Forbidden to ride as a child (her mother equated it with other “sensual” pleasures), De Beauvoir learned in occupied Paris using the bike of her lover, Nathalie Sorokine: “I really handled it with ease, except one time I crashed into a dog and another time I collided with two women, and I was very happy.” Her mother might not have been wrong: De Beauvoir’s letters to Jean-Paul Sartre are full of the joys of bicycling, which she said made her like a “lusty wench”.
The violin, which was made by master craftsman David Tecchler in 1709, was left on the London to Orpington train on 22 October when Mr Morris got out at Penge East with his bike.