GOLD!

This afternoon I went downtown to see the parade organised for Peter Reed, the rower and Olympic Gold medallist of 2012 and 2008. Peter comes from the neighbouring town of Nailsworth, but the celebrations began in Stroud. After a speech on the balcony of the Subscription Rooms (Stroud's answer to a town hall) he mingled with the public on the forecourt, signing autographs (mainly for teenage girls) and had his photo taken approximately seven thousand, six hundred and forty two times.

Close up, Peter is young, and I was surprised at how tall he is. Maybe the height is in the upper body rather than the legs: where would you fit them in a boat? I only got close enough to see his head and shoulders, as the man was mobbed. The Stroud Samba band ( who else?) were playing on board the charabanc, and small boys in the street were dancing to the beat. Eventually the bus set off, flanked by police outriders and a council van, and proceeded to do the victory tour of Stroud's three main streets accessible to traffic. Driving around Stroud is like driving on a postage stamp: it's a town in miniature! Somehow the driver navigated that bus, with its jiggling Samba players, VIP guests, paparazzi, security, Town Cryer, Olympian hero, and Uncle Tom Cobbley safely along the route.

Here you see the victory bus, having completed the triangle, cornering to come down Rowcroft, under the railway bridge and onto the A46 to continue its journey to Nailsworth, where further jollifications were planned, culminating in a barbecue. The angle is odd because the bus had begun its descent. Peter is holding his medal aloft, and everything's looking pretty fine, including the bus itself! One of my favourite books when I was quite little was called Tootles the Taxi, and it featured 1950s forms of transport with cheery little rhymes about service and hard work and always keeping smiling. This bus might have come straight out of Tootles, though I cannot tell you the vintage. I do have a head for stories, but not numbers.

I missed the Olympic torch when it came to Stroud in May, because I was working in Gloucester. I missed the torch in Gloucester, because I was in Stroud! And I wasn't happy about the McDonalds and Coca Cola sponsorship. So this day made up for that, and the fact that the Paralympics hold out hope for so many people that just a few years ago might not have been expected to achieve much at all.

Afterwards, I went to buy walking-to-work shoes in a cheap but very understaffed sports shop. While exchanging moans about the lack of service with another customer, she told me that Peter Reed had visited her son's school. His schedule is on the tough side, she said: up at 5 am to begin training, and in bed for the night by 6.30 pm! Not much time for larking around then...

The nearby town of Stonehouse also has a Paralympian cyclist, James Brown, who cycles for Northern Ireland. He and his partner narrowly missed out on the Bronze medal this year.