When I was seven years old our street and the one that ran parallel to ours was more than enough of a play area for me. Father Christmas had presented me with a brand new Raleigh Tomahawk the Christmas before and my best friend Barry and I would race each other from top to bottom of the two roads for hours until we were exhausted. He was a year and a half older than me and he had a Raleigh Chopper and therefore had the unfair advantage of having three gears to play with. Even so I was never far behind him when we raced.
It was the summer of ´74 and unseasonably hot. Our bikes lay on their sides glinting in the sunlight on the grass verge at the top of our road as we sat gasping for breath after our last race.
“There´s gypsies over the other side,” said Barry indicating his thumb towards the road opposite.
“What´s gypsies?” I asked.
“They live in caravans and steal peoples washing;” he answered.
It was the summer of ´74 and unseasonably hot. Our bikes lay on their sides glinting in the sunlight on the grass verge at the top of our road as we sat gasping for breath after our last race.
“There´s gypsies over the other side,” said Barry indicating his thumb towards the road opposite.
“What´s gypsies?” I asked.
“They live in caravans and steal peoples washing;” he answered.
I knew what a caravan was but I´d never seen one in real life. There was only one car on both of our streets, an old faded green Ford Corsair and I had my doubts that the car had the strength to even pull a caravan. On the rare occasions that it actually moved from its parking space opposite the waste ground between the houses it backfired like a machine gun, belching out thick black smoke and we could usually overtake it whilst going uphill on our bikes.
“I know where they are,” continued Barry, “Do you want to go and see?”
Now I knew I wasn´t allowed to venture any further than our two streets but technically speaking the place where Barry told me that they were still fell under our two street limit, albeit a little set back from the streets. The temptation to see an actual caravan almost outweighed the fear of my mum finding out and I surprised myself by agreeing to follow Barry to the gypsy camp.
We cycled down the road and turned up the opposite road towards where the old Ford was parked. Dismounting our bikes we pushed our way through the weeds and the nettles until we came across a clearing. A round pool around the size of about three or four normal paddling pools lay in the centre of the clearing spinning clockwise lazily in the sunlight.
“It´s a whirlpool,” whispered Barry knowingly. “Watch this.”
Barry lifted a stick from the ground and threw it into the water. The stick landed at the edge of the pool with an almost imperceptible splash, disappearing for a second before bobbing back to the surface. Within seconds it began rotating in unison with the water, slowly making its way to the centre of the pool. As it reached the centre it simply disappeared.
“They´re really dangerous, if you fell in there you´ll get sucked away,” said Barry.
“Where do you get sucked to?” I asked.
“Straight down to Hell,” said Barry, a wealth of wisdom.
We´d only just started doing proper Bible study at school and I was weary of going to Hell so I stayed well clear of what I thought must have been Hell´s giant plughole. Pressing on we made our way over to the thicket of trees that lay ahead. It was then I saw it.
“Barry look, it´s a horse.” I dropped my bike in the soft earth beneath the canopy of trees and stared out at the magnificent beast. I´d seen a few horses now and again but I´d never seen a pure white one before.
“She´s a beauty,” said Barry.
“I wonder who she belongs to,” I whispered trying my best not to spook the horse.
I didn´t have to wait long to find out for seconds later a boy around my age appeared from behind the flanks of the horse.
“Hiya,” he greeted shyly. “Her name´s Bess; Do you want to meet her?”
Barry dropped his bike next to mine and we approached the animal running our hands over its surprisingly coarse silky looking hair. The boy introduced himself and told us that they had set up here away from the rest of the camp because the other camp was too crowded.
“Come with me and I´ll show you our house.”
We left our bikes and followed the boy past a few large trees before entering yet another clearing. This one thankfully didn´t have a gateway to Hell situated in its centre. Instead a brightly coloured cart with a white tarpaulin above it dominated the space. It reminded me of the wagons I´d seen in old cowboy films only this one was painted with flowers and rainbows and had all sorts of sparkling bits hanging off it.
“My house,” said the boy proudly.
