A narrow escape that I remember was when I was 14, cycling through the centre of Wellingborough in heavy rain. Going left around a right-angle corner, I didn't slow down enough to allow for the road conditions: I went left, and the bike went straight on. I had been at the head of a queue of vehicles at traffic lights at a previous junction, and the last vehicle in the queue, a double-decker bus, had gone past me just before that left-hand corner. My only injury was a grazed elbow.

A mile or two further on, the rain got so heavy that I found it impossible to keep cycling. There just happened to be an abandoned car by the side of the road, which I hid inside for a few minutes until the downpour abated.