What Goes Around by Emily Chappell
I am in awe of Emily Chappell. Not only does she do amazing things on a bike (see also “Where There’s a Will“), but she writes engagingly and fluently about her life on and off the bike in such a seemingly effortless way. If I could do either of these things one quarter as well I’d be a happy man.
There was a time, a fleeting moment in history lasting barely two decades, when the streets of London were blessed by the presence of people who could be seen gracefully flying and swooping through the cars, buses, taxis and trucks. Balanced delicately on two wheels, fuelled by bananas and coffee, at one with their machines, these were the bicycle couriers. With their eponymous bags over their shoulders, short-wave radios squawking next to an ear, they ferried packages across London using a network of side streets and alleyways faster than most motorised delivery services could manage. Emily Chappell became one of them in 2008.
She writes about the camaraderie, the friendships and feuds of the courier’s life; the special places where they would hang out between jobs and after work; the hay fever in Spring, the heat and grime and sweat in the summer, the freezing, numbing cold in the winter. And in one short lyrical chapter she describes the incomparable feeling of being at one with the bike, balancing and manoeuvring by reflex and instinct alone.
There’s much more in the book, of course: personal stuff, friends and lovers found and lost; chance encounters; some history and characters from the early days of cycle couriering in London and around the globe. And enough pointers and hints of special or unusual corners of the city to make a day’s exploration on foot an attractive project.
Like swallows at the end of summer the couriers have gone now, their jobs lost to high-speed broadband connections. Fashion houses, architects, lawyers and publishers don’t need people to take documents and drawings from one office to another any more. The modern version is far less romantic – the food delivery men and women with their bulky, clumsy back packs who push their way heavily around the streets. They still congregate in their own places though, with careful separation between the cyclists and the motor-scooter riders – at least, that’s the case in Oxford and I expect it’s the same anywhere else. But at least those of us who had the privilege of seeing cycle couriers in full flight still have the memory in our minds’ eyes, and can ourselves hope that maybe just once again on our own bikes we can recapture that beautiful feeling.
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