Barry and I looked on in awe. My house was an old blackened stone house that looked the same as all the others on the street and this kid lived in a wild-west wagon. Although I wasn´t sure of the word to describe how I felt, I know now as I´m older that it was the first time I´d felt pure envy.
“Mam,” he called out and a curtain shifted and a large lady with long black hair and a heaving bosom stepped out from behind it. “I´ve brought some friends over, this is Barry and this is Paul.”
“Pleased to meet you boys; You want a sandwich, I´m just making one for myself?”
Barry and I looked at each other and nodded our heads.
“Yes please,” we answered in unison.
Slowly we walked around the wagon, they called it a caravan, and I ran my hands over the smooth wooden wheels and the intricate painted designs.
“Bess drives this caravan,” said the boy. “She´s a real strong horse and she can set a good pace once she gets going.”
“Where do you go to school?” I asked.
“I don´t, my mum teaches me all I need to know.”
“I wish I didn´t have to go to school,” said Barry.
“Mum says it all rubbish that they teach you at school anyway,” said the boy shrugging his shoulders in a carefree manner.
“Sandwiches boys,” called the boy´s mother.
It was the first time I´d ever eaten potato crisp sandwiches and delicious they were too. After eating our sandwiches the boy fetched his bicycle from the back of the caravan and shouting a quick goodbye to his mum we returned to fetch our own bikes.
“I know a great place we can go,” said the gypsy boy, crossing himself the Catholic way as we passed the whirlpool.
We broke through the waste ground and followed the boy as he cycled up to the top of the road. When we reached the end of the tarmac both Barry and I stopped our bikes and watched as the boy cycled along the grasslands beyond our allowable range.
“Come on,” he shouted. “You have to see this.”
“Where are you going?” Barry shouted back.
“I´m not telling you, you have to see for yourself.”
Barry shifted his Chopper into first gear.
“Come on let´s go. If we don´t like it we can always just ride back.”
I climbed back on, my heart hammering in my chest, and cycled over the no-go line expecting to spontaneously combust or something but nothing happened and catching up with the boy we cycled our way into unfamiliar territory, the rough ground causing my front mudguard to rattle uncontrollably.
Suddenly the boy stopped in front of a huge clump of bushes and dismounting his bike he urged us to do the same.
The silence was ominous and I had to suppress the urge to cry. Barry didn´t look too comfortable either.
“Why are we stopping here?” Barry asked.
“This is one of the things I wanted to show you. Come give me a hand with these bushes.”
The boy grabbed a great handful of bush and lifted it off the ground.
“Hold this up while I crawl through,” he ordered.
We scrabbled at the bushes as they tore little cuts into our hands.
“Where are you going?” I whimpered my voice cracking.
“Just follow me. You´ll see.”
“You go first Paul, I´ll keep hold of this, it´ll be easier for me to hold it up than it is for you.”
I whispered a silent prayer and crawled into the leafy darkness.
“Over here,” called the boy.
I crawled behind him and then stopped in amazement. Barry was close behind me and I heard him scrambling his way next to me.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“I don´t know,” answered Barry.
Just in front of us was a huge concrete staircase littered with years of mould and mulched leaves. The smell was hugely overpowering and amplified by the dark black water at the bottom of whatever this thing was.
“This is where the spacemen hide when they come to invade the planet,” said the boy excited.
He crawled closer to the pit clutching a large stone in his left hand.
“I´m gonna throw this in there ,” he said.
“Don´t!” I cried out, afraid I might just pee my pants.
As he dropped the stone both Barry and I turned tail and scrabbled back the way we came breaking into the fresh air with undisguised relief.
The boy broke through the bushes seconds later smiling happily.
“What´s up are you scared?” he asked mockingly.
“No we´re not scared,” muttered Barry. “It stinks in there!”
Even though the sun was shining I still felt cold. It was years later that I found out what we had come upon had been an old air raid shelter.
“I think we should go back home now,” I said to Barry.
“You can´t go home now, I´ve got two more things to show you. One´s just at the bottom of there,” said the boy pointing towards an empty field.
“If this one´s as rubbish as the last one then we´re going back,” said Barry defiantly.
