Met a nice old chap who’d fallen over and cut his head quite badly and broken his hip. As I was gathering his medication I noticed a couple of really nice track bikes and a bso. He was telling me how he’d been a successful racer in the 1950s and had spent a lot of time in Belgium and France having ridden for the army after the war. He had some right tales of old velodromes and overly aggressive road racing on the continent!
He told me his family only spoke to him to get money and that he planned to go into a home soon and would rather put all his possessions in a skip than let them get anything from them. He was looked after by a young single mum from over the road who had 2 kids and was only 19 or so. She made all his meals, cleaned and generally kept him company, lovely lass. He said he’d let her have first dibs on anything she wanted, I made a point of telling her that what she wanted was the 2 bikes without gears, put them on eBay and take a lot of photos.
I don’t know what she got for them, and I didn’t look out for them in case I felt the urge to buy them, but I’d like to think that this gents bikes went to a good home rather than a skip and the woman that actually cared for him got some just reward for her decency!