Beechings Green: preparations for some sort of summer event were well underway when I happened by early one Saturday morning. Wherever I’d been going was quickly forgotten once I spotted the large tents that had been erected on the pavilion side of the field. Thus, I found myself alone in a tent full of one armed bandits. And since I had a tanner in my pocket, I was tempted to put it in one of the fruit machines.
Ching kerching kerching
kerching kerching!
 |
Twenty lovely sixpences were mine, all mine. Then, in anticipation of a repeat win, I put one back in... then another... then another, until I'd fed the lot back into the machine.
In a state of despair, I left the tent. In spite of a miserable lesson learned I hung around and when things livened up and a series of children’s races began, I got the chance to participate in the ten year old boys 100 yards.
‘Sorry, this race is for ten year olds’ a woman said to me as I lined up at the start.
‘I am ten’ I replied, truthfully, which she grudgingly accepted. Though it grieved me to be looked upon with suspicion, her scepticism wasn’t unreasonable as I was taller and ganglier than most kids my age.
‘On your marks get set… go!’
I didn’t do too badly. If I hadn’t faded at the end I might even have won but after leading most of the way, I finished third.
‘You, come back!’ the distrustful woman shouted as I was about to wander off. ‘Take this to the judges table’ she said, handing me a ticket.
Surprise, surprise, upon handing my ticket to the judges I was given a shilling token for winning third prize, which I duly spent on sweets at the Co-op Grocers on Twydall Green.
~
Good news: Granny came down from Bolton to see her new granddaughter. A truce between her and Dad was good news for all and a boost to Mam, who now had six kids to care for.
Granny was a Methodist and a lover of garden parties (as she called a fete) so a summer fete at the Methodist Church on Goudhurst Road was a must for her. I went along too and though I was rubbish at the coconut shy, I was confident I could hit a rat with a bat as it shot out of the bottom of a drainpipe. My confidence was misplaced. Three times I swiped thin air as at the rat (a rolled up sock or similar) shot out of a length of piping much quicker than I expected. Thank goodness for the crockery stall, where I couldn’t fail to smash something with each ball thrown. Strangely, for all the fun stuff going on, it was an exhibition of Scottish dancing by a troupe of girls that left the biggest impression on me. Featherby girls I presumed, as none were familiar despite them being around my age. With their white dresses and tartan sashes fluttering in the breeze, they skipped around to the song Marie’s Wedding. One girl in particular caught my eye, a pretty thing with dark hair. In truth, I was quite smitten, though smitten wasn’t something I understood at the time.
Granny loved scouring the local papers for fetes and rummage sales (as she called a jumble sale), and she always studied the adverts people posted in the windows of Forbouys and the Post Office. One of these adverts led her to buying us a second hand bicycle.
At ten years old I finally had the use of a bike, only I didn’t know how to ride it. Cycling Proficiency courses were regularly run at school, with certificates handed out to kids after assembly. And safe cycling adverts were routinely being shown on television, but all that had passed me by. The only bicycle I’d ever sat on was a bike Dad had in the days before he got a Honda 90. Though I once managed to sit on it – with Dad’s help – an adult bike was way too big for me.
With a lot of
catching up to do I had to learn the hard way. Once I’d worked out that
balancing was easier on the move, and that moving came easier downhill, I
pushed the bike to the top of
I’d survived
lesson one. Now I needed to learn how to brake.
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