Charlie has never written anything about drinking alcohol, but todays ride, which started after an aborted arrangement to meet a friend at the Three Pigeons pub on Blackburn road in Bolton, seems to reflect some imbibing between 2.30 and 4pm in order to explain what followed.  He talks of following a field path for some ten miles with allsorts of obstacles – stiles etc – but still able to regain the highway at the other end in 45 minutes.  Yeh, right Charlie !

The mysterious Castle he refers to is a ‘folly’ built near Rivington village by Lord Leverhulme, the then landowner, to replicate the layout and design of the earlier castle at Liverpool.  What forms a millionaire’s expenditure can take !