I'm the King of the Castle

When I was wee, this was one of my favourite playgrounds. It didn't surprise me, that I was able to park the car very close to where I wanted to be, and walk straight to the point.

To a child of 4 that raised area of rocks was everything a castle should be. It even had a throne. This was my castle, and I could spend hours playing on this small area of rock, sometimes scrambling over it, sometimes just sitting on my throne. It had to be that area, because just behind, close enough for me to look over my shoulder when I was seated, was my gran's house.

She stayed on the first floor, of the house in the centre of the image, the bay window overlooking the rocks. The bay windows were her front room, and I could always look round there and see Gran watching to make sure I was okay.

The rocks were just along the road from the swimming pool, and of an evening swim, my sister and I would walk along to gran's house for a warm by the fire to wait for our mum and dad to pick us up.

One night we walked along the road, chittering with our soaking wet hair, drinking hot chocolate from our flimsy plastic vending machine cups. We went in the close and up the stairs, and rang the bell. And waited. We rang again. And waited.

Without saying anything, we both started to panic. We rang again, and when there was no answer, we ran downstairs to Mrs Chisholme, and told her something was wrong with Gran.

As we all ran back up the stairs, there was Gran, standing at the door, wondering who had been ringing the bell. She took one look at our faces and read completely what we had been thinking. "I was in the toilet".

I don't know how much longer it was after that that my Gran died, but I think it was a good while. I was only 7 when my Gran died, and I know she was ill for a good bit of the summer before she died. That would mean at most, I was 6 that night we panicked on the stairs.

Don't you miss the world, where a 6 and an 8 year old could go swimming unsupervised of an evening, and then wander along the road to their Gran's without fear of whatever it is everyone is scared of?

We knew which men to stay away from. We didn't go to people's houses we didn't know. We knew not to jump into the sea from the rocks. We knew if we did what we said we were told, we would be fine!

Every so often, somethings do just go wrong, it is the way of the world. But in so many cases, quite often, someone is just in the toilet. Just don't panic!