Grubb Up

I could not fail to notice that every moveable item in the house had a label attached to it. The traditional type of label with a small tie of clean white string through a reinforced punched hole in the cream coloured paper tag, about the size of a library card.

Some of the labels bore just a single initial, the majority had the same surname but prefixed with various initials, a few had a very formal and civil full name approach as though for a neighbour or acquaintance who had once admired the item and then the rest just said the single word of Charity.

It was the slow process of the clearance of a house by a grieving family, some quicker than others to claim their entitlement amongst the furniture, framed prints and ornaments.

I had met a middle aged man at the house. It had been a long time residence for his late father, in fact the family had bought the property from new in the late 1940's and he himself had been born in the place as had his siblings. It was a long time to be in a house but why think about moving when everything is provided under the current roof.

I was there to value the property, less the chattels.

I was left to wander about through the disarray of furniture, the small collected piles of similar items, a few bags of clothes, stacks of paperback books, kitchen pans and utensils and all the accumulated ephemera of a long life.

It was difficult to negotiate a way through most of the rooms because of the upheaval and aftermath of family, friends and distant relatives searching and scouring the contents for a memento or keepsake.

The loft hatch had been removed and had been rested against the staircase spindles. Smudges of dust streaked fingermarks indicated that the roof void had also been the subject of familial investigation and part clearance of the manageable items of worn suitcases, packing boxes and bundled up old curtains and sheets.

A standard sized tea-chest had been evidently lowered through the loft hatch, and had snagged the wall with an unruly piece of the metallic edge trim before being deposited disappointingly empty in the doorway to the small front box-bedroom. I examined the abraded scar in the old wallpapered finish and then carefully moved the sharp edged chest out of the way to inspect the room.

Of all the spaces in the house the smallest one was empty, that was apart from a bicycle.

As a keen cyclist myself, I thought that I was the only person who kept a bike in the house and not in the shed or garage.

The bike in the loft was not complete or serviceable.

It had wheels but these were of the metal rims only, no tyres and of a poorer modern aluminium type usually provided with a new starter or junior racing bike. They had obviously been hastily fitted to keep the frame of the bike upright and safe from damage.

It was clear that the frame was of good quality beneath the faded and corrosion speckled paint job. The lug work around the head tube was elaborate and well crafted. The same quality showed on the brazings for the main tubes and around the bottom bracket housing where the pedals will have fitted.

 I inserted two fingers of my right hand under the mid point of the crossbar and lifted slowly. Even with the dead weight of the modern wheels the bike was feather-light in weight.

This, in its heyday, had been a top calibre machine for road-racing or the off-season leisure rides into the countryside, perhaps up to Scarborough or the North Yorkshire Moors.

As I lifted the bike higher, engrossed in its lightness, the wheels fell off from their loose association with the front and rear drop-outs.

The clatter of noise brought the man to assist me, concerned if I was alright and apologising for the state of the house which was now completely the opposite of the standards kept by his parents and latterly his widower father.

From the initial suspicion of me on my arrival this noisy interlude broke the ice and we got to talking on the subject of his father and his passion for cycling.

That actual bicycle in the house had been all he could remember from his earliest years.

He recalled that it had always been in pristine condition, shining and chrome polished even after a run out in mixed weather. The original wheels had been made of cane for absolute minimal weight. The components had been the best his father could afford.

In the 1930's cycling was a major interest in this City and there were a number of very well patronised clubs catering for racing, socials, longer weekend runs to cafe's and cycle-touring.

His father, a keen member of 'something or other Wheelers' had met his wife to be through the mutual love of cycling in a large group. The front of the frame was moved into the sunlight from the window. The man pointed out the emblem on the tubing below the handlebar head.

It read "F H Grubb".

This immediately sparked a memory from a conversation with my father about his cycling days, when as a mere teenager he had pedalled through Holland, Belgium and to Paris. He had spoken of many classic bike makers and Grubb had stood out as both unusually ugly for a commercial venture and a bit comical.

The pedigree of the frame had been validated beyond doubt.

The frame did not have a label attached so cheekily I asked what was to become of it. The man said that it would probably go to a youngster in the family as was his responsibility as Executor for his father's estate. I had immediate visions of the frame sprayed lurid yellow, fitted with a front wheel smaller than the rear and used for stunts and jumps over scrap-wood ramps or dirt hills.

The frame would prove disappointing in such pursuits as it would surely buckle and fold on any minor impact for which it was not intended.

I asked if he would consider selling it to me.

He said he would if I took it all away, frame ,wheels and , also, a box of bits which over the years had become detached or broken off . He disapperared into another bedroom. I heard some shuffling, the moving of heavy items, a profanity and then a cry of success. The box was indeed full of cycle related components topped by the protruding curl of clearly the original handlebars.

I would check the boxed contents out in more detail later.

The transaction did not take much to close. I offered £30 which was immediately accepted. The man obviously felt I was an idiot to want nothing more than a collection of welded pipes on wheels, notwithstanding the sentimental value.

Personally, I could not believe my good fortune.

Later, after work I took the frame, less the cheap wheels, to present to my father. He was amazed at my acquisition and availed the full story of the great Freddie Grubb, a Silver Medallist at the 1912 Summer Games in Stockholm in the individual and team road races before his retirement and setting up in the bike making business.

My father and Freddie, whilst a generation apart, did have a common association with Croydon, north of London as a place of birth and manufacturing respectively.

F H Grubb built bicycles from 1914 and even into the late 1970's with the Holdsworth brand continuing his name two years after his death in 1949.

My father over the following months took on the restoration of the frame as a project. It took much time and care to strip back the frame to the bare metal after accumulated dirt and corrosion had dulled the definition between lug and tube.

Unfortunately, the task could not be completed within the lifetime of my own father but all the hard work has been done and I look forward to completing the project at some time in the future.