Snow, Sledges and Soapbox cars

                                 

Blimey ! It hasn’t half bin taters recently, take my word for it. I do realise, ov kosst, that some areas in Siberia are even colder, and that in Oymvakon (which, with a lowest record temperature of −71.2 °C (−96.2 °F), yes, folks, that is correct: MINUS SEVENTY–ONE degrees) has the unenviable rep. of being the coldest town on the planet, but it was parky enough right here for my liking, and sufficiently bone-chilling to get the local brass monkey lodge in a right old tizz-wazz. The ivy which clambers up our walls (bred from a tiny cutting of me Uncle Albert’s ivy, and smuggled in from London years and years ago) was frozen. Icicles hung by the wall, and doubtless Dick the shepherd was blowing his grubby nails, and casting lascivious glances at greasy Joan, in some hay-floored barn in a neighbouring village, while the staring owl tu—whitted and tu-whooed like a good ‘un. As for me, my hooter, which even at the best of times sports a permanent pink tinge, glowed radiantly red in the freezing air. Had old Santa spotted it, he’d’ve had me out in front, trotting over foggy rooftops, whilst rueful Rudolph stayed home and hung his antlers in embarrassment.

I was driving to a friend’s house, he lives a few hundred yards back behind the town’s snow-ploughed main drag  (the side streets, although gritted, remained hazardous) and was therefore taking it very easy. Quite suddenly, a short distance ahead of me, an elderly woman crossing the road fell flat on her face. As I cautiously approached, she staggered upright and promptly went base over apex once more. I pulled to the side, walked gingerly (grit was visible, albeit frozen beneath the surface) across to help her.  ” Get in the car, ” I said, ” I’ll drive you home.” She pointed to a house about 150 metres up the road: ” I live there, I can walk.”
Being too polite to point out that she obviously couldn’t, unless falling on her arse twice within the space of a coupler minutes was considered walking, I tucked her arm under mine, helping her cross the slippery stretch of skating–rink road (no “Bolero” filled the winter air, and we certainly didn’t cause Torvill and Dean any anxiety – Jerry and Dean maybe, but not Jayne and Chris) I saw her safely to her house, which, as it happened, was directly opposite my mate’s gaff, put the lah-di in gear…and couldn’t bloody move. I was unable to go forward or backward, the wheels just spun. I considered my options:
a) I could get out and give the bastard car a right kicking.
b) I could burst into tears.
I was about to put b) into operation, when I felt a shove – two noble people had come out of their house, and were pushing me. A coupler hefty heaves, the tyres gripped and I drove across the street; waved, and shouted my thanks to the unknown Samaritans.
Although I’d quite definitely favoured the b) alternative, there had also been another, namely c) snow chains. Throughout every Winter I carry chains in me boot, for you never know, do yer ? Regrettably, they’re a set of extremely ancient chains, which I’m convinced must have seen service in a deep, dark dungeon before I was conned into purchasing them (the salesman was clad from head to toe in a tight-fitting black suit, black mask and carried a whip, which had made me a bit suspicious at the time) and not the ultra-modern kind that virtually push open the lid, take themselves out of the box, snuggle round the tyres, and fasten the lock themselves. You have to work on my sods, ending up with frozen fingers, broken nails, bruised and bleeding hands – it can be even worse if you don’t wear gloves !

The first time we’d ever used snow chains, was during an Austrian tour. We’d played in Tyrol and were on our way to Vorarlberg when it started to snow… in bloody spades:  bucketing down. In St.Anton were notices saying one couldn’t use the Arlberg pass unless one’s mote-mote was fitted with snow chains. It was in the days before they drilled the tunnel through the mountain –incidentally, the longest tunnel in Austria, about twice as long as the pass – we had no chains so we also had no choice, it was either buy some, or wait till Winter vanished.
I always enjoyed driving over the Alberg Pass when the weather was good. Although narrow, climby, twisty and a bit scary, it was only 7 Ks long, so took around 15 or 20 minutes, and the scenic view was great. However this time was different. The snow was blizzard-like, all I could see was the star on our bonnet, and the reflection of lights coming off rocks. We crawled along the pass through a thick white curtain, and it took us over an hour. Shirley said later that she just sat in the back with Vincie, her eyes shut tight. She was always wary of passes, even in good weather, having once watched helplessly as a lorry came off a mountain side in Scotland, plumetting down to destruction the valley; naturally that’s not the kind of experience one forgets, and she could visualise it happening to us.

