The Antony Lord Foundation
in association with Road Safety & Cycle Training

 PATRON: Jon Snow

ONE BRAIN., ONE LIFE … ONE CHANCE! LOOK AFTER IT !!
Promoting safer cycling, training and helmets

Antony Lord was born 12^th January 1992 … and lived life to the full., he was a typical boy, cheeky, pushing the boundaries to see how far he’d be allowed to go and yet he was a caring, thoughtful young lad whose heart was in the right place.   At the age of 7, he already had a higher than average IQ of over 140.

Antony’s spirit lives on., partially because he was an organ donor and partially because of the foundation in his name ...... I just hope no other parent has to go through what we both went through that fateful day both at that point in time, later at the hospital, the inquest and still now ... the pain is still very real especially as the potential for it to have been avoided was there! 

Primarily ALF has three aims, one is to try and stop other parents going through what we had to deal with by striving to ensure as many children as possible have access to training and secondly, to encourage all children 14 and under, to wear a helmet and Wendy will watch the children and site them for the ALF Award., which tends to go to those who make a serious effort or improve the most during the course in the form of  Certificates of Commendation, especially when the students are there out of choice and consistently listen and do as they are asked or sheer perseverance and determination for example.  Thirdly, to do more school talks – using the hard hitting approach might sound awful but if it prevents another Antony because it hits the mark, then at least his death won’t have been in vain!  Hopefully it will make them aware of what can and did happen to someone very close in geographic terms, in an advisory capacity. 

None of the above on their own will prevent another accident like Antony’s but they will minimise the risks involved – I’ve seen the feedback forms from parents of children that Wendy has already taught and every single one of them have nothing but praise both for her methods of teaching, also how much more competent without being over confident that they now are. 

Wendy now is teaching Bikeability herself, taking Cycling Proficiency into the 21^st Century., she was asked to be part of the ‘gearing up’ process or pilot between September ’06 and March ’07 prior to the national launch., which speaks volumes on it’s own – she got her accreditation as a Bikeability Instructor back in April '07 and now is part of the ongoing trial of defining the standards for full accreditation., she has also been approached by the powers that be with regard to becoming an Instructor Trainer too, so that she can train up Assistant Instructors and possibly mentor provisionally accredited instructors.  More recently she has been involved in the pilot of further trials with the CTSB.

The launch in August of both Bikeability (on road cycle training) and the new Off Road training scheme in Cornwall with Phillip Darnton, the Chairman of Cycling England co-hosted with Rob Fuller from the CTC (who is also on the board of the Cycle Training Standards Board) in the presence of Lady Mary Holborow JP, Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, Lord George (better known as Steady Eddie George, former Governor of the Bank of England) and John Franklin, author of the book Cyclecraft, was a roaring success and a day that everyone enjoyed with a special thanks to Milli, who bought crazy bikes down from Wales for it.  Also the BBC who sent Alex out with the satellite van in the morning and the ITV cameras who got to us a little later.

Wendy just passed her Sports Science Access course which she did in her spare time as a pathway to doing a Sports Coaching and Therapy FdSc degree, which she will be doing at Truro as part of a University of Plymouth course - she is still teaching around it though and currently going flat out with the YST grant that has come into county to train 2000 x Y6 children before the end of the summer.  At the Sports Dept. Ball on 13th June, although she didn't win, she had been nominated by one or more of her tutors, as a candidate for their Academic Achievement Award.

Not bad for someone who has been out of the academic world for over 30 years and that is on top of her E2E that she did over the Easter hols!! As for myself, there are things going on that mean I have to put my own plans of training as a Counsellor onto the back burner for the moment but normal service will be resumed as soon as it is feasible.  For the moment, Cathie, whose son was with Antony when the accident happened, will be sorting all things ALF for me.

Now finally the funding for training at Bikeability levels 1 & 2 has arrived, you could say 'Job done' and in a sense it is although the website will stay active as a reminder not to become complacent!!  The funding is coming via Cycling England in conjunction with the Youth Sport Trust (who manage the Schools Sports Partnership network) so that Partnership Development Managers are given grants to distribute in their School Sports Partnerships introducing Bikeability into schools in Cornwall, which we had hoped would be in place by the commencement of the new academic year but instead it is finally falling into place now (Spring 2008).  Long may it last ...

If our efforts have helped just one child, then it really is 'Job done' although that is the one thing we will never know for sure ... fingers crossed!