Working with writers to recover childhood memories can lead
to some small yet powerful moments of recall. One of my own that popped up in
session recently was a memory of school cross country running: being one of the
last; legs mottled blue from the cold; ghastly!
Now, all these years later I’m running and the knees cope
better if I head off hard roads and into the hills. The air is super-charged
with the scent of sun-yellow rape. There is birdsong – a chiff-chaff and the
song of a skylark, somewhere high and out sight - and I have a moment of
epiphany (GCSE poetry students, remember? A moment of realisation, like stanza
three in Bayonet Charge – except I
might change Ted Hughes’ harsh consonants of ‘cold clockwork’ for a softer
sibilance!) So: by what sweet serendipity of the stars is it that I am here, in
the East Yorkshire Wolds, cross country running and loving it?
1 Memories from school days are still as powerful
as ever; the door to our childhood never closes.
2) I’m so glad I don’t suffer from hay fever.
3)
PE teachers in the 1970s have a lot to answer
for!
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