A unicycle and a tandem

During my second year as an undergraduate, when I should no doubt have been researching 17th century history, I decided to teach myself how to juggle. I practised with three oranges over the sofa in case I dropped them (which I did, frequently).

Several years later, while doing my first teaching job in Cumbria, I noticed an advert for a circus skills evening class, so I signed up. What I wanted to learn, above all else, was how to unicycle. While other people were juggling with clubs or hurling diabolos around, I worked my way up and down a gymnastics rail until I felt safe enough to launch myself into the rest of the gym.

I remember my first (semi-) successful ride with great clarity. As I lurched forward, I sent clubs, people and diabolos flying all over the place. I could do forward but I had no control over left and right.

Having vaguely mastered unicycling, I turned my attention to flaming clubs. On the last evening of the course, we all gathered outside in the Cumbrian dark. I could now juggle clubs so it was simply a matter of setting light to them. What could possibly go wrong?

What I discovered that evening was that the eye tends to guide the hand to the light. I kept grabbing the lighted end of the clubs, which wasn’t as bad as it sounds because I let go pretty quickly, I can tell you. The problem, though, was the small metal band which separated handle from burning club. I grabbed that a few times and that really did hurt.

Anyway, the reason I mention all this is because I dug my unicycle out of the garage during lockdown and discovered, to my distress, that it’s not quite true that you never forget how to ride a bike. My unicycling skills had deserted me! Pleasingly, one of my daughters picked it up pretty quickly, so she is now giving me lessons.

Why? (And I apologise to those of you who already know this.) Because the Peachey family has decided to join the From Dalmally to Malawi Challenge of Mary’s Meals to raise money to feed children in some of the poorest parts of the world.

We’re going to cycle on our unicycle and on our tandem - a bike we used a lot when we lived in Cambridge. In fact, I sometimes cycled to work on it without anyone else on the back, which did tend to attract comments from passing motorists. We’re going to ride ten miles initially and then see if we can go further. Some of our team have little legs. If anyone would like to sponsor us, we would be extremely grateful. Our Just Giving page is here.

Thank you ever so much to everyone who has sponsored us already. So far we have raised enough to feed 20 children for a year but we’re keen to push on and reach the next child if we possibly can.

If the sponsored ride goes well, I’ll post photographic evidence of me and the unicycle. If it doesn’t, I’ll post pictures from my hospital bed.