Downshire is a
relatively small English county but like a pocket battleship it packs a lot in,
a short but beautiful coastline, a channel port, the Ancient forests of
Dancingdean and Pepperstock, the craggy ridges and manmade lakes of the
Pepperstock Hills National Park, the rolling hills of the Downshire Downs, the
beautiful Finchbottom Vale and farm land as far as the eye can see from the
Trotwood’s and the Grace’s in the south to the home of the Downshire Light
infantry, Nettlefield, and their affluent neighbour’s, Roespring and Tipton in
the north but our story takes place in the southern town off Abbottsford which
was the biggest in Downshire, its administrative capital and the seat of the
Downshire government.
It was also a place of
learning thanks to the Downshire University, a Cathedral City and was also home to Abbottsford Town Football Club.
Abbottsford was also
the town where Lennie Hine lived and his life changed on the third day of
Shrovetide.
The day was also known
at one time as Collop Monday, but when the evening fell it became Shrove Monday
evening or Nickanan Night which was a time when in days of yore, boys could
commit petty crime and get away with it, of course in the 21st
century those youths, so inclined, don’t need to have a special night as they
commit crime at will, and Lennie had fallen in with one of those groups.
He was 16 years old
and wasn’t a bad lad, he had just lost his way after his father died and his
mother had taken refuge in a bottle, he just needed an anchor.
In the three months
following his father’s early death he had fallen in with a bad crowd,
fortunately not a drug taking crowd but nonetheless a bad lot, petty crime
mainly, as well as vandalism, harassment and general mischief making,
On that particular
night they had been making a nuisance of themselves by targeting a church youth
club that they had been excluded from for unruly behaviour.
They rode around the
car park on their bikes shouting abuse at the occupants, and had been asked to
move on several times, it was all very childish for the most part, but John
Riggs, who was the leader of the group, wasn’t happy with that so he decided to
up the ante and encouraged the ten members of his posse to start throwing
stones at the windows, so they all dismounted their bikes and armed themselves,
Lennie wasn’t really comfortable with it so he picked up the smallest stones he
could find,
They then took it in
turns to ride past the main widows and throw their missiles which made no
impact at all because it seemed as if the rest of the group had no more
appetite for the task than Lennie did,
“What the hell was
that?” John snarled, but no one responded
“I said throw stones,
like this” he shouted brandishing a chunk of concrete which he then launched at
the main window which shattered immediately to his great delight
“That’s more like it”
Then he rode his bike
onto the bonnet of the youth leaders car violently enough to set off the alarm
and when he appeared from the church hall shouting, John lingered long enough
so he could see the culprit and then rode off laughing.
Most of the others
dispersed at the first sound of breaking glass, Lennie was the last one on the
scene and looked on in disbelief, until he realized he was in peril of capture
so he too made himself scarce leaving shouting and cursing in his wake.
He decided he should
put as much distance between him and the church hall as possible and chose Park
Road as his escape route.
What he didn’t realise
was that his route took him past a popular watering hole for the local police,
which he was approaching at breakneck speed.
He saw two figures
cross the zebra crossing in the distance ahead of him but he was confident the
lights would change before he got there and they did and there were a number of
people chatting on either side as they waiting to cross, unfortunately the
lights changed again before he got there as he raced down the inside of the
waiting cars and swung on to the crossing narrowly missing a pedestrians foot
and weaved his way between the approaching pedestrians without even reducing
his speed.
“Look out!” Shouted the man
“Sorry old man” Lennie responded over his shoulder, not knowing that his
close call was with a Chief Superintendent.
In no time at all Lennie was a way down the road, until a car cut him up
and he had to go on the pavement.
He was rapidly approaching the two men who had crossed before the lights
change, who were off duty police Sergeants, one of them had heard the commotion
and had already turned round to see what was happening.
“Stop him sergeant” The Chief Super yelled.
So he then tapped his companion on the shoulder with one hand and held
up his warrant card with the other.
On seeing the man standing with his warrant card out in front of him Lennie
swerved to avoid him and as he passed him he smiled to himself but was totally
unaware that the other one was waiting to strike.
As he stood up in the saddle to get up a head of steam the other
Sergeant wrestled him sideways off the bike and on to the floor, but they
separated on the deck and Lennie managed to role away before the Sergeant got
back to his feet, and managed to remount his bike and was away again and headed
through the southern entrance to the Park
Jodie Higgs had been
to the cinema with friends and was taking a shortcut through Cathedral Park to get home, she was also 16 but she
lived in a very different park of town and attended a different school.
