INparvo

140219 Geoff's knee 

This might have been like that old French movie: Claire's knee by Eric Rohmer. Sorry it's an old bloke. Handsome, mind.

We had not seen him since before Christmas. Then he was having to do the Dr Strangelove thing of helping to move his knee to where he wanted it to go.

Even so he was in great spirit for someone who had been happily twiddling up and gliding down French Alpine passes on his annual camper-van trip to France when slowly and quietly disaster struck.

Margaret was doing it too, though not quite so ambitiously. With an aggregate age of nearly 140 years you might ask why?

But you don't: cyclists have so many reasons.

One, because they can, and

two, because there is more space in France and,

three, other road users there, almost without exception,

have a healthy respect for cyclists.

He found his knee slowly swelling and becoming painful. They did the usual: ICE Ice Compression and Elevation. To no avail. They came home.

He was X-rayed and found to have a rare cancer normally only found in 30 year-olds. 
Cheaper option was amputation of the lower leg. 

More expensive, was the removal of quad muscles with brace inserted at the knee. This would mean he would use crutches then stick for support. He would eventually be able to ride a bike, probably with electric help. 

Over the centuries there have been so many variations on human powered movement on wheels it seems impossible to keep up. I think the latest might be the Copenhagen wheel. https://www.superpedestrian.com Trouble is, since I began typing this I feel there might have been another released.

His GP, whom he had introduced to cycling was on his side, and NHS funding was found.

He had walked a mile that morning. I think for the first time, he had begun to look at the road in detail. With no reference to the detail in my own paintings and photos over the past intermittent  20 odd years of friendship, he told me how each subtle bump had more bumps: 1 in 60 consisted of mini 1 in 6's. Going down slopes was worse. This was a climbing man who was used to having his nose in rock; a fell runner who organised and ran in them. He hand-and-knee'd them, though would avoid that practice when scrambling or climbing. He would bury his nose in moss and lichen of muddy turf in fell races. Even sheep shit on occasions!
As knees aged, he returned more and more to cycling. 

I tried to convince him that his biography would be better that mine.

But I might explain that later. Well NOT as I explain 

7th Sept 2014. 

WELL, I can't even keep up with mine, which I began 10 years ago. Events have moved on at such a pace in cycling and  communications that mine, about the 50's with updates, may now go back into childhood and add to those of a working class boy born in 1934; a boy who saw London burning from 50 miles away; an excited boy who was innocently enjoying being strafed by a German bomber.
My Dad had returned from the Somme. My mum....
It has become a search for ...?

With Geoff's friends and wife Mary in 2006, and former World Master at 25km, I shared a few of their last hours, as did others, and to a lesser extent, Barbara was still at work. We had watched  morning mist lift on the Welsh border hills to reveal the clear blue sky of sunny March days. Being a mere 4 mile cycle ride away, I was then to listen to his poetic thoughts on many mornings for a while, till he went further afield and finally on to family friend Margaret.

It was Margaret, unknown even to us at Mary's funeral, who herself was now bereaved.

 We had visited him in a hospice, which it seemed he might need to visit for up to 2 years, if only to give Margaret respite.

She was in their camper-van in the grounds when she was called in on the night of August 5th to hear he had quietly passed away.
Later we were in the congregation of his former village church where he was quietly laid to rest, high up the slope beside his wife Mary.

                RIP Geoff Gartrell 1935 - 2014.