Kidology on wheels

 

My father often said “it's all part of the great kidology son”. I never quite understood then who was kidding us, or with what. But nearly thirty years after his passing, his words resonate much more meaningfully today, especially in the political sphere. While I don't usually write about road transport, this blog post is just a 'vehicle' [sorry] for discussing the discourses of privilege, superiority and toxic masculinity that pervade the world of marketing and aspiration, and, looking back, my childhood too.

Even as a young child I was somehow aware of the message. My first bicycle was a source of embarrassment, it grieves me to say now. It was a Moulton. Hydrolastic ® suspension, tiny wheels and heavy frame, they were manufactured in Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, from 1962. In their wisdom my parents bought for one me, maybe partly out of loyalty to the place many of our family had originated. Mine was not the usual Moulton 'Standard' that my brother had, but the Moulton Mini Automatic. The name set me up for a lifetime of never being quite cool enough. The bigger boys laughed. The gear ratio was such that with its even smaller wheels it was difficult to match the pace of a 'normal' bike. A cream leathercloth pannier box reinforced the image of it as someone's shopper. 

The name 'mini' suggested it wasn't quite the real deal, and automatics were not for real men. I was to learn later, about cars, that it was supposedly more macho to nonchalantly or aloofly move a manual gear stick around. Freud would have said something about that. But if only I still had my Moulton, it would be worth a small fortune. I don't know what happened to it. How did people get rid of stuff before eBay? I would not be embarrassed today, and actually enjoy the relaxing drive in automatic cars.

My first car that worked, most of the time, was a late 1960s ex-GPO Mini Van, incidentally with a suspension also designed by Moulton, paradoxically painted Racing Green. It would seemingly be impossible to fit a family in one today. Yet rattling around the Isle of Wight in 1984/5 in an ancient Mini with partner, ageing parents and young son, this was the norm. Two of us toured Yorkshire and Cymru in it, and slept in it under Gogarth (Great Orme) in Llandudno. The following decades have seen what has been called 'carflation'. Ordinary models have grown to the extent that most domestic garages and parking spaces cannot cope. Many new vehicles seem to be of such huge proportions that, just from the raw materials used in their manufacture, undermine any claimed green credentials, even the electric ones.If you care to notice, aspirational bullying seems to be at fever pitch today.

Marketing messages continue, in hardly subliminal discourse, to tell you that you're never quite good enough if you don't have the top of the range something. You might have a road-destroying SUV, but the advertising hype will tell you you need to go to the next level. What happened to the times when people coveted cup holders? Even if yours is condescendingly described as the 'base model', the 'entry-level' model, a 'B segment' car or a 'small SUV', not quite up there with the grown-ups, all are positively giants compared with my old Mini. No matter that the vehicle to which you are expected to aspire has, for the sake of “road-presence”, such low profile tyres that the ride kills your spine.

Enough heavy metal, I’m having a lie down.

LINKS

An ode to Moulton bicycles (objectsofuse.com)

Moulton Bicycle - Wikipedia