edenbray ☢︎ – a BEAT POET

.. . its a bailey .. . using no traditional punctuation sandals

This picture shows me a few weeks after the bonfire incident with my older brother Martin still nursing bandaged feet due to the burns I suffered

.. . and while we are on the subject of mothers  did i mention that my mum  mammy  mater  mother  mummy  was the best ever  ◉  for children growing up in the fifties  the mother father parental pairing was  still the accepted norm within pretty much the whole of western culture  ◉  in british society the mothers matriarchal position was still paramount  ◉  as a child i was never aware of any overt sexism  ◉  we just accepted the roles our parents played as distinct  not necessarily superior or inferior  ◉  in these  stripped down  personal memoirs  it is not my purpose to comment on modern gender politics but simply to tell things as i found them  ◉  i have some early memories  as an under 5  that some find surprising  ◉  for instance i can clearly remember our next door neighbour  mrs iffel   talking baby mumbo jumbo to me while i lay in my pram and also the softness of my blankets  ◉  i can also remember queuing with my mother outside a hall behind our local swimming baths one cold day in sunshine  ◉  once inside  my mother collected two flat medicine style bottles with corks  containing natural squeezed orange juice and a jar of virol  malt extract that were  supplied free of charge using  ration books  until they were terminated in July 1954  ◉  that fact alone places my recollection and my age at under 3 years  ◉  one memory i do not recall however  that concerned my mother  she would often retell  as it had made her feel guilty  ◉  one day she had left me in my pram outside the local greengrocers and  walked nearly 2 miles home before realising she had left me behind  ◉  unsurprisingly she had panicked and hastily returned to find me sleeping soundly in my pram on a lazy summers day in the surrey village where we lived  ◉  i never blamed my mother and grew kind of proud of her confession  ◉  ironically life gave her the opportunity to balance up that spot of negligence  a few years later at almost the very same spot where she had left me sleeping in my pram   ◉  she had been shopping in boots the chemists  the shop adjacent to the greengrocers where my mother had left me 7 years previously  ◉  i was returning from primary school early one evening at age 8 years  as children did in 1959  ◉  on the day in question i had chosen to walk with 2 friends through the woods  ◉  i would leave them at the corner of the village and journey on alone through the park to our home  ◉  as we reached the place where we normally parted we found a large number of trees had been felled quite recently  chopped up and burnt in a large fire that measured around 30 feet in circumference  ◉  the bonfire seemed burnt out and dormant  although it had left a huge circle of white ash  ◉  there were no barriers or warning signs  ◉  i suppose i was showing off as i rushed into the  circle of dusty cinders sending a shower of silver flakes up into the hot  sunny  afternoon haze  ◉  my friends laughed at my bravado  ◉  i rushed past the cold extremities of the fire toward the neucleus suddenly aware that my feet were strangely warming  ◉  i arrested my crazy dash on reaching the centre of the bonfires residue   anguished   as i was aware of intense sparks of heat penetrating the cut holes in my children’s buckled sandals  ◉  i glanced down in horror at my sandalled feet now nestling deep inside the silver piecrust exterior and encased by angry red and orange coals of fire  ◉  small blue and silver flames licked at my white ankle socks  ◉  inevitably i screamed and ran for the safety of the woodland floor  ◉  i was sobbing with the shock of my personal misfortune and painful burns while my friends offered  kids kind of palliative advice  stressing I should get home fast while also berating me for my foolish antics  ◉  easy to be wise after the event guys  ◉  my sobbing continued as i limped painfully in the general direction of our home deciding to take an impromptu route through the village  ◉  i was scared and had no wish to be alone so i limped painfully up the road toward where the road met the high street ◉  the junction corner was where boots the chemist was situated  ◉  at this moment my mother exited boots the chemist as if on cue  ◉  with her purchases completed she planned to walk home  ◉  she stated later that she had been suddenly overwhelmed by a desire to turn left out the store and proceed down the adjacent road towards the park  ◉  she could not explain her actions  as she never used that road and it took the opposite direction to home  ◉  yet she proceeded down the road and recognising the sound of a child crying  she hurried to help  ◉  miraculously she was confronted by her own  distressed son  ◉  it was a remarkable and unforgettable mother son moment we often spoke of  ◉ 

                                                           …   its a bailey .. .   4 december 2020 .. .   edenbraytoday

This picture shows me a few weeks after the bonfire incident with my older brother Martin still nursing bandaged feet due to the burns I suffered

This picture shows me a few weeks after the bonfire incident with my older brother Martin on holiday in Littlehampton still nursing bandaged feet due to the burns I suffered