Thank you. That's thought provoking. I haven't entirely decided not to wear one. I am just tootling around my local small Victorian Park at the moment. There is nowhere for anything to come out of the blue there and (having only just learned to pedal), I don't have the bottle to ride down hill yet Someone asked if it occurred to me that posters here all have a lot of cycling experience. I do get that and I am listening. I still don't think I need a helmet for the tootling, but I am open to taking account of others' reasonably presented views and I may well decide to wear one when I venture further.

As I said before, I'm mulling it over.