Simon Boswell's Blog

Teddies Two Wheeler 100 mile route

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 16:57:00 +0000

Some people have asked to see the route I'm riding on Sunday - so here it is. It doesn't look so far when you think that it's pretty much all within about 15 miles of Oxford...

Reasons to sponsor me - SeeSaw

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:20:00 +0000

I'm lucky to be married to an amazing woman. Mel (for it is she) has spent a lot of her adult life working with children with special needs, either those who have profound developmental issues, or those who have suffered from terrible emotional trauma in early life.

SeeSaw is a charity who Mel has found very helpful in the past. They are a charity based in Oxford who provide support to children suffering from family bereavement, and Mel has found their advice really useful in situations where she has had to work with children in similar situations.

I am sure that, like me, you find it hard to imagine just how terrible it must be to lose a parent or sibling when still a child. So please help me raise money to support this charity's amazing work by sponsoring me at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/SimonBoswell

Losing the old and bringing in the new

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 19 Apr 2015 06:14:00 +0000

Someone nicked my bike earlier this week. I'd taken it with me to London, had locked it to a pair of railings on Shaftesbury Avenue, and someone with a pair of bolt-cutters came along, shipped off the lock and rode away into the sunset. I guess I'll never see it again.

On the positive side, it's been an education for Emma, who has been very sympathetic about my plight. We've had a good chance to show the lack to her school friends and Brownie groups and to discuss why some people are naughty like this, and why it is more likely to happen in a big city like London than a small one like Cheltenham.

And on the even more positive side, I've had to suddenly invest in a new bike - here she is! I know that to most of you she'll look like pretty much any bike, but oh! if you could pick her up you'd feel how light she is. And if you could take her out for a ride (as I did last night) you'd feel like you'd just traded in a Ford Fiesta for a nice sports car. I'm feeling very happy!

Reasons to sponsor me - St Edwards School Bursary Fund

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 18:59:00 +0000

Not long before by dad died, I was very lucky to go on a trip with him to Hull, where he had lived as a child. The highlight of the trip was to spend a morning wandering around his old school, Hymer's College, where he had spent 6 and a half happy years as a teenager back in the 1950s. My dad's experience at Hymer's had profoundly affected his entire life. A grammar school back then, at Hymer's he had a headmaster who spotted his talent for singing, who encouraged him to apply to King's College, Cambridge for a Choral Scholarship, and who in doing so also determined my dad's choice of teaching as a profession. My dad was a great believer in education for education's sake. For him, education was the key to helping children realise their potential in life, and he hated the utilitarian view that education should serve society in some particular way, by churning out doctors, lawyers, computer programmers or whatever. At St Edwards he worked hard, 7 days a week during term time, to help bring out the best in all the young adults he served, and he served the school for over 40 years before he died in November 2013. My dad - and subsequently, my brother and I - thrived at St Edwards because it was a successful, privately-funded school which could provide great resources for pupils and teachers alike. But I was always aware that the cost of providing this education resulted in fees that are simply beyond the reach of 99% of families in the UK. So I've always been pretty ambivalent about this part of my upbringing: glad for the opportunities it has brought me, yet somehow guilty that I was lucky to get this schooling for free as a perk of my dad's job. There are millions of bright kids around the UK who haven't had the luck that I had. So I hope to help St Edward's raise lots of money for their Bursary fund to help subsidise the fees of those bright kids who deserve the chances I got - and that my dad got - and then who knows how that may make the world a better place to live in?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 03 Apr 2015 10:21:00 +0000

Oh - if anyone cares to see the photo that motivated me to start losing weight - here it is. This was taken 2 years ago at my mum's birthday...

Cycling to work

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 17:27:00 +0000

About a year ago I tried cycling to work for the first time - now it's become something I do a couple of times a month. But climbing Cleeve Hill at the end of a long day in the saddle hasn't got any easier - especially when you're descending at pace on a dark, potholed road. That's the definition of scary...

It's not the first sponsored ride I've done...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 22 Mar 2015 08:56:00 +0000

Cutting from the Oxford Star, 26th May 1983

This isn't the first time I've done a sponsored bike ride - but the last one was 32 years ago, when I rode 50 miles to raise money for the Oxford Pro Musica, the local orchestra that was about to go bankrupt. I don't think my efforts saved it, alas.

Here's a clipping from the local free paper where the photographer clearly decided it would be fun to have me holding my bike and cello at the same time. I remember thinking what a stupid idea that was - I'll leave you to judge whether it makes the photo more interesting or not!

Back then, I wanted to be a cricketer. That probably lasted a week. But some things don't change - "He's always full of ideas" was my mum's quote at the end of the article...

The Teddies 2 Wheeler

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 22 Mar 2015 07:44:00 +0000

On the 26th April I'll be taking part in the Teddies 2 Wheeler Cycling Sportive.

It's a 100 mile course round Oxfordshire which starts and ends (I hope!) at my old school, St Edwards in Oxford.

Now there's plenty of reasons why I signed up to do the ride - and if you follow this blog over the next few weeks, I'll tell you more - but for now I just wanted to share the link to my fundraising page:

http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/SimonBoswell

I've set myself a target of raising £1,000 for the two charities that are supporting the event. Please help me get there! Your support would be very much appreciated.