Snapshot: A father's pride in his cyclist son

This month my husband, Carl, turned 50. To mark reaching this landmark age, he set himself a challenge: to cycle 960 miles from the base of the UK to its northernmost tip.

Carl is a sociable chap. He enjoys the company of others and doesn't appreciate too much time on his own. And while I never doubted that his legs held the physical strength to carry him from Land's End to John O'Groats, I was concerned about how he would cope with the solitude this challenge would force him to endure.

In the months running up to his 13-day ride, Carl painstakingly planned his route so that he would hit home, roughly at the halfway point on his journey, on the eve of his birthday.

Meanwhile, word of his trip spread among his friends and work colleagues (past and present), located in different parts of the country, and many arranged to meet him for a coffee, lunch or an evening pint when he passed their way.

Soon his itinerary contained not just points of interest and where he would be bedding down for the night; it began to also include the names and numbers of his mates and where and when he'd be meeting up with them.

At the planning stage, I found this reassuring. When the trip became a reality and I read Carl's blog each evening it was surprisingly moving to see pictures of the men who featured in it, having gone out of their way to meet up with him en route.

But the most moving picture of all (taken by my dad) is this one: it's of my father-in-law, Graham, greeting his boy, open-armed, on the eve of his 50th birthday (his only rest day) as Carl pulls up on the road outside our house. In the background is Darrell, one of the three members of Carl's road club who rode out to meet him so they could bring him home from the first leg of his challenge. (The day after his birthday, two more turned up to escort him back out again.)

The depth of pride on my father-in-law's face made me catch my breath the first time I saw it. To me, it summed up not only his great love for his son, but also how this challenge became a wonderful celebration of my husband's life and an affirmation of the numerous male bonds he has forged on his journey through it.

Rachel Halliwell

Playlist: Nan's gift to me that kept on giving

Tomorrow Never Knows by the Beatles

"Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream."

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I'd been an avid Beatles fan since Jean McIvaney passed me a note during geography recommending a new record – Love Me Do. I had all the singles and now there was going to be an LP – 19s 6d, if memory serves and an unthinkable sum in 1963.

But my grandmother gave my brother and me £1 on the day of release and we were outside the local record shop after school on that day to buy our first ever LP. In the 60s, there was nowhere to hear new LPs except in the record shop so as soon as someone bought the record you all went round to their house to listen to it.

And we did listen – sat and listened, then talked about it. If you liked it and could get the money, you would go and buy it. I loved every Beatles album after that, but Revolver was something else. It was the start of psychedelia in 1966 and at the end, when Tomorrow Never Knows came on, we just had to get up and dance, arms waving in the air to that sound.

Early this year, I was redecorating the bedroom when I came across two cardboard boxes full of vinyl – 200 or more albums – carted round from house to house for 50 years. The time had come to get rid of them. Nan's present of that first LP brought in a couple of hundred pounds and the rest of the collection a couple more.

For the first time in my life I don't own everything the Beatles recorded. I was unprepared for how bereft I feel. Despite still having a record deck, I hadn't played any of my vinyl for years, but I can't believe how much I miss it all. I went straight out and bought Revolver on CD. It is still outstanding, I am still word perfect on every track and still feel compelled to dance, arms waving in the air, to Tomorrow Never Knows. But it's still an ending of a kind.

Kathleen Morris

We love to eat: Humble crumble

Ingredients
Two or three apples (cooking or eating)
2 tsp brown sugar, or to taste
20g butter, cut into chunks
Plain biscuits (we usually use digestives, but anything works).

Peel and slice the apples, then heat them in the microwave until they are warm and soft, or simmer them in a pan with a little water, then drain). Place in a greased ovenproof dish and sprinkle with brown sugar. Using a rolling pin, crush a few biscuits in a sealed plastic bag – amount depends on how thick or thin you like the topping. Pour the crumbs into a bowl, add melted butter, then mix together and spread over the apples. Heat in the oven at 180C/gas mark 4 for 20 minutes. Serve with ice-cream, toffee sauce or custard – or eat on its own.

The Harrisons' Humble Crumble is a great way of turning apples into a lovely warm pudding, along with some boring old biscuits – as you can see from the photograph.

We don't often have a traditional roast, but when we do, we like to have the full works, including a delicious homemade pudding. My husband, Andy, is especially fond of apple crumble, richly made with butter and with a good crunch, just like the kind made by his grandmother, Katie Mary, when she was alive. For part of the 80s, when Andy was growing up, his parents were rebuilding a cottage – now a beautiful house overlooking the Dee estuary into the Wirral – so he lived with his grandmother. (As she was from North Wales, she was his "nain"). And she spoilt my husband with many great homemade puds. 

Andy's mum, Gwladys, continues the tradition of being a good pudding-maker, along with my father-in-law, Keith, who also likes to cook. They shower us with puddings whenever we visit, but we don't have the time to copy down the recipes, let alone emulate them. 

The champion of all Katie Mary's puddings was the apple crumble, and my husband has achieved the great taste while at the same time devising a much quicker  method than his nain used. It is also a good way of using up old biscuits and apples, of which we always seem to have an abundance, whatever the time of year. 

Alison Harrison

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