ROUND THE WORLD

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 24 November 1938, Page 4

ROUND THE WORLD

ON A BICYCLE VOCABULARY OF 3 WORDS [By Air Mail—Special Correspondent! j LONDON. 29th October. ! •Red tape was my biggest obstacle" | said Allan Pendleburg. 26-years-oid Lancashire man who arrived back in his home at Wigan this week alter a world bicycle tour of 26.000 miles. He had been round the world on a bicycle and three words. These were “bread." "water" and "sleep." "I learned the native equivalent for these through every country I passed" said Pendlebury “and I found they worked perfectly. With £2OO and a light bike I started from London two years ago. The biggest obstacle I came up against was. not the Italian police, nor the Persian brigands who attacked me with knives, but red tape. I found a world full of people who have next to nothing to do and make a terrible fuss about doing it. The British are not the worst sinners in this respect but they are bad enough. • They told me at Bagdad that I was the first white man to cross the desert on a bicycle. For tbe last few miles of the journey it seemed doubtful whether I would be the first, for these were done in a terrible storm. Friendly Arabs with cars offered to pick me up and the bike as well, but I was determined to finish the job myself. He ate fish and chips in Bandar Abbas, Persia, with a man he afterwards discovered was cotton mill executive Mr W. H. Brown—of Wigan. Said Mr Pendlebury: “It took that Persian cook four hours to make them. They were not exactly Wigan style—but they were enough to make me homesick.”