| General Non-Fiction posted March 10, 2022 |
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A Memoir
A Day to Remember
by write hand blue
Summer 1960
I was eleven years old. We lived on a farm at the edge of a small village in Scotland some four miles from the English border, this made it convenient for my dad to drive us on weekend day trips to the Lake District. I can recall this journey of some seventy odd miles which we undertook two or three times every summer. One of these trips remains in my mind above all the others.
“Melvyn, I have a surprise for you, we’re going to Lake Coniston to see something special on Sunday.”
“When we get there can I have one of those dandelion and burdock fizzy drinks with a dollop of ice cream floating on it?”
“We’ll see. It depends if you behave yourself.”
I must admit that I wasn’t the best-behaved child around at that time.
Dad, wouldn’t say what the surprise was, and I pestered him for a while with a kind of guessing game.
“No Melvyn, you’ll just have to wait and see,” he said this in his characteristic, patient way.
Sunday arrived; we were all up and had breakfast by eight o’clock. While Mum packed the picnic hamper, I kept watch for the inclusion in the hamper of those all-important chocolate Wagon Wheels, my favorite at the time.
“I know what you’re here for, and yes the packet is already in the bottom under the bananas,” she looked at me and said, “go and help your dad to load up the car, and take these two bottles of orange squash with you.”
Out in the yard Dad closed the car bonnet as I arrived. We all knew that he liked to tinker with engines. Although this Hillman Husky belonged to the company, it didn’t stop him making adjustments to it. As I placed the glass bottles behind the rear seats, I recalled how Mum had blown her top more than once when she walked up to the car with us four children all spick and span and ready to go. Dad had been caught once again with black greasy hands and the bonnet/hood raised. To be fair to him, cars in those days required almost constant attention.
Today was different; he had clean hands and even had time to clean the windows, before Mum came out with that woven cane picnic basket filled with sandwiches and goodies.
So, on this bright summer’s day we set off early with all of us wearing our Sunday best.
I remember the building excitement as the miles passed by, a journey I knew well. We passed through Kendal where we often stopped and bought some famous Kendal mint cake. But not today. We seemed to take no time at all and it was well before midday when the Lake District came into view. Coniston, our destination, happened to be my dad’s favorite lake, due I believe because he lived there for a few years when he was a child. We drove into a small field area and parked next to a large grey waterside shed. I remember that a ramp made also from that old grey looking wood led down to the lake’s edge.
Dad turned and smiled, “Do you remember Bluebird, that record braking jet boat on the TV news?” he looked at us.
I knew what he talked about, and exploded in curiosity, I had a hundred questions for him, all to be asked at once.
“Well, it’s in that shed, and we’re going to look at it."
So we joined a small queue by the closed door and waited for a few minutes. I noticed a hand written sign on cardboard that indicated an entry fee of three pence per person. Cheap even for those days.
I kept to the back of my mind memories of a man with white hair showing us all the features of this impressive blue jet machine, situated in a long narrow boat house. This man I recognized later in life as Mr Leo Villier when I saw him in a TV documentary. He was Donald Campbell’s mechanic. My father was mechanically minded, and I remember him asking this man several questions. I was entranced by the blue colour, I thought it looked a bit like a strangely shaped space-ship, long and sleek. And though held in a cradle made out of wood; in my mind I imagined it was shooting forward at one hundred miles an hour.
We were in the shed for a good twenty minutes as I remember, while he spoke to us. Today when I look back it all seemed amateurish and undeveloped. I remember Dad saying that there weren’t even postcards of Blubird for sale. These days it would be very different.
We were not lucky enought to see them testing it out on the lake, this was a Sunday and the lake was too buzy with hire boats sailing about.
When I see Mr Villier on those old films the nostalgia raises the hairs on my neck. I was shocked the day Donald Campbell lost his life during a record attempt and crashed the boat. I know where I was stood as I listened to the radio on that terrible morning of January the fourth 1967.