“Okay,” said the boy. “I know you won´t think this is rubbish.”
We freewheeled our way down to the bottom of the field until once again the boy stopped his bike and climbed off.
“Are you thirsty?” he asked.
I didn´t know about Barry but I sure was.
“Come here and I´ll show you how to get fresh water from the ground.”
Dropping our bikes we headed over to where the boy stood looking really smug.
“There´s nothing here,” said Barry sounding annoyed.
“Oh yes there is, watch!”
The boy bent down and pulled up a thick black pipe that had been hidden by the long grass. Lots of small interconnecting pipes were attached to the bigger pipes. With his free hand the boy found the end of one of the smaller of the pipes and wiping the end on his shirt he swiftly stuck the end of the smaller pipe in his mouth and began sucking hard. Finally he blew out a mouthful of water like a fountain from his mouth.
“It´s perfectly safe to drink,” he said reinserting the pipe into his mouth and once again sucking. This time we could see him swallowing the water.
“Come on have a go.”
We both found a smaller pipe and began sucking and then drinking the sweet cool water. Once we´d had our fill we both admitted that this was indeed a great find. I found out a few years later that these were experimental animal feeders mainly used for baby pigs which I have to admit took the shine off of the experience but on the day I felt like a pioneer who´d just discovered a new frontier.
“Right, just one more thing to show you,” said the boy with a sigh of relief that we hadn´t complained about his watery secret.
“I´ve saved the best for last. How good are your mountain climbing skills?”
Barry and I looked at each other and started laughing. Neither of us had ever seen a mountain. We pedaled our way back the way we came and then turned down a barely perceptible dusty path. I pulled alongside Barry.
“How did he find these places?” I asked surprised how well the boy knew his way around.
“I don´t know perhaps it´s ´cos gypsies move around a lot. Let´s get a move on, I don´t want to lose him.”
We cycled uphill for around two miles before the pathway began dropping and then finally leveled out. We had to carry our bicycles over some parts of the pathway where people had dumped old pots of paint and pieces of wood spiked with rusty nails. The flatter the pathway got the steeper the sides became until before long they were sheer rugged rock –face. The boy stopped just up ahead and grinning he pointed above us.
“This is the place. We´ll leave the bikes here and we have to climb up there.”
I looked up and couldn´t even see the top. I could feel my adrenaline pumping and I hadn´t even started climbing yet.
“Are you sure the bikes will be safe here?” I asked already looking for an excuse to back out.
“Ha, nobody comes this far down the path. Listen to this. HELLO!” he screamed at the top of his voice. The echo came back seconds later…Hello, Hello, Hello…
After all having a go at seeing who could have the longest echo we began to climb. It wasn´t as difficult as it looked from the ground but it was a long way up and I did my best not to look down as I climbed. My shirt was sticking to me as the fierce sun burned down on us from just above our destination and as I pulled myself up onto the ledge at the top I was feeling almost dizzy from the heat. The ledge wasn´t massive but it seated the three of us comfortably as we looked down at the specks of shiny steel that was our bicycles at the bottom of the gully.
“Isn´t this the best thing you´ve ever done?” asked the boy and we had to agree. It was definitely the best thing we´d ever done. Our two streets seemed a world away from here. We sat up there like kings on a throne for at least half an hour just drinking in the silence. I was Barry who broke the spell.
“We´re gonna have to get going if we´re gonna make it home on time.”
“Okay, we´ll race down,” said the boy.
“You two can race, I´m going at my own speed,” I said more worried about the climb down than I had been about climbing up.
Barry and the boy almost dived over the edge and I could hear them laughing as they raced to find the quickest way down. I looked down and took my tentative first step when I heard the scream. I watched in horror as the boy floated away from the rock-face, his arms snatching at the empty air. He landed on his back, his head cracking on a large rock with a sound like a snapping of a branch. I froze where I was and could feel the tears running down my cheeks.
“Barry,” I cried, “Are you okay?”
“I´m okay and you?”
“I´m scared. I´m too scared to move.” My voice quivered and I could feel my chest heaving.
