Jim York is 93, so this walk in the park was a feat of memory, undertaken from the armchair in the front room of his house in Leicester. Jim was cycle-racing competitively into his 80s, but is now less mobile.\u00a0 That didn\u2019t stop him from talking about memories from lots of different periods of his life, with the help of photos, newspaper clippings, and his wife Thelma.<\/p>\n
Jim was born in Pentonville, one of the worst slum areas of Leicester. In a Leicester Mercury article in 2017, he recounted his early life: no water or electricity, cockroaches, poverty\u2026 You can read the full article here:<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.leicestermercury.co.uk\/news\/history\/why-should-appreciate-things-now-896334<\/a><\/p>\n His experience of Bradgate Park really started when he joined the Leicestershire Home Guard. He served for three years, and was a Corporal by the age of 19.\u00a0 Bradgate was a contrast from Pentonville and industrial Leicester.\u00a0 Jim remembers being on manoeuvres near the War Memorial, sleeping two nights under the stars, on the ground, with no tent.\u00a0 What a different skyline that must have been from the terraced houses and factory smoke.\u00a0 There were other eye-openers: Jim told me \u201cI\u2019m not going to say what we used to find in the undergrowth, especially when the Yanks were here\u201d.\u00a0 We both agree to call it \u201cwildlife\u201d.\u00a0 Some things don\u2019t change\u2026<\/p>\n On one occasion, the Home Guard were used as a training exercise for the Commandoes: the elite soldiers south marched from Scotland, being attacked by Home Guard battalions along the way. When they reached the Leicestershire Battalion, Jim was involved in the ensuing fight.\u00a0 It was called off, he tells, me, because it got too rough.\u00a0 The Commandoes weren\u2019t averse to breaking a man\u2019s bones with a rifle-butt \u2013 not what a 19 year-old from Leicester was used to\u2026\u00a0 Jim and two mates were also caught out in the words night of the Blitz in Leicester, running from shelter to shelter, trying to find space to escape the falling bombs.\u00a0 He joined the Air Cadet Corps the following week.<\/p>\n After service in the RAF in Singapore, Jim returned to Leicester and, during a 51-year career at Mellor Bromley, started cycling competitively. He showed me photos of himself and Thelma, proudly standing by their Dawes cycles \u2013 expensive in today\u2019s money, but a mark of quality.\u00a0 They cycled to Bradgate Park frequently in the 1950s; Jim remembers Annie\u2019s Caf\u00e9, which was on the site of the current caf\u00e9, where they would stop for \u2018a cup of tea and a wad\u2019.\u00a0 Jim and Thelma both agreed that the Park in those days was very different.\u00a0 After only 20-odd years as a public park, facilities were still pretty basic: no visitors\u2019 centre, information, events.\u00a0 And no poet in residence, I guess.\u00a0 Jim\u2019s love affair with cycling continued; he is still a member of Leicester Cycling Club (and worries about the small number of members that attend the clubhouse).\u00a0 He competed in the Isle of Man cycle race, which Thelma tells me was easy because \u201cyou couldn\u2019t get lost, because it\u2019s an island.\u00a0 If you keep pedalling, you end up where you started.\u201d<\/p>\n As time went on, Jim continued coming to Bradgate Park. By this time he was driving, and made a habit of parking at Hallgates car park, at the Cropston end \u2013 because his two sons demanded ice creams, and that\u2019s where the ice cream van was (and still is).\u00a0 He showed me a picture of his two sons, in short trousers, climbing the rocks at the Park in the 1960s; an activity, he tells me, that frightened the life out of Thelma.\u00a0 His mind is still sharp, as are his memories, even though he can\u2019t cycle up to the Park anymore.\u00a0 He takes it all in his stride: after hearing his story, I get the impression that nothing much frightens the life out of Jim York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jim York is 93, so this walk in the park was a feat of memory, undertaken from the armchair in the front room of his house in Leicester. Jim was cycle-racing competitively into his 80s, but is now less mobile.\u00a0 That didn\u2019t stop him from talking about memories from lots of different periods of hisRead more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":515,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,22,1,18],"tags":[32,31,30],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bradgate-park","category-leicester","category-uncategorised","category-wildlife","tag-annies","tag-cycling","tag-home-guard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/poetinthepark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/poetinthepark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/poetinthepark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/poetinthepark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/515"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/poetinthepark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/poetinthepark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/poetinthepark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions\/92"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/poetinthepark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/poetinthepark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/poetinthepark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}