Butterflies flittered haphazardly through the still lush green leaves of the bushes and the sky was blue , a perfect azure summer sky reaching end to end with no clouds to blemish the perfect stillness. A wonderful hot summers day, the sun shining its magic on everything; this was my happy place.
We were lucky in this small town, it had a perfect sandy beach, stretched for miles and adorned with a treasure trove of fossils and shells and broken bits of wood, blissful on such a perfect day as this I had now wandered to a little lane edged either side with a colourful array of bushes and shrubs and punctuated at regular occasions by trees. My happy place, I loved this lane on either side was fields and even though it wasn't far to the next small town being here on this lane you could feel like you were in the middle of the countryside. I always loved that here we had the best of both worlds a step away from the beach and here you were in fields and flowers and country lanes, blissful.
Back in the seventies I was only young, this blissful day I was around eight, possibly, I know I was younger than ten definitely, and I felt free as a bird. The sun came up and I went outside, if I got hungry I might return home, or a neighbour or new friend might feed me. I would never worry about anything like eating there was too much adventure to be had and I would happily wander the length and breadth of my town, the next town , anywhere my legs would take me.
Sometimes others would be with me but mostly I never had the thought or patience to wait for them it was like they didn't know how much exploring was to be done and there was only so many hours before the sun went , had to be out discovering stuff.
She was tiny, stick thin, so old she seemed bent in half and her face was weather worn and tanned dark by the sun. I hadn't noticed her at first; still revelling in the glory of the flowers and sunshine I was lazily wandering along my favourite lane feeling blissful and at one with nature. It was a shock when I became aware that she was stood right near me and staring with a focused glare at me. I felt my heart thump and a surge of fear grip my stomach.
I was struck mute, not an unusual occurrence though, I was a quiet child, didn't speak unless spoken to on account of having a victorian-minded, middle-class aspiring, father figure as a child and there was only one ambition; escape the adults.
If you had to be in the presence of an adult say nothing, do as your told, escape when you can. Didn't feel like I could escape at this point as along with becoming mute my legs had stopped listening to any commands my mind may have given.
The glorious sounds of my rapidly fading blissful day day were rent apart by the gap-toothed old woman suddenly saying "this is where she died you know"
I remained both mute and immobile.
"This is where they found her" she kicked part of the scrub grass that grew alongside the hedgerow of shrubs "right here"
She hobbled away slowly, going along the lane toward the beach I noticed with dismay; it meant I would only be able to go home the long way round but there was no way I was going to walk the same way she was going.
My legs began to work, not that well though they felt weak and wobbly and the best I could manage was a quick though unstable walk along the lane through the back of the fields.
For a long time I blocked the memory, never asked anyone about it, the old woman had freaked me so much I didn't want to revisit the memory and time went on.
The lane is still in our town now, which is amazing because the fields have mostly been replaced by housing estates and roads. The beach is still glorious on a sunny day, and today I remembered the lane and how I never went back down there after the old woman incident and I thought I would search the local history and see if the old woman had told the truth or just liked scaring little girls.
She told the truth, she may have also liked scaring little girls but we won't dwell on that, however I found out a sad case the only case of murder in that area of town and in reading the local news report I felt transported back in time as it was full of references to a life I remember that are not part of our lives today.
In the early sixties a young woman was found on the lane, described as a 'lovers rendevous' which I just love no one ever describes somewhere as a lovers rendevous any more, the young attractive lady had lived and worked in our town, she was a doctors receptionist it said, and after splitting with her husband she had just moved to another town to start a new life and had returned to move some belongings from the flat shared with her husband before the split.
Her body was found by the milkman, for those unfamiliar with milkmen in england especially back in the sixties our milk would be delivered every morning by a lovely chap always smiling and he probably came down that lane each day whistling and happy, except for that one morning.
She was laid gracefully her clothes neat and tidy and had been throttled. I am not sure if that term is used much today but its a long time since I heard anyone use it and for those unsure of its meaning it means she was strangled. They never found her killer and could not trace the last fourteen hours of her life and there were no clues to her tragic ending.
A sad tale she was 23 and my respect to her family and those who cared for her.
Now the lane is a sad place, holding the memory of an awful murder of a lovely young woman it sits between a rugby field and what is probably earmarked for the next housing estate. I haven't any old photos I can find of the lane only one of it in recent times;
So instead I will show you a wonderful old photo of our beach back when this town was a little fishing town and the boats and crab pots were a regular feature of the scenery, believed to be taken around 1900
The memory of the lane may have been changed from a happy place, the place may have been changed from a butterfly filled flower edged country lane, however the sense of adventure has never left me I still love getting up early watching the sun rise and thinking 'what shall I get up to today'
Never lose the sense of adventure, it exists everywhere from a country lane to a city center, every person you meet is a potential new friendship, every street you walk down can hold something you never experienced before, life is an adventure,
enjoy it
thank you for reading