Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Childhood adventures....

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Childhood adventures....

    The playground at Cage Green Junior School, Tonbridge was buzzing with the news that early summer 1969 morning. A local boy had claimed to have seen a large ape-like creature, thought to be a gorilla, in a field on nearby farmland; and there he was on the front page of the local newspaper in an article complete with photograph. Some pupils had brought in a copy of the photograph, torn surreptitiously from their parents’ papers that morning. In vain we scanned the grainy image of the boy, the field and a solitary tree in the distance for signs of a gorilla hanging from the branches. In those innocent times it never crossed our minds that the boy might have been mistaken or even lying. It was there in the newspaper so it must be true. Quite how a gorilla had come to pitch up at a farm in Kent was the subject of endless speculation. One boy, whose grasp of geography and zoology was sketchy to say the least, suggested, to general derision, that it might have swum over from Africa. But most people concluded that it had escaped from a zoo or circus.

    During lessons and at breaktimes that day the talk was of little else. Ideas were discussed. Plans hatched. Participants recruited. And so it was that at about 5 o’clock that afternoon after bolting down our respective teas and vague promises to parents that we were just going out to play, my friends and I scampered from houses along the length of our road and assembled on a nearby green. We had armed ourselves for protection with a fairly blunt kitchen knife, a cricket stump, a toy Winchester rifle with a cracked barrel and some bamboo canes, along with several varying lengths of string and garden twine purloined from sheds and greenhouses. Blissfully ignorant, in those pre David Attenborough days, of the great ape’s ferocity when roused or its capacity to rip a man limb from limb, and confident in the ability of six small boys to track, subdue and tie up said beast, we were off on a gorilla hunt.

    Entering the woodland that surrounded the field where the alleged sighting had taken place, we were certain that this was where the gorilla would now be hiding, despite the lack of ape essentials such as bananas and jungle vines to swing from. It soon became evident that, strangely, almost every other male child in North Tonbridge who was of junior school age seemed to have had the same idea as us, and the woodland trails quickly became clogged with intrepid gangs of little boys, all, like us, bearing an assortment of weapons and string, all communicating in whispers or sign language, all pretending that they had seen or heard something ‘just over there’, and all scanning the ground for tracks, broken twigs or overturned stones that might indicate that the gorilla had passed that way. At long last we were putting into practice those hunting skills gleaned from TV, comics and the booklets that came with Clarks Commandos shoes.

    At one point we were startled when something burst from the bushes ahead of us, but our initial excitement abated when we realised that it was only a ginger-haired lad from another class, out hunting solo. “Well it might have been an orang-utan,” said one of our number, trying but failing to justify his girly shriek of alarm. After a further fruitless 30 minutes or so, the only hazards we had encountered were stinging nettles and the ubiquitous piles of dog excrement, much of it already trodden in by previous unfortunates. The thrill of the chase had given way to boredom and, almost as one, everyone abandoned the Great Gorilla Hunt. With the sun going down, we went our separate ways home, the promise of the weekend ahead of us now occupying our thoughts.

    I never did find out whether it all turned out to be a childish hoax that got out of hand or whether the gorilla had been shot with a tranquillizer dart by a police marksman and recaptured. Perhaps it just swam back to Africa.

    #2
    Childhood adventures....

    gjw100's current Top Quality Posting Ratio 3:1.

    Comment


      #3
      Childhood adventures....

      I really hope you can keep this quality up, gjm. Brilliant.

      Comment


        #4
        Childhood adventures....

        Magical.

        Comment


          #5
          Childhood adventures....

          really hope you can keep this quality up, gjm. Brilliant.
          No pressure, of course.

          You can post whatever you like from here on in, gjw100. You're reputation will precede you.

          Comment


            #6
            Childhood adventures....

            Someone who may or not be me has recommended to Santa that they should buy their eight-year-old daughter, who is already in love with the Famous Five tales, the box set of Enid Blyton's "Adventure" stories, for Xmas. You know, the "Island of Aventure", the "Lake of Adventure", the "NCP Car Park of Adventure", those ones.

            But I think a box set of gjw's stories would be even better for them.

            Comment


              #7
              Childhood adventures....

              Gorillas can't swim. Seriously. I just googled it.

              Comment


                #8
                Childhood adventures....

                That's the main reason why a polar bear would beat a gorilla in a fight. But if the gorilla could drag the polar bear up onto dry land ... who's to say what could happen.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Childhood adventures....

                  Me. I could say.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Childhood adventures....

                    I've always felt the gorilla's gripping ability might apply itself to some sensitive area of the polar bear, in a way that would leave the polar bear scampering off and needing to howl at the northern stars, afraid to venture near the gorilla again.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Childhood adventures....

                      What? So a Polar bear can't rip? Is that what you're saying?

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Childhood adventures....

                        they can't get the wrapper off a penguin, i know that

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Childhood adventures....

                          I think it was a pretty good story gjw did, but it could have used an actual gorilla. there's a lot of buildup, and at the end...no gorilla. The people want gorillas in their gorilla vignettes.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Childhood adventures....

