On Yer Bike!
In the aftermath of the 1981 riots in Handsworth and Brixton, Norman Tebbit (Employment Secretary in Margaret Thatcher’s Government at the time) responded to a suggestion by a Young Conservative that ‘rioting was the natural reaction to unemployment’ by saying, ‘I grew up in the 1930s with an unemployed father. He didn’t riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it!’ This exchange is supposedly the origin of the slogan, ‘On yer bike!’ Tebbit is often misquoted as saying directly to the unemployed ‘get on your bike and look for work!’ Although this is not what Tebbit actually said, it is arguably what he was implying.
Back in the 1960s – 20 years before Tebbit’s advice – I recall an incident when someone literally did ‘get back on his bike’ … not to seek employment, but in the…
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Viv Drewa - The Owl Lady 