Memory Monday - Showing Off

During my years at primary school, between the ages of 5 and 11, like most young girls I had many friends. Some were just mates at school, others friends you would call round to play with at weekends.

One such friend of mine was named Denice. She was a very pretty, dark haired girl, with an air of confidence about her that I don't recall seeing in anyone else so young, and she was very bright. I had always admired her, and thought of her as sophisticated and from a well off family. My own family was not so fortunate in the wealth stakes, and I can remember her talking about taking showers in the mornings, and I can recall my exact feelings. Showers back then were not common place like they are today, (oh god! I'm showing my age again aren't I), usually it was just a bath.

It is strange, looking back, recalling how I deemed her to come from a well-off family, merely because she had a shower as well as a bath! Today of course, most everyone owns a shower.

Anyway, I was always slightly in awe of her, but was very fond of her also, and we both played in the school netball team, as did her older sister, Suze. Suze was great. She seemed to have a soft spot for me and treated me like a little sister. Treated me better than a little sister, sisters at that age are not the soul mates and companions they often become later in life, but a nuisance more often than not.

Denice invited me over one weekend during the summer holidays, suggesting that as we were going through a hot spell, maybe we would enjoy going for a bike ride round the country lanes. Back then, it was considered safe for young girls to be out on their own in small country lanes, something that would be difficult to allow your own children to do now-a-days.

At the time I didn't have a bicycle of my own and she said I could borrow Suze's. This was hilarious, I was very small, and Suze was much bigger than me, so we settled on me riding Denice's bike and she would take her sisters bike out.

I went round to her house mid-morning one fine, sunny day of the holidays, and her Mum had made us both a packed lunch and put it in a back pack so that we would not get hungry on our travels. We checked the bikes over, tested the brakes and adjusted the saddles a little. Then with a cheery goodbye to her mother, Denice and I mounted up and rode off.

We headed out of our little village and straight onto the pretty, narrow, winding country lanes we both loved so much. The hedgerows were alive with the sounds of young birds, as yet flightless, but all very vocal whilst waiting for mum to bring their dinner of earth worms, flies and other tidbits. The air was pleasantly cool for such a hot day, the vast canopies of summer leaves preventing most of the suns rays from reaching the ground underneath, and the tremendous array of colours and textures was amazing.

We cycled quite slowly for a while, taking in all the beautiful sights and sounds that nature provides at that time of year, and happily chattering away about girly stuff.

Later, when we started to feel peckish, we dismounted at the edge of some woodland, and pushed our bikes over the slightly uneven terrain in search of a good spot to spread out our lunch. It was not long before we stumbled across a small clearing, with long soft green, green grass under foot, tall, heavily laden, gnarled trees dotted in amongst the grandfather trees that seemed to have been growing since the beginning of time and a tiny, gurgling stream. Perfect.

We broke open our lunch boxes and made daisy chains whilst we ate. When we had finished, wearing our daisy chains, we picked a small posy of bluebells and daffodils for Denice's Mum as a thank you and retraced out steps out of the wood and back to the road.

As we set off again, we were discussing some topic or other that was mightily important to a pair of 9-10 year olds until Denice suddenly stopped. As I pulled up beside her, I could see the glint in her eye.

"Race you" she said.

The road ahead was narrow and steep. Very, very steep.

"You're on" I replied, never one to turn down a challenge.

And off we sped.

Denice, much more suited to the size of bike she was riding, pulled ahead quite quickly. I pedalled hard, watching her in front of me. She was still pulling away. I stood up on the pedals. Leaned forward. Pedalled quicker.

Was I catching her? I couldn't tell.

As I looked up at the back of her again, the back wheel of her bike was doing a kind of dance. Not the whole bike, just the back wheel, pulsating from side to side, slightly skimming across the tarmac surface and I remember thinking it looked pretty cool. Of course I wanted to look pretty cool too, and so I tried to make my over sized bike do the same thing.

It was actually easier than I thought it would be, and my bike started to shift, back and forth, quickly feeling like it was out of control. I hadn't accounted for the considerable amount of loose gravelly stones which lay like a dry river bed down the middle of the road. My heart began to pound against my chest. I was going way too fast. The hill was very steep and very long. I couldn't make the bike stop it's dance. My face became flushed, my heart rate continued to quicken, and I was scared witless.

Next thing I know, I'm on the ground. My knees were terribly grazed, having gathered most of the contents of the road in their close encounters to my stopping position on the verge. My elbows and forearms had fared no better in their travels and my head hurt like hell. As I half sat and half lay, dazed, confused and in pain, Denice had just reached the bottom, turned round, saw me on the deck and laughed. As she made her way back up the hill towards my resting place, her face changed from the laughing, mocking, 'you fell off' face to an ashen, wide eyed and worried face.

"Oh I'm so sorry, I didn't realise you had hurt yourself" she said. "Are you OK, can you stand?"

Slowly, painfully, I inched my way from my slumber position to sitting, then kneeling and eventually standing. Dizziness took over and I had to steady myself with her. By this time I was swallowing blood. In the fall I had cut my head quite badly and grazed a lot of my face. Gravel was embedded in every opening, one of my teeth was chipped and I felt sick.

Panic.

We were in the middle of nowhere, not a soul in sight. We guessed if we waited patiently, a car may come by and help us, at least take me home so I could get some attention for my wounds. But the car never came. We began to walk - slowly. Every step a jar in my spine. Every few steps, another drip of blood released its grip from the bottom of my face and splashed onto the road.

We kept at this pace, making headway towards civilisation, when we came across a family out picking blackberries from the hedgerows. We decided to ask them for help. Of course immediately they saw me we didn't need to ask. They just took over. Arranging for one of them to help my friend back to her house with the bikes, and taking me off in the car back to their house to clean me up, which they did, before dropping me home and explaining to my Mum what had occurred.

I often think about that family and wonder how much more I would have suffered had it not been for their kindness. Today of course, a 9-10 year old girl with half a brain wouldn't dream of getting in a strangers car, let alone agreeing to go back to their house. Come to that, many an adult with half a brain wouldn't dream of offering such a young girl a lift to their own house for fear of repercussions of accusations of assault.

Personally, I think this is a very sad state of affairs. I wish the world could go backwards sometimes. Back to a time, before I was born, when respect, kindness and honesty were abundant in everyone's everyday life.

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