With each passing year, we all move further and further away from our childhoods and the recollections we have of those crucial years become blurrier. The store of vivid memories shrinks. Some names get forgotten.
Anyway, anyway, I have set myself the task of recording a few of my childhood memories. Things that still stand out for whatever reason. I am pinning them down before they entirely dissolve. And before I begin I might ask: Is there any logic in the business of remembering? It doesn't seem so to me but the psychology of memory is no doubt complicated like the electrical wiring on an ocean liner.
Before I begin, let me just say that mine was an unremarkable but generally happy, healthy childhood. I wasn't sexually or physically abused and I did not have to battle with some awful ailment or physical condition.
There was Mum and Dad and their four sons of which I was the third. We lived in a late Victorian schoolhouse attached to the village school where Dad was the headmaster. It was in the middle of The East Riding of Yorkshire...
One
One chilly morning before school started, I was playing football in the school playground. I would have been seven years old at the time. A hundred yards away, a service bus had just disgorged several pupils near the T junction outside "The New Inn" pub. They came from a nearby smaller village called Catwick which did not have a village school of its own.
Normally, these children would just walk up to the village school without fuss but on that morning they came racing along, their excited breaths visible in the cold morning air. A couple of them headed straight for me.
"Your Robin's been knocked over! He might be dead!"
Hurriedly, I went to the pavement in front of the school gates and looked down to the T junction. Cars had stopped, people were gathering. Something had clearly happened just as the Catwick bus had arrived.
"Go and tell your mum!"
I ran to our house and pushed open the front door. Mum was still upstairs. I yelled up to her and she came to the top of the staircase in her nightie.
"It's our Robin Mum! He's been knocked over!"
Robin had mounted his bicycle that morning and pedalled up to the cafe at the far end of a road called High Stile. His mission had been to buy a packet of sherbet with a lollipop inside. But he did not get back home for he had made an almost fatal error at the T junction and had been hit by a car overtaking the stationary bus.
Mum quickly donned her slippers and her nylon housecoat and ran out of the house like an Olympic sprinter.
There were no words. It was as if I had lit the blue touchpaper of a firework rocket. It did not matter that she was still in her nightwear and had not performed her habitual morning ablutions. She was running across the playground and down the road. One of her beloved boys was hurt and she had to get to him as soon as she possibly could. No forethought - just instinct.
⦿
Robin was unconscious. An ambulance with a flashing blue light came to take him to hospital but I do not remember any of that nor any of the weeks he spent in hospital. He had a badly fractured skull from which he took ages to recover.
The medication he was given and his inactive recuperation period made him put on weight. He became fat and lethargic with his brain power diminished. That accident changed him but happily he fought back. Though he did not do well at secondary school, he possessed many practical skills and had a talent for engineering and fixing things.
He was a damned good worker and partly in spite of the road accident he was very motivated to make a success of his life and that's what he did. He had earned enough money by the age of 52 to buy a French farmhouse in sight of The Pyrenees and retire there with his cats, his motorbikes, his campervan, his cars and Suzie - his girlfriend of many years.
It wasn't long ago that I shared my memory of that awful morning with him. He had no idea that I possessed it. He was moved to hear what I said.
And still, after all these years, I can picture our Mum, flying out of our house in her nightgown to be with Robin as though it was just yesterday but it was probably 1960 - sixty five years ago.
You tell a horrifying story well, I felt like I was right there with you. Such a strong person, your Robin, to come back from that and make a success of his life.
ReplyDeleteInteresting comment on memory. With a shocking event it may have been easier to remember. Sometimes our memories get foggy. For what ever reason the event just doesn't stand out in our memory.
ReplyDeleteSo glad to hear that Robin survived and, in his own way, thrived and had a happy life,
ReplyDeleteWhat a memory! I'm glad to hear that Robin survived and later did well for himself. Much of my own childhood was safe and secure also, though I can't share stories with my siblings as they lived with mum while I stayed with dad, so the memories are different. Of course we can still tell the stories.
ReplyDeleteThings like that stay with us. I am sure your Mum never forgot that morning, either. Well done Robin for fighting back and not letting the terrible accident stop him from having a good life!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of accidents, how is little Margot?
