Day 4 - A new hero - Free Country: A Penniless Adventure the Length of Britain - page 56

'Well anyway, I'm feeling better today.'
The Cornish Stannary Parliament launched Operation Chough in 1999, which resulted
in the removal or defacing of English Heritage signs from many of Cornwall's tourist at-
tractions. One of which was Launceston Castle. The reason being, as Tranny Witch had
pointed out, was that they weren't in England, they were in Cornwall. A court case ensued,
and charges against the Cornish Stannary Parliament were eventually dropped after they
returned all the signs and paid compensation to English Heritage.
CornishorEnglish,itwasstillabeautifulplace.Thecastleitselfonlycostsafewpounds
to visit and looked to be well worth a trip.
'Shall we see if Launceston has got a Police Station? They might have some proper
bikes lying around that they can give us?' asked Ben.
'What do you mean? We've got proper bikes, haven't we?'
'Yeah, I mean bikes to get us to John O'Groats.'
'I thought that's what these were?'
'What? Yeah, right. Very funny. These are just temporary things until we get something
better.'
I was confused. I had thought that we were going to take Pinky and The Falcon all
the way to John O'Groats, but Ben had different ideas. They weren't the best bikes in the
world, admittedly, but they were doing the job. People had surely done the trip on worse
bikes in the past.
'Ok,' I conceded, 'let's try the police station.'
Launceston Police Station was situated on the outskirts of town, fortunately in the dir-
ection we were heading. A smiling bald man manned the desk.
'Wedogetstolenbikesinoccasionally,butifthey'renotreclaimedthentheygetsentto
Torquay,' he said.
'How far is Torquay from here?' asked Ben.
'Oooh, I would say it's about 70 miles or so.'
Ben looked at me. 'That's not too far,' he said. 'It's probably worth a try.'
'Are you serious?' I asked, in shock. 'You want to cycle 70 miles out of our way, to
somewhere that may or may not have bikes that are better than the ones we already have?'
'No?'
'No!'
Ben looked dejected.
'Is there a tip in Launceston?' he asked the policeman.
'Yes, follow this road down for half a mile. Right at the roundabout then it's on the
right.'