On Stanford Bank

Photo courtesy George Barker

     If you leave the village of Stanford-on-Teme by the Bromyard road you will pass, high on your left, the Gothic style Georgian church of St. Mary, and the seat in its churchyard dedicated to the memory of Jack Clements., long time President of the Beacon Roads Cycling Club.

      Jack was Irish gentry, Master Jack to the folks back home, but a respected member and hard-working official of the Midlands cycling fraternity and ‘one of the lads’ out on the bike, and the seat overlooks the Teme valley, and the long, steep climb up Stanford Bank, reflecting Jack’s twin loves of fishing and cycling.

   Stanford Bank has been, for nearly 70 years, one of the most feared climbs on the Beacon RCC Mountain Time Trial, regarded as a classic in the cycling world, and still attracts entries from some of Britain's top time-trialing talent. In his younger days, Jack competed, but in later years be found at the top of the climb, watch in hand, recording the painful efforts of those in search of glory. Sometimes, he recorded mine.

           I’ve been up Stanford several times in anger in the Mountain Trial, always experiencing the same grim enjoyment that I presume one gets from self flagellation. One of the worst aspects of the climb is that you can see a long way up it, and from the Church it appears to be about as vertical as it can get without you toppling over backwards, so you drop down a couple of gears, whimper pitifully, and mouth vile obscenities to cheer yourself up until you reach the top. One year the pain was worth it, because Pete McHugh and Jimmy Arnold and I won the Handicap team award, along with bragging rights for several years. Jimmy’s long dead now, and Pete has joined UKIP which I suppose is much the same thing.

            Stanford, though is not just a pain-in-the-arse in time trials but often features in road races, and my most enduring memory concerns an eighty-mile road race more than fifty years ago.

            The course included two ascents of Stanford Bank and two of Ankerdine, and on the first ascent of Stanford the bunch split in two immediately the climb started, and I found myself in the wrong half,watching the leaders ride away. At the top, the stragglers regrouped, probably twenty or more of us, and I was surprised to find Johnny Pottier among them. John was an ex-pro of some reput and had been the travelling reserve with the British Tour-de-France team in 1955, the year that Brian Robinson became the first Brit to finish that race.

            We started to organise a chase and worked well together over Bromyard Downs and down to Knightwick where we started the first climb of Ankerdine. Mayhem ensued, and at the top there were only about a dozen riders left. The hard grind back to Gt. Whitely reduced it even more and by the time we started the second climb of Stanford Bank,  Johnny and I had blown everyone else away, and oh joy, the race leaders were now in sight, not far up the road. I upped my place slightly, to close the leaders down but Johnny came past me out of the saddle and sprinting hard. By the time I reacted, he’d bridged the gap and joined the leaders, leaving me wallowing despairingly down the road. The group was out of sight before I’d reached the top and I didn’t see them again that day.

            I have borne Pottier a grudge over that callous act for over fifty years now, and whenever I see him now I make a point of mentioning it and ask him if he is ready to apologise.

            Johnny always grins, and said he cant remember it, but he bloody well does.

            You bastard, Pottier.