Beam me up Scotty! (BwD5)

Date: Saturday 24th Oct 2020

Location: Northwood

NEW FRIEND ON THE BLOCK!

You can never have enough friends especially when you're living on a farm on the Welsh border far away from your birthplace and the town you call home even if it is only famous for Jamie Oliver slagging off the inhabitants as people who stuff themselves with crap food, can't cook and shove fish and chips through school railings to their kids at lunchtime.

So I take pleasure in introducing you to my new friend Karen (or friends if you count Barney her horse who I’ve mentioned previously). Karen is a very nice, friendly and chatty goth lady who is known in the locality, (the locality around here being about 20,000 miles of fields, trees, farms and footpaths, few of which are actually passable without heavy farm machinery, a tribe of spear chucking pygmies and a group of warriors armed with machetes!) as someone who’s father owns about 200 acres of land but wont allow Barney on it, and has an aunt whose as mad as a March hare and possesses the temperament of a paranoid schizophrenic on crack.

Barney is 30. Young for us old for him as in horse years he’s the human equivalent of 85! 18-20 a horse is considered geriatric. As a point of interest, humans tend to go in reverse. Where humans have stimulating lives, filled with fun, adventure family life and a challenging career they can live beyond 100. But between the ages of 13 and 17 they are to all intents and purposes 85 years of age and are fit only for lounging in bed smoking weed until 2:30 am , stealing from the post office and copulating with more clout than a church-house bell on Easter Sunday.

Karen frequently pops round to visit Hymie and me. Officially for a natter, in practice to deplete my tea-bag and biscuit collection. We also play a game! The idea is this. Karen begins to speak, usually getting in a good five minutes warm up before she arrives at Hymies door. My role is to wait for an interlude during the 'conversation' where I can shoehorn in a sentence of my own. I get points for every full sentence; Karen gets points for every minute she can prevent me from making any. Such fun!

She was kind enough to give me a lift into Whitchurch today. Still too risky getting Hymie on the road - or more to the point getting back onto my little patch of grass behind the farm house without getting stuck in mud - yet again! But I needed shopping from Aldi, Karen needed to get something from somewhere else. Don’t know what. Don’t know where. Didn’t ask. But she dropped me at Aldi (didn’t stop the car or anything just dropped me) and came back to collect me later.

This was followed by a quick Jaunt to B&M (I bet you're so glad you stopped by my blog now - this is riveting stuff!). Problem with Aldi is although they’re cheap they don’t have the choice that the larger supermarkets do so I’ve got a backlog of stuff that I’m desperate for. Tissues, because I get a runny nose in winter well....OK, blinded by snot if I’m honest but I was planning to spare you the gory details. Lighters - Because my cooker sometimes uses about 3kgs of gas before it ignites! So a lighter saves time! A packet of Maltesers biscuits - yummy (but don’t tell Rachael) one pack of orange coloured M&M’s because I’m greedy. Excellent! Good job! We had planned to go for a walk around a nearby mere (don’t forget it’s NOT a lake!) but lousy weather plus Karen having to get back to give Barney a good seeing to ...... sorry Karen having to get back to see to Barney...... whoops means we drive back to the Bridge Farm.

BRUSHES WITH DEATH

Part 5: Shooting

Weapon Used: .22 air rifle - most likely a BSA Meteor

Im sure many of you will look at this particular ‘Brush with Death’ and think he can’t be serious! An air rifle!? F**k off! It might be good for knocking a budgie of its perch or separating a policeman from his helmet but as an implement of death - surely you jest!?

But I kid you not - people have been killed with less.

A student was shot in the head with an air rifle for rejecting the advances of a group of men while on a night out with friends in the Shoreditch area of London. Interviewed shortly after the attack Sadie Nicholls who cannot be named for legal reasons told me “if you dare to publish any pictures of my face I will put you behind bars (and I won’t be opening the door first!"). But she has agreed to my showing a picture of her pellet punctured pate (below).

Source: Daily Mirror 24th April 2019

Also you can be killed for carrying one. If reports come in about someone wielding a rifle The police armed resonse unit won’t just approach you in ‘Toys r us’ and ask “good afternoon sir apologies for the interruption but we couldn’t help

noticing that you are carrying what appears to be a high powered rifle I mean we wouldn’t bother you normally but our boss insists on it you know how it is so would you mind awfully telling us whether its real or not?” Nope believe me they’ll shoot to kill. “Hey what are you doing its only a toy gu.......scream!!”

Thud.

“Goodbye cruel world”

“Good grief would you die already you’ve had your 15 minutes!”

The first of my 3 gun episodes happened at the age of around 5 Thats right 3! unlucky or what??? Maybe I should reinvent myself as a target? At least I’ll be a hit with everyone.