“You have to move, we´ve got to get help. Our parents are gonna kill us…” he trailed off.
We both made it down that day, Barry a good ten minutes before me. He waited patiently for me, his back turned away from the fallen boy. We rode home like we had tigers in our tanks and never spoke of the incident ever again. I spent the rest of the summer ignoring Barry and I never again cycled on the road parallel to ours, I was afraid that the all seeing eye of the whirlpool would suck me right off of my bike and down to Hell for what we had done. I don´t know if he was ever found but we didn´t hear anything of the missing boy in our village.
Even now, forty years later, the thing that disturbs me most about that fateful day is the fact that I can´t for the life in me remember the boy´s name yet try as I might I could never forget that old green Ford Corsairs number plate – 221 GUM.
“I know where they are,” continued Barry, “Do you want to go and see?”
Now I knew I wasn´t allowed to venture any further than our two streets but technically speaking the place where Barry told me that they were still fell under our two street limit, albeit a little set back from the streets. The temptation to see an actual caravan almost outweighed the fear of my mum finding out and I surprised myself by agreeing to follow Barry to the gypsy camp.
We cycled down the road and turned up the opposite road towards where the old Ford was parked. Dismounting our bikes we pushed our way through the weeds and the nettles until we came across a clearing. A round pool around the size of about three or four normal paddling pools lay in the centre of the clearing spinning clockwise lazily in the sunlight.
“It´s a whirlpool,” whispered Barry knowingly. “Watch this.”
Barry lifted a stick from the ground and threw it into the water. The stick landed at the edge of the pool with an almost imperceptible splash, disappearing for a second before bobbing back to the surface. Within seconds it began rotating in unison with the water, slowly making its way to the centre of the pool. As it reached the centre it simply disappeared.
“They´re really dangerous, if you fell in there you´ll get sucked away,” said Barry.
“Where do you get sucked to?” I asked.
“Straight down to Hell,” said Barry, a wealth of wisdom.
We´d only just started doing proper Bible study at school and I was weary of going to Hell so I stayed well clear of what I thought must have been Hell´s giant plughole. Pressing on we made our way over to the thicket of trees that lay ahead. It was then I saw it.
“Barry look, it´s a horse.” I dropped my bike in the soft earth beneath the canopy of trees and stared out at the magnificent beast. I´d seen a few horses now and again but I´d never seen a pure white one before.
“She´s a beauty,” said Barry.
“I wonder who she belongs to,” I whispered trying my best not to spook the horse.
I didn´t have to wait long to find out for seconds later a boy around my age appeared from behind the flanks of the horse.
“Hiya,” he greeted shyly. “Her name´s Bess; Do you want to meet her?”
Barry dropped his bike next to mine and we approached the animal running our hands over its surprisingly coarse silky looking hair. The boy introduced himself and told us that they had set up here away from the rest of the camp because the other camp was too crowded.
“Come with me and I´ll show you our house.”
We left our bikes and followed the boy past a few large trees before entering yet another clearing. This one thankfully didn´t have a gateway to Hell situated in its centre. Instead a brightly coloured cart with a white tarpaulin above it dominated the space. It reminded me of the wagons I´d seen in old cowboy films only this one was painted with flowers and rainbows and had all sorts of sparkling bits hanging off it.
“My house,” said the boy proudly.
Barry and I looked on in awe. My house was an old blackened stone house that looked the same as all the others on the street and this kid lived in a wild-west wagon. Although I wasn´t sure of the word to describe how I felt, I know now as I´m older that it was the first time I´d felt pure envy.
“Mam,” he called out and a curtain shifted and a large lady with long black hair and a heaving bosom stepped out from behind it. “I´ve brought some friends over, this is Barry and this is Paul.”
“Pleased to meet you boys; You want a sandwich, I´m just making one for myself?”
Barry and I looked at each other and nodded our heads.
“Yes please,” we answered in unison.
Slowly we walked around the wagon, they called it a caravan, and I ran my hands over the smooth wooden wheels and the intricate painted designs.
“Bess drives this caravan,” said the boy. “She´s a real strong horse and she can set a good pace once she gets going.”
