1976
Unless you were born then or got married, won the pools or lost your virginity, 1976 was the year of the great drought. It didn’t rain for 6 weeks with hosepipe bans, forest fires and the continual wish for the feel of cool refreshing rain. When it did rain people ran out with a wild joy of abandon experiencing the cool sweet embrace of a long departed friend or ever dreamed of tax refund.
For a 10 year old Joseph Thomas 1976 was the year of the leg break and the big drought. Being under 10 both events just merged into each other and the noise of the wider world being just background noise was blocked out at that instant by the excruciating pain and enveloping shock as he sat on the rough woodland track with his bike somewhere in the brambles, stinging nettles and brambles. There was a lot of blood and when he tried to stand, well he just couldn’t. 
The doctor at Gloucester A&E confirmed it was a leg break and our young rider spent the rest of the summer with his leg in a plaster cast, being fussed over by his granny before heading back to London at the end of the summer, annoyed and frustrated at having a wasted holiday, cooped up either in doors or sitting outside in his granny’s garden. She was lovely and sweet but she didn’t have a TV and the couple of annuals she did have he’d read a hundred times. What she did have on a daily basis though was the Citizen, the local daily paper. So short of anything else to do Joseph become an expert on who’d died recently, who’d been to court and for what, what was on TV that he couldn’t see and which local kids had grown the biggest sunflowers.
Still Joseph recovered. His cast was taken off and at the same time it finally rained and just like Granny Wilson and the rest of Joseph’s family, who rejoiced when he could finally walk and do stuff for himself, the country rejoiced when it rained. The world was back to normal except not quite, Joseph who used to be the best runner in his class now wasn’t, in fact he was now one of the slowest. The world had subtly changed, yes everyone carried on as normal but the world had changed, history had happened. What was a long hot summer became the great drought.  Life rolled on……….
Arthur looked the paper and really did think what the fuck. The Daily Express, August 1976! Either it was the kids messing him about or a local neighbour trying to freak him out. Joyce Lindsey or Ray bloody Palmer, that’s who it would be. They’d had a bit of a session at Joyces late summer BBQ, or should it be know as the late autumn or pre winter BBQ. Anyhow Life on Mars had been the main topic of discussion and before he wasn’t able to remember any more both Joyce, Ray and Jo had become slightly obsessive on the subject, what’s pergatotory? Well its like 1976 said Jo, its like the Great Drought. No reply. A pause and then “Do you remember the great storm of 1987 when my house fell down said Ray…..” and so it carried on.  No one else at the BBQ said anything, they’d all buggered off two hours ago. 
“You promised. No I don’t, Yes you did. You said you had 5 days leave to take before the end of March and you’d decorate the front bedroom.” Urrrggggg!!! “You’re  right I suppose” he said. “Bet your ass I’m right” she said.
While Angela Thomas was right that Jo had agreed to do the decorating job, the fact remained that he wasn’t overly keen. While Mrs T generally did most of the householdy repairs and things Mr T could decorate, it just took him a while to get motivated and organised. Yes he could do a passable decorating job, was good at coving and alright at painting, frustrated at papering and was ok ish at pretty much everything else apart from electrics, and really hopeless at plastering and even more hopeless at polyfillering. Still he just felt something wasn;t quite right about this job, with some bad feeling nagging away at him,
“You could always come with me on the year seven’s trip to Disneyland Paris. Frank (Mr Smith)’s cat has just had kittens so he’s dropped out.’ Arthur felt suddenly swamped with a cold chill and with a rising feeling of panic grabbed for the only escape route he could see “I’m kind of thinking” said Arthur, “that this job really needs to be done and actually I’m looking looking forward to it”……..  while silently thinking we don’t need another cat in the house (please give me strength) and there’s no way I’m going on that school trip. Angela smiled cheekily as she wasn’t really fussed about him helping out on the trip. She’d already got him lined up to help at the school Christmas fair and charity litter pick up. Also Frank had agreed to let her have two of the kittens……

Newspaper man stepped out of his back door, a cold breeze slapping his balding head and a freeze shivering down his body, underneath his thermal vest and multi layered clothing. Eyes watering he grimaced and trudged across to the shed. 

Amazingly the shed door opened first time but what it revealed caused his heart to drop, his enthusiasm and excitement rapidly began to drift away. Just which bike was his, and why were the so many others on top of his. It seemed like a lifetime of children’s bikes and a ragtag of bike recycle machines had been dumped on his old beloved 10 speed racer.

Disentangling the mess took another half an hour and then of course he was confronted by the classic not used your bike for years issue, flat tyres…. An hour later, blister on his thumb, oil on his jeans, success appeared. Bike found and now ready to go, back outside the shed and of course it had started raining. Really, really!!!!!! Anyhow with a feeling of resignation but somehow bolstered with a layer of resolve that came up from nowhere he headed back indoors to find his waterproofs  and promptly spent the next 25 minutes looking for the these and the rest of his gear. Miraculously he managed to find his gloves, yes there were two of them! 

So about three hours after he first left the back door he was there geared up and ready to hit the road. A smile crossed his face and off he wobbled. 