I was around five at the time. The place? Westfield View. That’s right the street where we had to put up with ghosts, demonic possession and baby flinging was not the best place to make friends of my own age. Ghosts aren’t the only thing that can cause you to be spooked. I only remember two types of people;

invisible ones - in the sense of spending their lives behind locked doors, net curtains and little cards in the window saying “No hawkers, gypsies, sales people, agents, canvassers, charities, utilities or religious groups” Have a nice day.

And very visible in your face ones. I remember one girl who approached me while I was sneezing, my hands were over my face covering my nose with my hands. She immediately pushed her index finger through my hands. I moved away from her but she kept on. Ewww dirty girl. Gross!

I think I must have had quite the adventure at Westfield View given the volume of incidents that took place. One of my favourite pastimes was running back and forth across the main road. Mum would run out after me in an effort to prevent an accident. I thought this was great fun at the time until I realised that mum wasn’t to catch me she was doing it to make sure I didn’t get back to the pavement. Now that’s a party pooper if ever there was one.

But I was just warming up....

Little red sports car

One day mum had to take a pair of shoes to be mended en-route to the shops. This was in the days when shoe menders were still called cobblers - the fun we would have today with that! “Where are you going? “Cobblers” “Don’t you take that tone with me young man“

It so happened that this cobblers premises were located at the top of a small hill. At the other end - at the bottom of the hill - was the local public swimming baths. There were no parking restrictions on this hill. There wasn’t much point - not many people in our area could afford a car anyway - at least not a real one. But one day I spotted a car near the top of the hill just a few yards from the cobblers. A red sports car convertible. I was a toddler, had an attention span so short it would require scientific instruments to measure it. I also had a habit of running off every-time I saw something fascinating until the day mum put me in a harness to foil any future escape attempts (which was not today).

On the day in question a red sports car was parked on top of the hill a few yards away from the cobblers.

A choice! Do I stand holding onto mums hand while she talks to Mr very grimy cobbler man about flaps and soles or do I go have a look at the shiny red sports car? One nanosecond later and I was stood by the sports car. Another nanosecond and I was in the drivers seat. Yay! Great fun!

Of course I twiddled around with the steering wheel - compulsory in the children’s handbook of car thievery - but I wanted to try some of the other controls before mother noticed that all she was holding in her hand was fresh air and came to look for me. There were lots of knobs and switches and levers I could have tried but my eyes were drawn to a stick thing lying just to my left. It had a silver coloured knob on the top of it in the shape of a wild animal of some kind (funny the things you remember). I tried pushing it downwards but no amount of pushing had any effect. I went for pulling it upwards. Nothing. I wondered if the actual knob did anything. No luck with twisting and pulling. The only other option was pushing it down. At first It seemed I was out of luck here as well but then I noticed something. The swimming baths seemed much closer than they were before and, turning around, the cobblers seemed further away. What’s more mum was stood looking in my direction her mouth in the shape of a big round ‘O’.

Someone turned the sound on then because suddenly the air was filled with a piercing scream “David!” followed by the sound of footsteps as a policeman came towards the car from my left and pulled the silver tipped handle. In front of me I notice I was almost touching the glass entranceway to the baths. Two ladies were stood with their mouths open and the palms of their hands pressed to the side of their faces. I thought it made them look like goldfish and wondered if bathers were swimming along accompanied by shoals of fish. My thoughts were interrupted by mum extricating me from the seat of the sports car and away in the direction of the town centre space invader stylee as she removed herself from the line of embarrassment. I had a strong sense of no pocket money and s spell on the naughty step.

Smarty Pants

I think my parents must have bought me up to be pedantic, to take things literally because one day I was filled with horror when I noticed a small child being pushed along the pavement in a pram. He was holding a tube of smarties and eating them by throwing his head back and guzzling loads of them at once. I rushed over to his mum telling her “hey he shouldn’t

eat smarties like that youre supposed to put them in your hand!”. How they laughed as I walked away with a tube of smarties inserted into my bottom”.

The Scotts

So, as I was saying earlier Westfield View seemed to be made up of two types of people. Polite or ignorant, law abiding or delinquent, nice or nasty. Falling very firmly into the wrong half were a family known as the Scotts. The Scotts had a son; Geoffrey, who was about the same age as me; we were friends in a sort of "I’ll have to sunbathe on granite in the absence of sand" kind of way. I don't recall seeing anything of a Mrs Scott but I do remember Mr Scott. He was thoroughly unpleasant, swore indiscriminately and drank more than was good for him. All in all he was basically a thug and a bully. Not a good role model. I have two memories of the Scotts both of them unpleasant; and painful.

