My Summer Tree

My Summer Tree

When I was a young lad, just after the Second World War, my parents
moved house to a new town. This involved moving all of us - me, my baby
sister and my parents 400 miles north to a new house, a new town, a new
school for me and new neighbourhood friends for all of us. It wasn't so
bad for Dad and Mum, this was the town where they grew up and married.
Their relations and friends were still there, but my sister and me had
to make new friends and get to know our relatives better.

To start with, I was a bit lonely and it wasn't until I met a local
boy, Donald, that I came to have a real friend in the same school that
I had joined. He suffered quite a lot a teasing from other classmates
because he had a large nose. With the cruelty of children, this nose
was the result of him having the nickname 'Duck'. They said his nose
was a beak and as his first name was 'Donald', he became 'Donald Duck'
to his class, complete with their amateurish impressions of Walt
Disney's famous character.
I didn't join the crowd teasing him because I felt sorry for him and
wanted to keep a low profile anyway.

He and I had a favourite place to go weekends, where grown-ups did not
supervise us. It was far away from the prying eyes of any of the school
gangs as well, which was a big bonus. It was a field that had been part
of the grounds of a nursing home nearby, which had closed down. It was
overgrown with long grass and bushes and had a 'burn' (a Scots stream)
running through 'The Field', as we called it.

The stream banks had overhanging branches from a fairly mature tree, so
we succumbed to temptation. Borrowing an old piece of rope and tying it
to one of the lower branches meant we could practice being 'Tarzan',
swinging over the stream and yodelling as we went!

One grey November day we were bored and decided to play our Tarzan game
again. The noise we were making must have attracted some attention,
because a girl's birthday party in a nearby house got attracted to what
we were doing. We invited them to join us, even though they were some
years younger than we were. They couldn't swing across the burn, as
they were all in party dresses and didn't want to get wet and muddy.
They decided to play 'It', a chase me type of game, with the one who
was tagged by the one who was 'It' becoming 'It' herself. They then
suggested that we two bigger boys could be 'horses' and their game
changed to 'Cowboys' and 'Indians'. Naturally we wanted to show off how
strong we were, so Donald was the Cowboy horse and I was the Indian
horse, each of us acting as picky-back horses for the youngsters.

We chose teams, but as I was the Indian horse, all the fit, active,
tomboy girls chose to go with the Cowboy horse and I was left with the
others. One of these was a shy girl with glasses, whose birthday party
it was and I remember almost winning with her on my back, when we got
too tired and stopped running about.

Donald and I never met the group again, as they were too young to join
in our set of friends. I expect they grew up with their friends, as
Donald and I finished our schooling. We did the usual things that young
school-leavers did at that time, going to dances, meeting girls and
having teenage romances.

Then we had the choice of going to University or doing our National
Service, but then. Dad was moved in his job again, so he decided that I
should go to an English University, but first I had to do a year at the
University studying for an Inter BSc. This was to bring me into the way
of specialising for which the general Scottish school qualifications
had not provided me. (Ideal for a Scottish university, but not right
for an English one.)

The Inter BSc course didn't work out for me, so I gave up studying and
went to do my National Service, flying as a navigator in the Royal Air
Force. The only problem with this was that much of the training was
done in Northern Ireland. Fortunately it was a quiet time and the IRA
weren't shooting anybody in English uniforms and bombing civilians,
thank goodness.

Eventually, I was demobbed, came home and got a civilian job, which
transferred me round England, much as my Father's job had done for him.
He retired and he and Mother went back to their roots in Northeast
Scotland, in a new house specially built for them. Occasionally I went
to them for a holiday, where I met their new next door neighbour and
their youngest daughter. Soon I had to leave to get back to work, but
we promised to write.

We fell in love, did most our courting by letter, got married six
months later and moved into a small apartment near London, where I had
just been moved in my job.

It wasn't until we were swapping stories with our new neighbours there,
that we realised that I had just married the little girl that I gave a
pick aback ride on her birthday all those years ago!

The End

Postscript
We have both retired and live back in Bristol, where my employers moved
me (yet again). We celebrate our 35th Wedding anniversary this
year.

I have been back to the 'field', but it now a housing area. My tree, if
it still exists, is part of someone's garden. I still have the memory
though!

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