I'm Bill Butterworth the Bikeability Coordinator for Perth and Kinross Council. I had just finished with the fire brigade. I had retired but I was quite young. I had a year off, did a bit of cycling and stuff. I was just sitting in front of the TV one day and I thought, God I’m bored.
I knew the manager at Perth and Kinross who did the cycling. They had just taken it over. It had gone through those iterations with the police and then police civilian staff, and it had dropped off a little bit and they were struggling.
He asked me to come and help them for a couple of months and I've been here for five years. I really enjoyed it. I like being out and about in the sunshine and sometimes in the rain. The instructors I work with really good fun. It's not really like a job. It's more of something that's really nice to do.
I'd been in the army and worked as an electrician and then I’d been in the fire service. We’d done some bits and pieces with children in the fire service, but I've never really done anything serious with children. So, it was something new for me.
I don’t know why I was nominated because I just think I'm going in everyday and doing my job. That's what I do. It was a bit of a surprise more than anything. It's been a shock, so it's nice. It’s nice to be recognised for all the work that you do. I just get stuck in and make sure that everything happens or doesn't happen.
We cover the whole of Perth and Kinross that’s 69 primary schools. As well as that we do a bit with the senior schools as well. We do a little bit with nurseries and stuff with equipment. We help with the cycling groups, and we have a little event that we put on every year the Canny Cycle, that's just for families.
I think the thing with education is you are having to deal with each head teacher separately. Some of them will be great and want to do it and it will be really easy and some of them are a bit more reticent and they’ll be reticent for different reasons.
What's the way I can deliver Bikeability so that the schools don't have to do anything at all? Because if you say to them, “You're going to have to get some volunteers or one member of staff out every time”, some schools are just going to say, “No. I can't do that. I don't have enough staff.”
My approach was to make it as simple as possible for schools. That was my philosophy from the start, because if you go in with a list of things that need to be done then they are just going to go, “No.”
If you're in inner city Perth you're going to have larger schools, larger class sizes, and big groups to manage. You need lots of instructors. So that was always a challenge. Having instructors is always a challenge. We try to get as many volunteers as we can, but that's really, really difficult, particularly in the inner city. People are at work, or they're just not interested in doing it. That's been a real challenge. The funding from Cycling Scotland has really helped us to be able to do that, because without that we probably wouldn't have been able to do what we've done so far.
In a city you've got lots of variety of infrastructure, whereas when you're out at rural schools you might not have that. If you go to a rural school, they might have three or four pupils. You might have to cycle for a mile or two just to get to a junction. And that's all you've got.
But really, teaching children to cycle anywhere is just teaching children to cycle. Most of them just really like to do it. They like to be outside, outside the classroom. Even children with additional needs do really well when they do Bikeability. They just get out and do it. As long as we know what the issues are. We can get all the children cycling.
We have a fleet of bikes, helmets and everything that we need to make it really accessible for the children. If they need support or have support in the classroom then we try and get the teachers to come and support them outside.
What I have noticed is that if you're doing a P7 group and its four weeks before they go to high school, that's going to be chaos. So, P7s, I want them before Christmas. Whereas P6s [are good] any time of the year. It is just little things like that you've got to manage.
I think the reason that most people aren't cycling is because there’s not the infrastructure out there. So, if you want your child to cycle to school every day, you're probably not going to let them if the cycling infrastructure isn’t there between wherever you live and the school.
I think it's a good life skill to have. If they go to university or go to a big town to work there’s a good chance they might use a bicycle, even if it's just in the summertime. So, even if there's not a huge take up after school, it's always good for them to have that learning to use later on in life.
I'd cycled a lot before I did Bikeability, but I hadn’t had any training. It was a bit of an eye opener when I did all of this and actually changed the way I cycle on the road myself.
Bikeability for us isn't just a skill, it's about confidence as well. If we see pupils growing in confidence, that's great. If we see them developing their road craft as well that’s quite inspirational. And if you see children who don’t perhaps perform well in the classroom achieving something, then that's really satisfying.
If you want to be successful with Bikeability in your local area you’ve got to have a really positive mindset. Don't let anything set you back. You need a really good support team around you so good managers as well. Get really good instructors around you.
We’ve got great instructors. A lot of them that's their job. That’s what they do full time. We have community wardens who do it with us as well. it's good for them to have an additional skill in the job and give them some variety.
Try not to get bogged down in one way of doing it. Try and have a really mixed style. Use staff from schools. Use freelance instructors. See if you can get some free people. We've even trained the police, and they've come out with us. They were also free, which was great. Just use anything you can.
I've been asked, how do you get instructors? Ask people. Just ask anybody and say, “Do you fancy it?” And they say yes or no.
