Wandering down the Wandle; Nonsuch short ride 22 March

By Roger

 Wandering down the Wandle

It had been a short ride, about fifteen miles in good company and good weather, but I was tired now as we slowed down to turn out of Upper Mulgrave Road heading for the lights at the mouth of the tunnel under the railway line at Cheam. Only Anna, Roger, Kristen and Paul (B) were left from the nine of us who had set out to ride the Wandle trail.

We rolled to a halt just as the lights changed and a millisecond memory flashed into my mind, of a young widow running into the tunnel, toddler in arms, as a V1 gasped its last overhead, before detonated in what is now Cheam Park.

 Switching to the present, it was “green” for us now as we slipped into the tunnel and up the other side into the High Street then left round the back of the shops to Anne Boleyn’s Walk and the crossing opposite Cheam Park. We said our “goodbyes” and made our way back to Sutton.

We had met Maggie and Paul (J), Jacqui, Sharon, Kristen, and Paul B (of the electric bike) as well as newcomer Philip at the Mansion.  It was a lovely day for a ride as we left the park and crossed Cheam high street and then the A217 before zooming down Quarry Park Road. At James Road we turned left and sailed down the hill, until we heard the roar from the Sutton United ground and realised, we had overshot our turning and had to retrace our steps to Robin Hood Lane. Then through to Collingwood and the right turn into Bushey Road and the rear of the bus garage.

We made our way onto The Green, crossing Stayton Road before taking a path that led us to a turning opposite All Saints Church and over the lights onto All Saints Road before turning down Woodend and climbing up Aultone way and onto Rosehill Park.

It was an easy ride down Robertsbridge and ultimately to Poulter Park and the track onto the Wandle trail.

Roger told us it was the Wandle Trail!

The Wandle flowed like silk with no visible sign of the diesel spillage that had polluted it a few weeks previously. There was an absence of wildlife though and thank goodness, the hunting packs of midges were absent too.

We continued on the trail to Hackbridge emerging at River Gardens and passing Wilderness Island and on up to the cycle path that leads into Carshalton Park.

The staff at “Spilt Milk” reorganised tables to seat us all and we were glad of a coffee and a sugar fix from their cake election.

Sharon and Philip left us there, as Anna now led us up through to Wales Avenue, where Jacqui left us and Maggie and Paul split off at Kings Lane to deliver a Get Well card to Nigel.  We continued through the roadworks infecting most of the surrounding roads ending up on Grange Road and onto Cornwall Road and the gentle rise up and along Mulgrave Road, to turn right at the end, under the railway line to the High Street. finishing at Anne Bolyn’s Walk.

The ride over, I relaxed, and I replayed in my head, a conversation with a stranger in our street, many years ago. He said he was born lucky, as in 1940 he had been left in the front garden of the house opposite ours when the bomb hit the house behind theirs and he was recovered unhurt from the remains of his pram.  The bomb had destroyed three houses and badly damaged the one I was to buy sixty years later.  It was the same child who eighteen months later was swept up by his mum as she ran to shelter under the railway line in Cheam. They say that walls have ears – I wonder if they can tell stories too.