Yes, I was the anonymous “A man from Brighton with his Penny-Farthing…” referenced widely in the media reporting on the Queen Lying-in-State (LISQ). Which I found interesting because I’ve never been to Brighton. I honestly had no idea, nor anticipated any media reporting on people queuing in a (Southwark) park. It was my understanding the event was attended by gazillions of people so I thought I’d be lost in that sea of mourners. And I don’t watch any mainstream media as it really operates only as a proxy to promote the views/biases/opinions of a few billionaires that control the majority of it. Indeed, wearing a Union Jack waistcoat I knew was a sure way to become invisible to the BBC and it worked a treat 😉

I just felt the Penny-Farthing being a quintessentially British form of transportation was the most appropriate way to travel to pay my respects from Bishop’s Stortford to London (and back again…)

So imagine my surprise when friends started sending me pics/video…

“A man with his Penny-Farthing” gets top-billing over David Beckham. Who’d have thunk it… 😉

A 25 minute video- mostly of the return journey from Westminster back to Bishop’s Stortford- of the epic ride shown below. After standing in the queue for 15 hours with a really aching back, I had to cycle home at 0230 the following morning. In East London I cycled with a chatty, bike-mad Deliveroo guy obsessed with my Penny-Farthing and through Leytonstone, Woodford to Epping Forest where I was struggling to stay awake. I stopped for a black coffee at a gas station on the edge of Epping and that perked me up enough I managed the last leg through Harlow and Sawbridgeworth to get home about 24 hours after I started the trip to LISQ. I was totally shattered. And no, I didn’t see any ghosts as many report cavort in the darkness of Epping Forest when cycling through it in the small hours of 20220917…