Don’t start in your highest gear he reminded himself as he felt a sharp pain in his left hip and blood easing through the rip in the elbow of his jacket. Idiot falling off before he’d ridden 10 feet, well at least no one had seen him fall. Looking good called out Mrs Sherman with a chuckle as she effortlessly glided past him….. clearly someone had. At least Mrs Sherman had been cool and not asked him if he was ok to further injure his pride. Prat said Ethan as he rode past, fuck sake Newspaper man muttered to himself, waiting now for a sink hole to appear and swallow himself up. 

Fortunately the coach load of pensioners didn’t appear or the walking bus of 5 year olds so by the time he’d made it to the high street his composure had started to come back and without any further mechanical setbacks he started to feel quite good. And it had stopped raining. Taking a short cut through the rec he pushed on towards the leafy suburbs and then hopefully the country side. He was feeling good, going well. However the positive vibes took a hit when crossing the railway bridge and while trying to regain his breathing for the next 10 minutes his feeling of inadequate self consciousness was exacerbated when a huge bunch of properly kitted out cyclists steamed past leaving him trailing in their wake. 

Naturally this provoked a reaction, “At least when we road back in the day we didn’t ride three abreast. We had proper discipline and riding skills and and and.” By the time he’d stopped moaning to himself and had caught his breath another 5 miles had passed and suburbia was beginning to thin out with fields and horses and stuff appearing. Yes this was fun and despite his unfitness and painfully sore elbow he was enjoying himself.

Picking himself up 5 mins later and reflecting (after and angry outburst at the stupid bloody bike) it occurred he’d had a similar slipped gears incident about 3 years ago. His resolution to get his bike to the mechanics to get his gears fixed clearly hadn’t been followed up upon, so here he was with a painful busied inside thigh and bleeding hand. Deciding he needed some time, he walked to the top of the short steep climb with the old Saxon style church at the hairpin bend. Slightly dispirited he remounted and gingerly made his way down hill and along to his planned destination. Cycle trendy cafe. Why, why why…. did he bother. 

The group who had overtaken him and hour before descended on mass barely 10 minutes after he’d arrived. he felt like a fish out of water, like an older bloke accidentally being persuaded by his younger work colleagues to go to a nightclub after the team bonding meal. Typically he’d forgotten his phone, there was no one to chat to and barely any acknowledgment from the new crowd. He couldn’t leave as he still had his mug of coffee and toasted tea cake to eat. Forced to tough it out he stayed and pretended to be comfortable and happy, however within a short space of time his chest began to feel tight and he felt distinctly uncomfortable and oddly there was an odd bump where his stomouch should be. As if guided by natural instinct he felt under his jumper and could feel something papery, thick and crinkly. He took hold of the end and pulled and would you believe it a copy of the guardian emerged. In his younger days before expensive modern kit became the norm newspaper man used, like most cyclists, to stuff a paper up inside the front of his jersey to keep him warm. Odd thing was he didn’t remember placing a paper there that morning.

In his reverie he didn’t notice that the whole table had become suddenly quiet and the group of cyclists were staring at him. “radically old school” said a tall pony tailed lady. “Is that a Rapha paper’ said a beardy twenty something guy. Forgot to bring a bag with me mumbled N=newspaper man, slightly embarrassed by the attention. Things soon settled down, the matrix moment only lasted a couple of seconds but it had seemed like a year.

Smiling yet still self conscious newspaper man returned to the paper as the cyclists attention went back to what they were previously attending to. Something though wasn’t quite right…… it was a broadsheet copy of the guardian, not the modern tabloid version. And the year 1983, date July………

Feeling quite spooked he looked around him but everything seemed normal. People waffling, coffee machine making a racket and yet he’d just experienced something very freaky. He downed his coffee, paid his bill and walked outside. Still holding the paper, he rolled it up and put it in his back pocket, mounted his bike. The ride back was uneventful but tough, he gone a bit too far and his body, arse and elbow all hurt by the time he got home and he’d forgotten about the newspaper incident.

A gorgeous smile from Mrs Newspaperman who looked up from fixing the fuse box in the cupboard under the stairs. Can’t believe you’ve actually been out after all your procrastinating she said. Remember we’re out tonight

Undressing in the bathroom with steam and bubbles filling the room newspaperman suddenly remembered the newspaper. he checked his jersey but nothing was there. Odd he thought, must have dropped it. Shrugging off the odd story he carried on with his bath, until noisily awakened by Mrs NPW who said he’d been asleep in there for two hours. The couple got dressed and headed out for a night of music beer friendship and fun. Not completely true as newspaper man moaned about the people dancing in the pub and the DJ being a prat, to which he was rightly taken to task. People are allowed to have fun said Mrs NPM. Happily drunk they made their way home, had a nightcap, listened to Tedeshi Trucks and staggered to bed. Simple and enjoyable end to a strange day. 

However its now 6 o’clock in the morning, our loving couple are fast asleep, but there’s a creek downstairs and a banging of the letterbox, The cats congregate thinking there’s food on offer, but they hang back slightly scared and through the letterbox comes a newspaper. But there haven’t been any deliveries in their street since 1990. An what’s weird is that its the daily express from August 1976.