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On Ride & Stride day, with Taylor, my cycling buddy, I visited 25 churches & chapels around the Suffolk Countryside.

For the record these were: Gipping chapel, Old Newton Methodist, Old Newton church, Haughley church, Wetherden church, Harleston church, Shelland church, Woolpit church, Drinkstone church, Hessett church, Beyton church, Tostock church, Norton Baptist, Norton Salvation Army, Norton church, Hunston church, Langham church, Badwell Ash church, Walsham-le-Willows church, Walsham-le-Willows Congregational, Westhorpe church, Wyverstone church, Bacton church, Cotton church and Mendlesham church. We biked to Gipping for a 9.00 start and arrived at Mendlesham at 4.59.

Thanks to those who manned nearly all of the churches and offered welcome refreshments to help fuel our eco-friendly journey - water, juice, fruit, sweets, biscuits, cake and even a custard doughnut! Other than rain during our journey between Wyverstone & Bacton, the sun shone all day. We can't say we didn't ache when we finished - and the leg-power wasn't nearly as efficient at the end of the afternoon as in the morning, but it was well worth the effort.... and nothing a soak in the bath, a good sleep and little emollient couldn't put right.

Half the money raised will help repair our beautiful Grade I listed St Mary’s, Mendlesham, which will soon need costly repairs to the nave roof; the other half goes to SHCT, which runs the event and makes grants to churches and chapels of all denominations for repair and restoration.

It was 47 years ago, on 3 June 1979, that I took part in the very first churches “Cycle Chase” — 3 years before it inspired the SHCT Ride & Stride and now forgotten by too many. It was the brainchild of the late Revd Hugh Wake, Rector of Great Finborough, Harleston and Onehouse, visiting all 22 churches in the Stowmarket deanery. Little could he have known how widely his idea would spread across England!

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