As a child growing up in the 1950’s I loved westerns. Before we had a television set, mum would often take me to the Saturday morning matinees at the local cinema where they regularly featured the Lone Ranger. Or I would read stories from the pile of boys comics that were stacked against the window of the launderette while waiting with mum for the washing to finish its cycle.

It was about 1957 when mum and dad bought our first television. I was eight years old. Dad was often away at sea so it was mostly just mum and me. Mum liked to watch horror films starring such legendary names as Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, dramas with Bette Davis or the brilliant BBC productions of the literary classics. Great Expectations and Wuthering Heights were among her favourites. I would watch the westerns: Bronco, Tenderfoot,  Rawhide, Cheyenne, Wagon Train and many more. 

While watching Wagon Train one evening when I was about ten, I had an idea!  I would have a go at building my own wagon.  I already had most of the items necessary to build my wagon: a wooden box that had once contained oranges (dad regularly brought home various fruits from his voyages to warmer climes) that would serve as the base; an old, worn sheet and two lengths of wire that would form the canopy; a long rope for the harness, but the wheels posed a problem.  I only had two. These once belonged to an old dolls’ pram. Of course, four wheels would have been much better but I reckoned that two might do just as well. 

Next day dressed in my red and black cowboy suit, I busied myself in the garden placing all the wagon parts in a row on the red flagstones.  The box was weathered and dirty from being left out in the garden but I soon brightened it up, painting the words, ’Wagon Train’ on one side with white paint I’d sneaked from dad’s shed. Turning the box upside down I placed the wheel axle across the middle and fixed it in place with four rusting, unevenly spaced nails. Through roughly stitched hems at opposite ends of the sheet I threaded the wire and wedged the four ends into each corner of the box. Each time I pushed the last piece of wire in place one of the others would ping out. It took much bending and pushing before the canopy finally stayed in place. I knew it was only a temporary though and that the wire would ping again but still I stepped back and admired my creation. All I needed now was a trusty steed and he was quietly snoozing a few feet away; his sleek black and tan coat gleaming in the afternoon sun.