Many thanks to
Bunneh for posting this up. It's an old Yellow Pages advert that I'd never seen before, in which a northern lad is dreaming about getting a racing bike. His dad is talking down his expectations - about that kind of bike without proper mudguards and chainguard and with a razor-sharp saddle. ''Mebbe next year, eh...'' And then, come his birthday...yes you've guessed it....
(For some reason - it worked when I tested it but it hasn't embedded - here's the
address anyway.)
But the main reason why I liked the clip was because when the lad sets off up the hill, I suddenly realised that I knew this ''northern'' street.
Because it's Maidenstone Hill, all the way north in London, SE10 - a street which I ought to recognise because my very first ever girlfriend lived at the top of that hill.
I couldn't take a photo from the first floor, but this is how it looks from the street - note the corner shop in the ad was once a corner shop but hasn't been one for over 30 years - they've just dressed up the outside
So down the hill I cycled, got back to a computer to see how they compared. So I started the youtube video again and went ''hang on a minute..." because if was only after coasting back to Deptford that I realised the opening shot was also up that hill. But there was no way Google Streetview could have that image on streetview because it's not a road. Right, off up Point Hill for the second time. Here's the opening shot:
And here's the view from the path.
(I was going to take a closer picture but there was a woman with a child at one of the windows and I thought I might get taken for a snooper.)
Greenwich, bikes, nostalgia...right up my street.
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Talking of Greenwich, bikes and nostalgia, here's a curiosity about Witcomb's cycles in Deptford (now gone)...the presenter fails to cycle up Hyde Vale and remounts up by the drinking trough.
