Trailing hands to make patterns was one trick, dropping stones for others to pick up was another.

Being intelligent (NOT) I decided that if I put my foot down the hole it would act as a brake and slow it down.

The pain and agony of flesh being ripped open as a jagged shard of metal scrapes the tibula and fibula of your right leg is not something I wish on any mortal.

So there I was with a roundabout attached to my leg unable to walk as it was a bit heavy when the girl from the farmyard on hearing my screams came to the rescue like an angel of mercy.

Once more a female saved my life.

GETTING BETTER

Remember I told you about the new house?

LUXURY

The next really big event took place when I was ten going on eleven.

The family were awarded one of these lovely new homes, too late for my Nan though as she went to meet J.C. and his dad a few years earlier.

I didn’t know what death was except that people just stopped being around when you needed them. My dads father and mother where not part of our family as I knew it as they had died many years before I was aware, it was my mothers mam and dad who lived under us.

My Nan was a small woman 4ft.11” (and a quarter) she never let us forget that quarter. Grandad was nearer 6ft., being a merchant seaman he wasn’t around all that much but I found out later in life that was no bad thing.

When he was younger he used to be handy with his fists when he had been drinking which was often when he was not at sea.

Apparently though he stopped rather abruptly when he brought hom a present from Africa.

It was a female marmoset monkey, It took a shine to my Nan and wouldn’t leave her side (shoulder actually) The weekend after he came back from sea he did his usual trip to the pub and true to form he came home and started an argument with the intent of hitting my Nan.

The monkey was having none of this and attacked him ripping open his face and nearly taking out an eye.

He never hit my Nan again.

Nan was taken from this world by an affliction that no one knew about until recently when it claimed my mum.

Some kind of cancer/infection whatever that prevents the bone marrow from functioning normally, this causes a whole batch of complications any one of which can prove fatal.

I didn’t get to see the burial of my Nan as it was pissing down that Wednesday my brother and I cried as we watched the hearse pass under our bedroom window and enter the cemetery.

We did however go in the graveyard the following day to look.

Not a lot to see really, just a pile of dirt and bunches of flowers, but then she was and always will be still with me inside my head, if I close my eyes even to this day I can still picture her smile.

When we finally moved into the big house as it became known, it was sheer luxury.

Not having to brave the elements to go to the loo and even having a choice of upstairs and downstairs.

My first day in the new house was spent unceremoniously in the bath, as much to keep me out of the way as a reward for always being last in the tin bath,the tin bath did move with us however, it would come in handy years later when we were in need of a boat.

Our new “playground” was a joy, the house backed on to a field which was enclosed on three and a half sides by back garden fences.

I say three and a half sides as the gate was rather wide at one end with a lockable fence which was never locked.

It was to be a great place to explore the things teenagers usually like to explore.