I made the wrong mistake..
Things were different growing up in the sixties..
One Summer afternoon I indulged my favourite pursuit as a rural 9 year-old, tree climbing. Long before the days of harnesses and ‘health and safety’, and influenced by my Grandfather’s total disregard for heights, and for my safety during the annual apple harvest, I clambered towards the top of a tree
From my lofty perch I noticed in the near distance, a fenced circle of trees in a buttercup meadow, with cattle between me and the big ‘Keep Out’ sign
Not yet aware bulls are attracted to the colour red, I ambled, jogged then ran for my life, such was my enthusiasm for investigating forbidden zones in the middle of fields where young boys definitely should not go
Diving under the bottom rung of the barbed wire fence, I discovered stinging nettles have no regard for testicles, and soothing dock leaves aren’t always!
My path to the centre revealed ivy-covered, eighteenth and nineteenth century gravestones, standing in a peculiarly uniform pattern
Without warning, the bright afternoon turned dark, as I tumbled headlong into the crypt of a long-abandoned church
Sunlight shining through the hole created by my fall shone only on a stone slab. Carved on it were the words:
‘God grant, that all those
who on me cast an eye
go straight away and surely
learn how to die..’
Important as my imminent death was, nothing trumped the discomfort stinging nettles had created in my shorts!
Ownership of my problem determined that nobody knew where I was, so nobody would come, and the 9 year-old me thought there was a good chance any visitor wouldn’t be human anyway
Sunlight faded, daylight began to do the same. The fire in my shorts still burned, my gaze remained fixed on the words on the slab
Something stirred behind me. Please God, let it be a mouse
I turned and for the first time, noticed that I’d been sitting at the bottom of a long forgotten, broken, stone stairway – to heaven..
The mistake in recounting this story over the years is I’ve been guilty of focusing on immediate issues, without taking into account the long-term benefits (life experience, not swollen gonads!)
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