MEUM ET TUUM

The journey to Dorset started early. Vyvyan watched as the train chugged and hissed to a standstill at Risca station. Next to him on the platform were two elderly women. The woman standing closest to Vyvyan clutched a small pug under her arm. The other carried a worn brown leather case in one hand, an umbrella and a picnic basket in the other; obviously prepared for any eventuality. Vyvyan tapped his knapsack to reassure himself he had packed the cheese sandwich made earlier that morning.

The woman with the pug looked expectantly in Vyvyan’s direction as the train stopped in front of them. Taking the hint, he opened the door to the carriage and helped her with the step up. He followed her into the carriage and settled back into a seat opposite as the train jerked into motion.

As it was a warm day Vyvyan reached over and lowered the window of the carriage door. Lulled by the motion of the train he soon dozed off, only to awake to the sound of children’s laughing chatter floating in through the window on the breeze. The pug joined in the laughter with a sharp yap.

‘Daisy, be still, shhh,’ said the dog’s guardian.

The train had come to a standstill although there was no station in sight. A crossing, Vyvyan concluded. He noticed some boys on bicycles zooming down the lane that ran along the bottom of the steep bank that dropped away from the train track. It was their squealing that had woken him. As he watched they egged each other on, taking turns to navigate a sharp corner at speed. Then Vyvyan saw a small van approach the corner from the other direction, just as one of the boys, nose down to the handlebars and bottom raised from the saddle, pedalled furiously into the bend. Before Vyvyan could stand and shout a warning there was a screech of brakes and the sound of a horn blaring. The piercing sound of crunching metal shattered the rural idyll of a few moments before. Vyvyan watched helplessly as the boy and his bike flew, as if in slow motion, and disappeared into the ditch. As the scene unfolded before him, innocent laughter turned to shrill screams prompting Daisy to start yapping again. His immediate instinct was to go and help but, just at that moment, the train started to roll forward again, the metal wheels clicking over the tracks, building speed as they did so. He leaned out the window to try to get sight of the boy, but all he could see was the rear wheel of a cycle sticking out of a hedge. It was still spinning.

Several hours later the train lurched to a halt at Wool station, the steam from the engine floating down the platform. Vyvyan tried to put the bike incident to the back of his mind, reasoning that boys can survive all kinds of scrapes.

Alighting from the train he began to walk, tramp-like with knapsack on his back, the three miles from the station to Clouds Hill Cottage. The afternoon sun was still pleasantly warm but the air chilled quickly with each cloud that floated across its face. As a distraction from the plight of the cycling boy, the image of that spinning wheel still vivid in his mind, he pulled out a letter from his jacket pocket. It was the reason he had come all this way from Wales. It was dated 6^th May 1935 and read:

‘Dearest V.W., please come to Clouds Hill as soon as you can be released from your good works with the miners’ offspring. I am sure you have trained your charges well enough and they will manage just famously without you for a spell. I have something I am very keen to show you!

Yours,

T.E.