The stuff of nightmares. A memory that will always be there.
ReplyDeleteA frightening event, sometimes they sear the mind permanently. But Robin recovered and went on to better things. I like the way you wrote it as a story.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness. What a story, well told. Traumatic events like that can either be etched in your memory never to be forgotten or brushed under the cerebral carpet never to surface again until at some point in the future one is psychoanalysed because of a mental problem. I am so glad Robin made that incredible recovery and is still enjoying life. I can just picture your mum rushing out in her nightie and housecoat to get to her precious son in his moment of extreme need.
ReplyDeleteHave you visited Robin? His retirement place sounds idyllic.
ReplyDeleteYou don't know what you can't remember, but I am beginning to find that what I can seems to be more intense that ever, from playing on my 3-wheel bike as a toddler to having small children of my own, as intensely as if I am there again - remembering what it felt like to be there in those times. I would have them again if it were possible.
ReplyDeleteWow, a memory that needed to be recorded.
ReplyDeleteYou sure painted a vivid picture of the details surrounding that accident. The whole time I was reading your post, I had a visual image of where you grew up and where the accident happened.
ReplyDeleteYou brought back my memory of my sister going into a convulsion after having a very high fever. My father grabbed her and ran outside down to the gas station (I think he was thinking to give her air...it made no sense). My mother kept screaming, where's Kelly? She didn't know my father had taken her outside and down the street. I can remember many people in the town coming to the house after my parents had taken her to the hospital and I remember sitting on the sofa with a lady from up the street and I started to cry. She hugged me, and I remember that hug distinctly. I think I was 8.
What a traumatic memory for all concerned. I'm glad your brother did so well in his life and is happily retired now.
ReplyDeleteAn event like that is so shocking it cannot be forgotten.
ReplyDeleteThis was a good read and I thought it was an obituary.
ReplyDeleteHow about a trip to France for you and Mrs YP to visit Robin?
That's a dreadful story, he was lucky to have survived. A very good schoolfriend of mine's brother was not so lucky. He chased 'down' their drive after a football, and was hit by a car in the road. He was killed at once. He was about 6. His twin brother never really recovered from the shock.
ReplyDeleteGlad Robin survived and was able to have a happy life.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea such a thing had happened in your family. What a very, very frightening memory and I'm sure that accident affected your entire family. But what a beautiful outcome! Just goes to show that what shatters some people can become strength for others. I know that your mother must have been profoundly affected. I have a daughter who was in a terrible accident on her way to school. I still can't really talk about it.
ReplyDeleteI found that all rather moving
ReplyDeleteterrible memory.... i've also been run over - not as dramatically as your borther..... and i was only in hospital for a few days...... my mum took me to hospital with the curlers in her hair and a towel wrapped round her head..... (not that i knew about it) - thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteOne of my sisters was hit by a truck when she was 12 years old. She was in a coma for a week and I have no idea what happened when she came home. I was born four years after her accident. My sister has always been "odd" but it wasn't until my sister in law joined the family that we got an explanation. My sister in law is an occupational therapist and explained to me what brain damage does to a person, especially brain damage like my sister had, her frontal lobe. My sister has no boundaries, NONE, and never stops talking, EVER. I can't imagine what my parents went through after the accident.
ReplyDeleteYour brother was lucky to have survived and done so well. Your poor mum, it must have taken years off her life.
Wow, that must have been horrifying at the time. And you told the story so well! I could see it all in my mind's eye.
ReplyDeleteThat's such a moving childhood memory. It is a pity your health issues prevent you from flying to see your bro.
ReplyDeleteMoving, especially this line, "It was as if I had lit the blue touchpaper of a firework rocket."
ReplyDeleteThere doesn't need to be any purpose to writing down memories if we simply feel we want or need to. This is a very well-written account of a major event in the lives of everyone in your family from the point of view of your young self. Your brother has done well to accomplish so much. I believe you have blogged about visiting your brother on different occasions. I didn't realize the back story of his younger life. Keep on with the recording of memories. I've recently been thinking of doing the same and you have given me a nudge to act on that.
ReplyDelete