1. The Hammer

There I am. Quiet, meek, hopelessly passive. To describe myself as unassertive doesn’t even cut it. It's as if I'm totally under the control of another a machine turning out identical parts on an assembly line. I grow up to be fiercely independent but theres no sign of it here. Then theres the controller; Geoffrey; a mean little bully with the face of a sewer rat, dirty clothing and hair best suited to cleaning toilets than providing an aesthetic adornment on the dome of a delinquent. He’s holding a hammer. Both of us are in a kneeling position looking down onto two metal grooves that support the sliding iron door of a garage workshop.

Geoffrey hits one of the grooves with the hammer. “Oi pack that in!” The voice comes from a mechanic at work towards the back of the garage. Geoffrey displays no hint of concern his attention focussed on teaching the imbecile in front of him how to hit one of the two metal grooves with a hammer. As far as I can see the grooves are identical, nothing to choose between them. Unless you want to be really pedantic and say that one of them is a few millimetres further away than the other. But Geoffrey has decided that one of them is the right groove to hit the other is wrong. Geoffrey demonstrates. He takes the hammer in both hands, raises it in a wide arc then brings it down onto one of the grooves with the hammer. I cannot fathom which of the two he was aiming for but there's no mistaking the resulting noise - a deafening clang followed by a zinging sound; the sort one might experience on hearing an explosion! "Hey pack it in!" one of the mechanics shouts angrily. Perhaps Geoffrey was deafened by the sound, he certainly acts like it given that he seems oblivious to everything around him. His only interest is ensuring I understand how to complete the critically important task of whacking a bit of metal with a hammer. “do it the way I showed you !” He is not a likeable tutor.

I repeat the action but he’s still not happy in fact he seems to be getting more agitated. I don't know where I'm going wrong, I'm sure my actions were exactly the same as his. He repeats his demonstration and hands the hammer back to me. I try a bit harder this time desperately trying to work out what he's getting at. Swiftly he snatches the hammer back. “No!!” “Like this!” Again the hammer strikes the grooves but I still have no idea where exactly he's aiming. This time he forcefully shoves the hammer towards me. It’s clear his anger is rising and he's beginning to lose control. I lift the hammer a third time staring down at the grooves as though they were the only solid matter in existence. What’s he doing? Where am I going wrong? Where is he expecting me to strike the hammer? Maybe it’s not where it’s how; perhaps he wants me to hit the grooves harder or lift the hammer higher, “go on then!!” I bring the hammer down with such force that my ears ring. “now then! pack it in the bloody pair of you!” It makes no difference, I haven’t completed the task to his satisfaction and he finally snaps. Staring straight into my eyes, his face twisted and contorted with rage he snatches the hammer from my hands and strikes a resounding blow directly at my forehead.

2. Stroll by shooting Weapon: BSA Meteor .22 Air Rifle

There may be a case for rehabilitating Geoffrey - he’s still little more than toddler, doesn’t know right from wrong at least according to the law and is unlikely to be fully conversant with actions and consequences. I don’t believe a word I’m saying but their will be those who take a more optimistic view.

Then there’s Mr Scott. A horrible individual as I’ve already described. From my personal point of view he’s not an issue; I rarely ever see him, he has no interest in chatting since although he’s the same (mental) age as me I’m much smaller and he’s a parent so we would have nothing in common. In fact I don’t recall our paths ever crossing. But then he discovers a means of approaching me that requires very little effort.

Again, like most of my memories from childhood I cant recall events leading up to the shooting and I don’t recall what happened afterwards. So I don’t know if I ever told my parents or whether the incident was ever reported to the police...

....but I do remember being hit.

I had no idea where I’d been, most probably on my way home from school. Wherever it was I was literally only a few yards from the door of my-house when I felt a sharp blow at the top of my thigh on my left side. It felt like Geoffrey had thrown his hammer with such tremendous force that it felt like I had been blown sideways by a tornado.

I turned towards the source of the blow and was just in time to see Geoffrey Scott’s father walking past the top of my road towards his house. He was carrying an air rifle and roaring with laughter.

Just think about that. This piece of shit had deliberately loaded, aimed and fired a pellet from a powerful .22 air rifle at a small child. An air rifle may not have the killing power of a traditional shotgun but theres no question that they can kill a risk which would certainly be increased in the case of toddler. Not only did this filth think this was something to laugh at it was also clear that he had absolutely no regard for human life. Even if he had have caused a fatal or serious injury he had no intention of hanging around to check the outcome.

I have no idea as to the current whereabouts of these fine upstanding members of society but I'm betting they won’t be members of the clergy.