’s other leg was in a brace).

Ted currently has three bicycles. He usually rides his Raleigh bike which was purchased in the 1950s. During his working years, he had a trailer attached to the back to take his gardening tools to jobs in Wicklewood and Morley. He has cycled on round trips to Norwich and Dereham in his spare time.

Ted’s second bike was gifted to him in the late 1960s by an insurance salesman from Queensway called David. This had been David’s company bicycle for ten years. This model is motorised and has, in Ted’s opinion, “very heavy wheels.”

His third bike used to belong to Baryl and was, until recently, in storage in the garden shed. Ted has tried to ride it and was reminded that his late wife had much longer legs than he has.