Childhood: bikes, bullying, and N. Ireland

In this post I am going to go briefly into my childhood, focusing on bikes, bullying, and N.Ireland.

I would describe my childhood as generally pleasant, and a fun experience for the most part. If anyone has lived in Northern Ireland for any period of time they will know there is still a divide among youngsters in regards to their religion; this is becoming less apparent as the years go on, but when I was in school I knew which religion I was based on how I was treated by my peers. Don’t get me wrong, I had friends that were Catholic and we had a great time together, but they was always a few that had it out for me.

On one particular occasion I cycled to school for the end of year exams (it happened to be one of the last times I would ever be at the school) and when I stepped out into the fresh breeze with the other students I noticed my bike that was securely locked to the railing was damaged beyond repair; “they” had bent the wheels, ripped out the tubing, and damaged the seat, making my journey home impossible. One of the teachers loaded my bike into his car and took me home, but the bike was ruined, and what was worse was that I had borrowed the bike from a friend for that one day due to bus shortages.

That day kind of summed up my education at secondary school, I was friendly with most people and had a decent enough time there, but there was always this feeling that something was about to happen to me because I was the minority. I don’t think back to that incident with anger or even sadness, I think about the kids that did that and wonder how their life turned out, are they still passing on their prejudices to their offspring? I’ll never know, nor care, since I moved to England 13 years ago.

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Steering quickly back to the present day and I can confirm I finally tackled Barrington Hill, months after saying I would attempt it; it was just as hard as I had imagined, I even stopped half way to catch my breath! The journey down the other side was invigorating as I screamed towards traffic that had just overtaken me; I almost reached 30mph and it was raining so probably not my best judgement, but it felt fun instead of the usual monotony of flat cycle paths. Onward and upwards…

Next blog: Progress Charts, speedometers, and heart monitors.