My relationship with the ‘orrrible white stuff is, as I suspect it is, with many other “older” folk, somewhat ambivalent. As a kid I was, like the rest of me chinas, delighted when the great flakes fell, then settled. We’d have snowball fights, build snowmen (pretending they were Parson Brown, was optional) and roll around wrestling in it. We measured out twenty two yards on the road, cleared and cleaned the space, as best we could, then, with a purloined milk crate as a wicket played cricket. A few kids, a very few, even had sledges, I didn’t but I wasn’t bothered by the lack, there was enough fun to be had without one.
I was walking across the common with my oldest friend, Bryan one day, chattering away (surprise, surprise) and when he didn’t answer a question I’d posed, I turned to him but he wasn’t there, he’d vanished. Startled I looked about me, then heard a voice calling: “Col, come an’ give us a hand. Hoi,Col give us a hand, willyer?”   ” Comin’ Bry, ” I shouted, trotting to the place from which his voice appeared to emanate… and found him. Somehow Bryan had stumbled into a snowdrift and, being small, was having a hard struggle climbing out.
My ambivalence shows in as much as – apart from enjoying it when I was a kid, I couldn’t have hated it that much when in me thirties: because I wrote a song about a stroll that Shirl and I had on a snowy Sunday in Kräherwald– a lovely piece of woodland in Stuttgart, and when Vince was small we used to all enjoy ambling through the snow. One day, when we were living in Stockheim, we went for a walk, Vincent was about three or four years old, dressed snugly in one of the beautiful, brightly coloured, warm suits me mum had knitted for him. Mum was a demon knitter: amazingly fast, never looking at her hands – just nattering, or watching the goggle-box – needles flying. Had there been such a discipline, she could have knitted for Britain and taken all the golds that were going.
Eventually we turned into the vineyards, arriving where one of the steep, vine-bordered hills crossed our path, and at that moment a sledge with half a dozen kids on it came hurtling past; they all yelled and waved. When the sledge came to a standstill, they began to drag it back up the ascent, and as they passed invited me to join ‘em. I politely refused, but they repeated the invitation; telling me what fun it was, how I’d enjoy it,. They wouldn’t take no for answer, especially the biggest one, the leader of the pack: who tugged at my coat sleeve: ” Come on, Colin, it’s great.”
Being a chump (or perhaps desirous of not losing face) or both, I finally succumbed to his pleading and climbed the slippery slope with them.
Sitting at the back of the sledge, looking down the descent, I recalled what had happened a few months previously, in the summer. The same gang of kids, most of whom lived down our street, had built a soapbox car out of some old wooden crates, and a set of pram wheels. Vincent and I came out of  the front door as the boys were preparing to drag the contraption up the hill which ran down to join our part of the street. The house in which we lived, was on the corner, where the downhill stretch turned right to run along the level. They were arguing as to who was to have the privilege of being first to ride the cart downhill, when I, in my Jack–the–Lad mode said: “Give it here, I’ll show you how to do it,” and started off,  pulling the soapbox car behind me. It was surprisingly weighty, the gradient was relatively short but steep, and I puffed a bit. Once on the ridge, I stood beside the soapbox, and prepared for take off.
Our old car, which always stood in front of the house, in the angle of the road, was now serving as a grandstand for the kids who, with little Vincent between ‘em, were sitting on the bonnet and the boot like a line of scarf-wrapped sparrows; whilst a few other spectators leaned against its sides.
I raised my fist in salute, gave the soapbox racer a shove, and, as it started downhill, sprang into the “driving seat”. It gathered speed at an exhilarating rate promising an exciting journey…too bleeding exciting! I discovered to my horror and dismay that the boys hadn’t set the front wheels on a moveable axle, merely attached the bottom of the crate to the pram’s frame. Nor was there a brake of any kind. Obviously I was going to be unable to steer the bloody thing round the curve, it was simply going to career straight downwards and smash into the kids, amongst whom was Vincent.  I calmly considered my situation, cooly calculated my options, and decided the best solution was …..…panic!
They say – whoever they are – that when one drowns, one’s entire past life flashes before one’s eyes; how they can possibly know this is entirely beyond me as when one has drowned, one has sodding drowned, one is no more, one is fucking brown bread, and so far as I’ve been able to ascertain, nobody has yet returned from the “other side” to tell us whether this life-flashing-before-your-eyes yarn is true or not. However I can believe it could happen (not that someone will return from the “other side” – except in the cunning plans of a few charlatans) but that one’s life could do the nipping by bit, because as I hurtled downwards a number of thoughts flashed through me brain. The main thought being that I was a complete schmuck to have got involved with the rotten soapbox car in the first place. My other thoughts were as follows: I knew I’d be unable to steer into the curve; I knew I had no way of braking my momentum; I knew I’d crash and probably hurt my little son, so I also knew I had to take some kind of action.

