Which, funds being generally shorter than they are now, meant a bus ride to Skegness and obviously we didn't plan to stay the night because neither of us had ever tackled a reception desk before and were worried – actually, in my case, certain – that we would let ourselves down.

We took a bottle of cider between us and some crisps provided by her mum. As I stepped off at Skegness bus station, I accidentally tripped and smashed the cider bottle and I don't think the relationship ever recovered its first bright-morning promise.

Which tells you something about changing values. During the 1970s, we (or one, or certainly I) only got taxis if someone was dangerously ill, wine was for birthdays, steak was once a month and moaning, as we do in 2008, about having an unspendable £10,000 a year wiped off the value of our unsellable houses was for the unimaginable future. Smashing a bottle of cider, however, was then a very serious lapse.

Which is all beside the point, the point being that Alison and I, ciderless and not in the best of tempers, decided the best thing to do was to visit the Skegness Wall of Death which, even then, was a rather seedy, out-of-date attraction and therefore, although I can't remember the details, probably affordable.

Spiralling

The wall was a big wooden cylinder and you climbed up to the rim of it so you could look down on motorcyclists spiralling round its vertical sides with only the laws of physics standing between them and a coroner's inquest.

It had a grim fascination, like a mouth ulcer, and even now I can picture it, although I've forgotten the rest of Skegness, and indeed most of 1970, entirely.

I'm sure we only watched it for so long because of our lack of funds and a certain unspoken tension concerning the smashed bottle of cider, but it allowed us to fully explore the secret of the Wall of Death.

This turns out to be that, once you've acknowledged that the riders are highly-skilled professionals unlikely to meet horrifying ends, the whole experience is exactly as exciting as watching German-built windscreen wipers.

However, it's interesting to note that at the pre-war Feasts on Woodhouse Moor, Leeds, one showman thought of an astounding variation on the Wall of Death formula, as noticed in Ian Harker's excellent booklet A History of Woodhouse Moor, published by the Friends of Woodhouse Moor, of which I am a member, at £2 a copy (visit frowm@googlemail.com) and isn't that the most grossly-delayed and gratuitous unsolicited plug you've ever come across?

Anyway, this Wall of Death operator used to ride with a lion called Monarch in his sidecar, which, assuming Monarch wasn't stuffed, was a huge risk to take. A lion indulging in the smallest stretch of the paws, which no cat can avoid doing, even, I would guess, when drugged, which most of them appear to be most of the time, could have upset the balance and brought the whole combination tumbling down.

But that wasn't the most audacious part of the act; the showman called himself Fearless Egbert. In modern Woodhouse, and probably old Woodhouse as well, calling yourself Fearless Egbert would attract such derision that you wouldn't dare do it unless you really were fearless and also happened, which would be a very unfortunate outcome in life's lottery, to be called Egbert.


The one day that you can guarantee it'll rain...

LAST week I wrote that it was sure to rain at Hyde Park Unity Day last Saturday and proved myself a very poor meteorologist.

Although, true to one of my favourite maxims, 'Fate favours the miserable pessimist', things didn't turn out quite as badly as they could have done.

I waited all day, with increasing despair, as Unity Day crowds disported themselves in the sunshine and the elements conspired to make a liar of me.

Then, as the day moved into evening, there was a short burst – although 'burst' is putting too dramatically – of half-hearted drizzle which people who, unlike myself, are not used to rigorous meteorological observation, may have overlooked. 'See!' I shouted triumphantly. 'See what?' the people around me muttered in reply, looking most puzzled.

There were other puzzling sights at the Friends of Woodhouse Moor Unity Day stall, where Lynne was in charge of selling second-hand children's toys and books.

Mostly they went at 10p an item because the exercise was more directed towards enriching children's lives – that being Lynne's vocation – than making millionaires of the Friends of Woodhouse Moor.

So would you believe that one mother, having been told the price, sneaked back and stole a toy and that one father, whose small son fell in love with a simple toy car and pleaded for it with tears in his eyes, was told he couldn't have it? Well they did.

More heartening was a shaven-haired, chav-dressed teenage boy, maybe aged 13 or 14, who walked past the centrepiece of Lynne's children's display, a blow-up Homer Simpson weighed down with water so as to act as a punch bag.

The chav boy hung around it for quite a while, thinking, I presume, that he was too old and too hard for that sort of thing, then, looking to see whether anybody was watching, he gave it a very gentle punch and strutted away grinning hugely to himself.

And to think the Daily Mail would have arrested him on sight.