It's all still there
Author still on a bike
I stared intently into the drive where I’d once lived 40 years ago. My constant journeying with our fledgling business had finally taken me back to The Wirral.
It was bound to happen at some point. I’d even decided to stay local that evening and retrace my steps later, on an old run I used to do. It had been cathartic at the time, treading water, desperate to recover from a first love lost.
This summer’s evening was perfectly calm. A casual observer, might have thought I was some sort of surveyor, appraising the road, before finally knocking on one of the detached houses, the occupants about to put their property on the market. In a way, I was.
Nothing moved as I watched nothing in particular. The houses, the cul-de-sac, the low brick walls and pavements, all looked orderly, unchanged a little older. As if it had been waiting, quietly patient for my return. Gardens had changed, as had paint colours, but it was still much the same, just no children playing.
I remember those walls and pavements when the cement had barely set and the road smelt fresh. It was hiding many secrets, but I had a key, I was part of this past.
Two majestic Scots pines were still on-guard at the top, imperious gates, vestiges of a grander garden and house, replaced by secondary glazing, gas fires and fitted kitchens, repeated eleven times for new young families. It was called progress. The original family long gone now, sold up when the mother finally died.
As my mind slowly wandered in the fading warmth of the day, like so many days before, the memories gradually returned, crowding in, until I could hop from one to another like a frog on a lily pond.
The worn tarmac road where I now stood, had once been dirt, dust and potholes, unmade and brilliant for skidding. The frequent punctures, testament to the time spent locking up rear wheels, sliding sideways in dusty clouds to a graceful stop. Sometimes Dad would watch, standing beside his car in his creased suit, smelling of work, a heady mixture of peppermint and lemon oil.
Races always started at the top. Our favourites was - last to brake, hardly original. Everyone played, from the youngest to the oldest, contests within contests occurred alongside the main event, could you outperform your peer?
Jonty, second eldest, left it far too late on one occasion. He won easily, but it nearly cost him, saved by the beech hedge next to the Colman’s garage where bike and Jonty were finally disentangled. He was unhurt and laughing, delighted to have won. Dave was furious. They’d swopped bikes after the first run and it was Dave’s bike which had been in the hedge. He’d also come second.
We spent hours playing block against the red sandstone wall behind me, pausing only when someone had to climb the wall, squeezing in between the top and the barbed wire fence behind, fetching the ball from the mystery garden. This property had remained whole, screened by trees and large overgrown rhododendron bushes so we couldn’t see the magnificent lawn or the house, aptly named Oxton Lawns; until of course, it was your turn to get the ball.
Pavements were tracks, driveways, our entrances and exits to it. The cul-de-sac at the bottom was our circular loop, where we somehow managed to squeeze two bikes alongside each other to overtake. The bottom was also our base, where we always met in the morning. It was where we played British Bulldogs, rounders, hunt and marbles. What we played was decided on how many were out and the weather.
Summer was good for everything and we often returned to marbles or allys as we called them. Dad, who’d grown-up in Liverpool, insisted they were ollies.
Occasionally, someone would put up a ‘special’, held in a nick in the pavement, the owner collecting bags of marbles, as we tried and failed, to knock it out of the chalk circle which had been quickly drawn around it. Hitting it from 10 paving stones away was one thing, dislodging it from the nick and the circle meant firing marbles at speed which inevitably reduced our accuracy. But it was possible and one day, I surprised myself and Dave, knocking his big, fat, glossy, spaghetti blue clean out. Played with strict, sportsman-like rules, I couldn’t walk away with my new prize before giving him a chance to win it back. In the end I had his special and the 20 ordinary marbles he’d tried and failed with.
On one particularly long summer, we seemed to play rounders, all day, everyday. I don’t no why, because we never played it with such earnest persistence again.
No one will ever forget the full stretch catch Mr Stirrup made, coming out of his house. The tennis ball was going to hit the brick work above the hall window to his right, but he neatly plucked it out of the air before it landed. We applauded, he scowled and Kathleen, his wife, who was right behind him nudged him and told him to say something. She whispered too loud, annoyed by our cheek and invasion of her privacy. None of their children were ever allowed to play out.
We listened politely to the telling off before they finally disappeared in their car.
We argued for ages afterwards, whether Jezza should be out and if he'd scored a rounder, because he’d still run the bases. Replacing the tennis racquet with something more difficult to hit with was rejected by everyone. Well it had been Mr Stirrup’s idea.
My silence was finally broken by a solitary car travelling down into Oxton village, on the appropriately named Village Road, which ran behind our old back garden.
It’s all still there.