“Where do you go to school?” I asked.
“I don´t, my mum teaches me all I need to know.”
“I wish I didn´t have to go to school,” said Barry.
“Mum says it all rubbish that they teach you at school anyway,” said the boy shrugging his shoulders in a carefree manner.
“Sandwiches boys,” called the boy´s mother.
It was the first time I´d ever eaten potato crisp sandwiches and delicious they were too. After eating our sandwiches the boy fetched his bicycle from the back of the caravan and shouting a quick goodbye to his mum we returned to fetch our own bikes.
“I know a great place we can go,” said the gypsy boy, crossing himself the Catholic way as we passed the whirlpool.
We broke through the waste ground and followed the boy as he cycled up to the top of the road. When we reached the end of the tarmac both Barry and I stopped our bikes and watched as the boy cycled along the grasslands beyond our allowable range.
“Come on,” he shouted. “You have to see this.”
“Where are you going?” Barry shouted back.
“I´m not telling you, you have to see for yourself.”
Barry shifted his Chopper into first gear.
“Come on let´s go. If we don´t like it we can always just ride back.”
I climbed back on, my heart hammering in my chest, and cycled over the no-go line expecting to spontaneously combust or something but nothing happened and catching up with the boy we cycled our way into unfamiliar territory, the rough ground causing my front mudguard to rattle uncontrollably.
Suddenly the boy stopped in front of a huge clump of bushes and dismounting his bike he urged us to do the same.
The silence was ominous and I had to suppress the urge to cry. Barry didn´t look too comfortable either.
“Why are we stopping here?” Barry asked.
“This is one of the things I wanted to show you. Come give me a hand with these bushes.”
The boy grabbed a great handful of bush and lifted it off the ground.
“Hold this up while I crawl through,” he ordered.
We scrabbled at the bushes as they tore little cuts into our hands.
“Where are you going?” I whimpered my voice cracking.
“Just follow me. You´ll see.”
“You go first Paul, I´ll keep hold of this, it´ll be easier for me to hold it up than it is for you.”
I whispered a silent prayer and crawled into the leafy darkness.
“Over here,” called the boy.
I crawled behind him and then stopped in amazement. Barry was close behind me and I heard him scrambling his way next to me.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“I don´t know,” answered Barry.
Just in front of us was a huge concrete staircase littered with years of mould and mulched leaves. The smell was hugely overpowering and amplified by the dark black water at the bottom of whatever this thing was.
“This is where the spacemen hide when they come to invade the planet,” said the boy excited.
He crawled closer to the pit clutching a large stone in his left hand.
“I´m gonna throw this in there ,” he said.
“Don´t!” I cried out, afraid I might just pee my pants.
As he dropped the stone both Barry and I turned tail and scrabbled back the way we came breaking into the fresh air with undisguised relief.
The boy broke through the bushes seconds later smiling happily.
“What´s up are you scared?” he asked mockingly.
“No we´re not scared,” muttered Barry. “It stinks in there!”
Even though the sun was shining I still felt cold. It was years later that I found out what we had come upon had been an old air raid shelter.
“I think we should go back home now,” I said to Barry.
“You can´t go home now, I´ve got two more things to show you. One´s just at the bottom of there,” said the boy pointing towards an empty field.
“If this one´s as rubbish as the last one then we´re going back,” said Barry defiantly.
“Okay,” said the boy. “I know you won´t think this is rubbish.”
We freewheeled our way down to the bottom of the field until once again the boy stopped his bike and climbed off.
“Are you thirsty?” he asked.
I didn´t know about Barry but I sure was.
“Come here and I´ll show you how to get fresh water from the ground.”
Dropping our bikes we headed over to where the boy stood looking really smug.
“There´s nothing here,” said Barry sounding annoyed.
“Oh yes there is, watch!”
The boy bent down and pulled up a thick black pipe that had been hidden by the long grass. Lots of small interconnecting pipes were attached to the bigger pipes. With his free hand the boy found the end of one of the smaller of the pipes and wiping the end on his shirt he swiftly stuck the end of the smaller pipe in his mouth and began sucking hard. Finally he blew out a mouthful of water like a fountain from his mouth.