Lennie entered from
the south and would exit on the northside, whereas Jodie entered through the
east gate and was headed to the west, and both of them would be skirting the
boating lake on their journeys, and when she was
in sight of the Cathedral Spire she glanced at her watch and smiled because she
was ahead of time and then disaster struck, because hurtling along in the
opposite direction was Lennie, and she saw him fractionally before he saw her,
so she swerved and her front wheel hit a park bench and she was suddenly
airborne
“Ahhh” she screamed as
she went over her handle bars, over the park bench and plunged into the lake.
Lennie glanced over
his shoulder just in time to see the splash and pulled hard on the brakes.
He jumped off his bike
and as he ran back along the path he could just about see her thrashing about
in the gloom, but he could clearly hear her yells and as he reached the spot
where she went in he jumped in without hesitation and swam towards her where
she was splashing around and appeared unable to swim.
He was breathing
hard from the riding as he closed the distance between them, which wasn’t more
the five or six yards but he made slow progress because of his warm clothing and
as she was
similarly hampered she struggled to stay afloat and
the water splashed all around her.
He swam as fast as he could and managed to reach her just in
time as she kept ducking under the water.
But
that proved to be only half the problem as reaching his initial goal only
brought fresh problems, she had stopped moving so getting her to the bank was a
struggle.
He got
a good hold on her, but she was fully clothed, so she was a dead weight and it
was with some difficulty that he swam her to the bank.
Unfortunately
as soon as they reached the bank it was apparent that he couldn’t get her out
of the water so he pushed her against the bank and checked her pulse in her
neck, and couldn’t find one so with some manoeuvring got her head tilted back
and was about to give her mouth to mouth, when she suddenly opened her eyes.
“What
are you doing?” she exclaimed
“Sorry I
thought you had drowned” he said defensively
“Fainted
more like” she admitted “I do that if I get in a panic”
“That’s
not helpful if you’re in the water” he said
“I
know” she said “Thank you for rescuing me”
“There’s
no need to thank me” he said
“I
think there is, I would have drowned otherwise, so thank you”
“You
shouldn’t thank me when it was my fault you were in here in the first place”
He said
and pulled himself up the bank with relative ease and then reached down and
pull the featherweight girl from the lake.
“Thanks,
I’m Jodie by the way”
“Lennie”
“I don’t
blame you, it wasn’t anymore your fault than it was mine” she said
“That’s
not the point I still blame myself” Lennie said “and I’ve wrecked your bike”
Just at that moment and before she could reassure him further, they
became aware of voices and bright lights in the darkness.
“Here they are” one man said
A dog walker had witnessed the near collision and Jodie’s aerobatic
entry into the lake and had raised the alarm so the two of them were marched
off to a waiting ambulance where the paramedics checked them over and declared
them unscathed.
But they had to wait in the ambulance wrapped in blankets until someone
came to pick them up, Jodie was waiting for her dad, and Lennie didn’t want to
say that his mum wouldn’t come for him because she was likely to be in a
drunken stupor at that moment, he would wait until she had safely been picked
up and then he would slip away.
They sat there for half an hour talking about a variety of things before
her dad arrived
“Jodie, are you ok?” he said fussily and kissed her
“This is Lennie” she said “He’s a hero”
“I’m really not” he protested
“Ah and modest to boot” Mr. Higgs said and shook his hand “But the
general consensus is that you are a hero”
There was then a brief conversation between Mr. Higgs and the paramedic
and Jodie slipped off her blanket and said
“Thanks again Lennie” and then she hugged him.
“No problem” he said and slipped off his own blanket
“And where do you think you’re going, Andy Mason the paramedic said “We
haven’t been able to get hold of your mum yet”
“Like I said she works shifts so she’s probably still asleep” Lennie
replied “I can get myself home I’m only ten minutes away”
“We can take him” Mr. Higgs suggested “it’s the least we can do”
“Thank you but I have my bike”
“No problem I can fit both of them on the carrier” he insisted
“Come on let’s get you home”
“Ok thanks”
Lennie turned his back on John and his posse after that adventurous
evening and he and Jodie became inseparable, he knuckled down at school and
with her help he passed his exams with the grades he need to go to college.
She always called him
a hero for saving her life that night but the truth of it was that it was his
life that was saved and when they shared their first kiss neither of them were
fully clothes or in a freezing cold lake.