On my right was a fairly large piece of ground waiting for a house to be built upon it, at the moment it was wasteland: tufts of grass, wild flowers in abundance, bare ground, an ideal spot to aim for, if I could aim for it. I yanked on the rope attached to the front and to my delight managed not only to lift the wheels momentarily from the road, but also pull the soapbox slightly to the right. I yanked again, same thing: wheels up a bit, whole thing over to the right a bit. Relief swept over me, I was saved (so was Vincie and the other dustbinlids) I’d sweep onto the wasteground and be halted by the earth, grass, flowers and bushy growth. Another mighty yank, another lift of the wheels and movement to the right. A great feeling of relief…I was virtually home and dried. But…….
I hadn’t taken the telegraph pole into consideration…….
The front of the speeding soapbox racer hit the telegraph pole full on, tipped and slung me out of the “driving seat”. Unlike  “that daring young man on the flying trapeze” I flew through the air, but not “with the greatest of ease” as did he, quite the opposite, I flew…no doubt about that, however with a great deal of trepidation, me arms outstretched. There is also a remote possibility that a piercing yell of unbridled terror may have escaped my lips. After a couple of metres the road raced up to meet the airbound me. I succeeded in keeping me loaf up, and out of harms way, but not me arms or legs. Unlike some blokes I never wear shorts in summer, with legs like mine you don’t !  There is always the chance of some comic shouting: “Hoi, you’ve got white tapes hanging down into your socks.” Not only are my legs white and thin, they’re also a wee bit bowed – which never worried me as several of my footballing heroes were bandy. I also foolishly imagined it gave me a somewhat jaunty Western look, as if I’d been in the saddle all day – I would crinkle me minces to convey the impression of having not only spent the day riding the range, but of having gazed across sunlit vastnesses to a far-distant horizon. My mother had a different take on it, she said: “Goodgod, boy, look at your legs, you couldn’t stop a pig in a poke.” So I relied on Levi Strauss to hide them, a fact of which I was glad because when I landed with a sliding wallop on the deck, my legs, covered by stout blue jeans, were only bruised, whereas my bare arms  – in summer I always roll me shirt-sleeves up high– were torn and ripped from wrist to elbow.

There was more of my precious flesh upon the road than there was upon me.

These memories crowded in as I sat on the back of the sledge looking down the glacial incline. The leader of the gang gave a yell, drove his feet into the ice, everyone hoicked their feet off the ground, and we were off. Within seconds we were traveling at speed…at a very scary speed indeed, my extra weight helping to increase the tempo. The road was bordered by grape-vines enjoying their Winter nap, and it was one hell of a steep bloody hill running down between them. Not exactly the Cresta Run, but precipitous enough to give a wise man cause for contemplation. The cold wind whipped my face, I tucked me loaf into the back of the kid in front of me to get a wee bit shelter.
All at once the sledge gave a judder, slowing its speed considerably, then surged off again, but after a few yards juddered and slowed. The leader of the lads yelled in annoyance.This occurred the whole way down the hill: surges of swiftness followed by judders, slowing and annoyed yells. When we arrived (safely, I might add) at the bottom we got off the sledge, and the big lad who’d persuaded me to join them started to bellow about the cowardly numbskull who’d kept slowing the sledge, threatening every kind of dire revenge to be wreaked on the guilty party, and, in between giving vent to his wrath, apologising profusely to me, saying when he found out who the unmitigated blockhead was who’d ruined my trip he’d tear him limb from limb, eviscerate the moron, eat his liver, and all sorts of other unappetising methods of retribution. He begged me to accept his regrets at the ruination of my fun, pleaded with me to take another trip on the sledge, promising to ensure that nothing and nobody would destroy my enjoyment this time.  I patted him kindly on the shoulder, thanked him for his concern, but declined his invitation. After several attempts, he finally realized I was not to be swayed into changing my mind. He apologised once more, called to the rest of the boys to join him, grabbed the rope, started tugging the sledge back up the hill; continually cursing who ever it was had persistently braked the run, vowing death and destruction if it happened again, loudly complaining that whoever was responsible had thoroughly ruined:” Colin’s fun. “
He was so dejected about the whole business that I simply didn’t have the heart to tell him that in point of fact I knew who the numbskull was, that I knew who the coward was, that I knew who was responsible for spoiling the fun, that I knew who it was who’d dug his boot-heels into the ground, braking the sledge’s velocity…….

                                        …….it was me!