                            Clark's Commando = Dog shit magnet.
                            Caked on the laces, solidifying the grooves.
                            I've stopped wearing mine.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Childhood adventures....

                              At our extended family get-togethers at Xmas, it’s become something of a tradition to hold a light-hearted general knowledge quiz.

                              Last year, one of the questions was – “Why don’t polar bears eat penguins?”

                              The written answer from the team that consisted of my daughter (18), niece (17) and son’s girlfriend (18) was – “Because of their beaks, their claws, their scaly skin and their bad taste.”

                              So now you know - it’s nothing to do with the wrappers.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Childhood adventures....

                                G-Man; you're quite right. I was trying to be nice, but it came out wrong.

                                Still, thank god I didn't use a an apostrophe in the wrong place.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Childhood adventures....

                                  Posting my original entry here reminded me of another more shameful incident from my early school days that until now had remained buried in my memory….

                                  Most schools have a bully and ours was no exception. A younger rat-like lad (let’s call him Tim) who, although small, was possessed of a fearless ferocity and willingness to scrap that was sufficient to cow the rest of us. I should add that, as an indication that we weren’t, perhaps, the toughest of schools, the other banes of our playtime lives were a pair of girls - identical twins - who operated as a combined unit of terror. Bash Street we weren’t.

                                  The new boy arrived part-way through the school year – his family having just moved into the area. A large, harmless, friendly lunk from Canada (let’s call him Bob). I don’t recall that he claimed that his father was a lumberjack, but our knowledge of Canada was slight and that, together with Bob’s strapping build, led a group of us to conclude within just a few days of meeting him that this son of sturdy, tree-felling stock was the very person to end Tim’s reign of terror. Bob took a little more persuasion but he seemed eager to please his new school–mates and so, at first break, he allowed himself to be paraded around the playground in search of our enemy. We found Tim in a corner in the shadow of the main building by the drain cover where we played marbles, and where he was presumably waiting to levy his usual toll on the winners.

                                  The two would-be protagonists were soon surrounded by the usual crowd of bystanders yelling “fight, fight” in traditional style but, initially, the expected fighting failed to materialise. Tim was, no doubt, sizing up his chances against a much larger unknown quantity, whilst our new Canuck pal, although content to go along with things at first, now seemed to be struggling to overcome his basic amiability. Eventually the weight of expectation and a few shoving hands pushed the two together. There was some scuffling and grappling and they fell to the floor, rolled about a bit and ended up in a shallow puddle of rainwater - whereupon Bob immediately burst into tears. “I’ve got my shorts and pants all wet,” he sobbed. Tim got to his feet, laughed scornfully and strutted off, his reputation intact.

                                  We would-be fight-brokers left a still-crying Bob to the care of the playground monitor and drifted away from the scene feeling a mix of emotions - embarrassment at Bob’s unseemly outburst, embarrassment at the part we had played in bringing him to this ignoble end and, perhaps most of all, a fear that Tim might have detected our involvement and would be planning his retribution.

                                  Bob didn’t stay at the school for very much longer. I like to think that it was the itinerant nature of his father’s job that caused him to move on – not the shame of his public puddle humiliation. I just hope that, somewhere in the Canadian wilderness, there isn’t a grizzled lumberjack paused over his axe and ruefully rubbing the seat of his trousers as his thoughts stretch back to that school playground.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Childhood adventures....

                                    See, you've overdone it now. Your first story was nostalgic whimsy whereas that one has a nasty edge and somewhere there is a Canadian spending a fortune on therapy because of you, yes, you

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Childhood adventures....

                                      Was the gorilla the Canadian's Dad, do you think?

                                      I don't.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        Childhood adventures....

                                        We don't have gorillas here. Bears, yes. But gorillas, no.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          Childhood adventures....

                                          Not as far as you know, WOM.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            Childhood adventures....

                                            I was standing twenty feet from a doe and her fawn in the woods this weekend. Closest I've ever been. They usually bolt long before that.

                                            But you're right about the gorillas. Hell...I've never even been to Saskatchewan, so they could have anything out there.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              Childhood adventures....

                                              I've just discovered piece of information so glorious, i don't really know what to do with it.

                                              It should go in film, but it deserves a wider audience than that. But then it doesn't warrant it's own thread in world, unless I can cleverly tie it in to something relevant. And I can't be arsed to do that.

                                              So, in the manner of an over excited four year old child, I'm going to blurt it out in here.

                                              THEY'RE MAKING A FILM CALLED 'COCKNEYS V ZOMBIES'

                                              Amazing.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                Childhood adventures....

                                                You must be excited. You've spelled its wrong.

                                                But I'm on board. I've just booked the convention centre for CVZ COM 2011, which I've also trademarked.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  Childhood adventures....

                                                  I've no time for punctuation and grammar. I'm packing my bag so I can camp outside one of the three cinemas this'll get a theatrical release at.

                                                  Comment

                                                  Working...
                                                  X