True Story Contest contest entry
Summer 1960
I was eleven years old. We lived on a farm at the edge of a small village in Scotland some four miles from the English border, this made it convenient for my dad to drive us on weekend day trips to the Lake District. I can recall this journey of some seventy odd miles which we undertook two or three times every summer. One of these trips remains in my mind above all the others.
“Melvyn, I have a surprise for you, we’re going to Lake Coniston to see something special on Sunday.”
“When we get there can I have one of those dandelion and burdock fizzy drinks with a dollop of ice cream floating on it?”
“We’ll see. It depends if you behave yourself.”
I must admit that I wasn’t the best-behaved child around at that time.
Dad, wouldn’t say what the surprise was, and I pestered him for a while with a kind of guessing game.
“No Melvyn, you’ll just have to wait and see,” he said this in his characteristic, patient way.
Sunday arrived; we were all up and had breakfast by eight o’clock. While Mum packed the picnic hamper, I kept watch for the inclusion in the hamper of those all-important chocolate Wagon Wheels, my favorite at the time.
“I know what you’re here for, and yes the packet is already in the bottom under the bananas,” she looked at me and said, “go and help your dad to load up the car, and take these two bottles of orange squash with you.”
Out in the yard Dad closed the car bonnet as I arrived. We all knew that he liked to tinker with engines. Although this Hillman Husky belonged to the company, it didn’t stop him making adjustments to it. As I placed the glass bottles behind the rear seats, I recalled how Mum had blown her top more than once when she walked up to the car with us four children all spick and span and ready to go. Dad had been caught once again with black greasy hands and the bonnet/hood raised. To be fair to him, cars in those days required almost constant attention.
Today was different; he had clean hands and even had time to clean the windows, before Mum came out with that woven cane picnic basket filled with sandwiches and goodies.
So, on this bright summer’s day we set off early with all of us wearing our Sunday best.
I remember the building excitement as the miles passed by, a journey I knew well. We passed through Kendal where we often stopped and bought some famous Kendal mint cake. But not today. We seemed to take no time at all and it was well before midday when the Lake District came into view. Coniston, our destination, happened to be my dad’s favorite lake, due I believe because he lived there for a few years when he was a child. We drove into a small field area and parked next to a large grey waterside shed. I remember that a ramp made also from that old grey looking wood led down to the lake’s edge.
Dad turned and smiled, “Do you remember Bluebird, that record braking jet boat on the TV news?” he looked at us.
I knew what he talked about, and exploded in curiosity, I had a hundred questions for him, all to be asked at once.
“Well, it’s in that shed, and we’re going to look at it."
So we joined a small queue by the closed door and waited for a few minutes. I noticed a hand written sign on cardboard that indicated an entry fee of three pence per person. Cheap even for those days.
I kept to the back of my mind memories of a man with white hair showing us all the features of this impressive blue jet machine, situated in a long narrow boat house. This man I recognized later in life as Mr Leo Villier when I saw him in a TV documentary. He was Donald Campbell’s mechanic. My father was mechanically minded, and I remember him asking this man several questions. I was entranced by the blue colour, I thought it looked a bit like a strangely shaped space-ship, long and sleek. And though held in a cradle made out of wood; in my mind I imagined it was shooting forward at one hundred miles an hour.
We were in the shed for a good twenty minutes as I remember, while he spoke to us. Today when I look back it all seemed amateurish and undeveloped. I remember Dad saying that there weren’t even postcards of Blubird for sale. These days it would be very different.
We were not lucky enought to see them testing it out on the lake, this was a Sunday and the lake was too buzy with hire boats sailing about.
When I see Mr Villier on those old films the nostalgia raises the hairs on my neck. I was shocked the day Donald Campbell lost his life during a record attempt and crashed the boat. I know where I was stood as I listened to the radio on that terrible morning of January the fourth 1967.
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