“It´s perfectly safe to drink,” he said reinserting the pipe into his mouth and once again sucking. This time we could see him swallowing the water.
“Come on have a go.”
We both found a smaller pipe and began sucking and then drinking the sweet cool water. Once we´d had our fill we both admitted that this was indeed a great find. I found out a few years later that these were experimental animal feeders mainly used for baby pigs which I have to admit took the shine off of the experience but on the day I felt like a pioneer who´d just discovered a new frontier.
“Right, just one more thing to show you,” said the boy with a sigh of relief that we hadn´t complained about his watery secret.
“I´ve saved the best for last. How good are your mountain climbing skills?”
Barry and I looked at each other and started laughing. Neither of us had ever seen a mountain. We pedaled our way back the way we came and then turned down a barely perceptible dusty path. I pulled alongside Barry.
“How did he find these places?” I asked surprised how well the boy knew his way around.
“I don´t know perhaps it´s ´cos gypsies move around a lot. Let´s get a move on, I don´t want to lose him.”
We cycled uphill for around two miles before the pathway began dropping and then finally leveled out. We had to carry our bicycles over some parts of the pathway where people had dumped old pots of paint and pieces of wood spiked with rusty nails. The flatter the pathway got the steeper the sides became until before long they were sheer rugged rock –face. The boy stopped just up ahead and grinning he pointed above us.
“This is the place. We´ll leave the bikes here and we have to climb up there.”
I looked up and couldn´t even see the top. I could feel my adrenaline pumping and I hadn´t even started climbing yet.
“Are you sure the bikes will be safe here?” I asked already looking for an excuse to back out.
“Ha, nobody comes this far down the path. Listen to this. HELLO!” he screamed at the top of his voice. The echo came back seconds later…Hello, Hello, Hello…
After all having a go at seeing who could have the longest echo we began to climb. It wasn´t as difficult as it looked from the ground but it was a long way up and I did my best not to look down as I climbed. My shirt was sticking to me as the fierce sun burned down on us from just above our destination and as I pulled myself up onto the ledge at the top I was feeling almost dizzy from the heat. The ledge wasn´t massive but it seated the three of us comfortably as we looked down at the specks of shiny steel that was our bicycles at the bottom of the gully.
“Isn´t this the best thing you´ve ever done?” asked the boy and we had to agree. It was definitely the best thing we´d ever done. Our two streets seemed a world away from here. We sat up there like kings on a throne for at least half an hour just drinking in the silence. I was Barry who broke the spell.
“We´re gonna have to get going if we´re gonna make it home on time.”
“Okay, we´ll race down,” said the boy.
“You two can race, I´m going at my own speed,” I said more worried about the climb down than I had been about climbing up.
Barry and the boy almost dived over the edge and I could hear them laughing as they raced to find the quickest way down. I looked down and took my tentative first step when I heard the scream. I watched in horror as the boy floated away from the rock-face, his arms snatching at the empty air. He landed on his back, his head cracking on a large rock with a sound like a snapping of a branch. I froze where I was and could feel the tears running down my cheeks.
“Barry,” I cried, “Are you okay?”
“I´m okay and you?”
“I´m scared. I´m too scared to move.” My voice quivered and I could feel my chest heaving.
“You have to move, we´ve got to get help. Our parents are gonna kill us…” he trailed off.
We both made it down that day, Barry a good ten minutes before me. He waited patiently for me, his back turned away from the fallen boy. We rode home like we had tigers in our tanks and never spoke of the incident ever again. I spent the rest of the summer ignoring Barry and I never again cycled on the road parallel to ours, I was afraid that the all seeing eye of the whirlpool would suck me right off of my bike and down to Hell for what we had done. I don´t know if he was ever found but we didn´t hear anything of the missing boy in our village.
Even now, forty years later, the thing that disturbs me most about that fateful day is the fact that I can´t for the life in me remember the boy´s name yet try as I might I could never forget that old green Ford Corsairs number plate – 221 GUM.
