ROAD KILL

Chapter 53

Road kill

Mid to late 80`s

( Photo 1 ). Myself wobble around this time period, it`s not your eyes, the photo is blury.

Myself and Wobble went for a quite drink in Pencoed, a village around two miles or so from Brackla, our plan was to take the short cuts across and over the Footpaths that crisscross the fields to get to our destination.

We could have ridden to Pencoed, literary in minutes on the bikes, but we thought we could have a tidy drink if we walked over the fields, so we left the bikes parked up outside wobbles house in Brackla.

We had arranged to meet some of the boys in the Kings Head pub in the village.

So we spent the evening drinking in the pub, when we left we walked up the dual carriageway that feeds the M4 motorway, and eventually entered Coychurch village, there we popped into the White Horse pub for a quick pint before heading back over the fields in the darkness.

We were both a little surprised to find most of the customers in the pub wearing fancy customs, there must have been some kind of fancy dress party going on, to be honest it looked very surreal, all the customers that were dressed up must have been middle-aged to late 40`s or even older, at least, one guy was wearing a full Nazi uniform, it was completely black with all the Nazi insignia, he also sported a swastika arm band, and this guy had finished off his custom with a little Hitler moustache glued under his nose, if that was not bad enough another guy was wearing what looked like a bed gown like the character Scrooge wore in dickens novel Christmas Carol, ok that’s fine nothing to strange about wearing a night gown at a fancy dress party, he also had sandals on his feet with a checked t-towel wrapped around his head, and he finished off the custom with what looked like red dynamite sticks wrapped around his waste.

One woman wore a very tight shiny black plastic bodice to look like a 17th century buxom wench, believe me when I say how she kept them puppies in her dress was a miracle of science, she also wore a short rah-rah type skirt and fishnet stockings, Wobble could not stop staring, I nudged him and said “ come on, lets get a pint, she old enough to be your mother “, we passed two women in the crowded bar, one dressed in a long emerald green mediaeval dress that touched the floor, on her head she had a dunce hat with a pastel blue see through scarf trailing down from the top, and the other woman was dressed as Auntie Sally, her make up made her look like a doll with large round red circles on her cheeks, we made our way to the bar, and ordered two pints, a larger for me and a cider for wobble, and we stayed there leaning up against the bar watching this circus of curios.

The bar man said “ you two guys with this lot “, wobble answered “ fuck no, is there some kind of party happening here “.

The bar man said, “ they have been here all night, they belong to one of those clubs where they share things “, and then he gave wobble a knowing wink, wobble said “ Drink up frog, we are fucking out of here, some of these guys look as gay as fuck”, wobble was referring to the guy dressed as a woman with a short red leather mini skirt with black stockings and large plastic boobs, he was wearing a blonde wig with full make up on, and another guy wearing a green t-shirt with purple balloons hanging from the t-shirt, the bar man said he was a bunch of grapes, ok there nothing strange about that custom except for the fact that he had only a tight purple thong that didn’t really hid anything, and was wearing no trousers, there was also a short fat guy wearing a German dark brown leather lederhosen shorts with braces and a robin hood type hat, there were more of these middle-aged party goers at the end of bar across the room from us, the most notable ones were the granny dressed up as a naughty school girl with pig tails and a very low white blouse pinned with a large nappy safety pin just below her large boobs, I called her a granny, she must have been in her 50`s and near to her a tall guy wearing a Stetson cowboy hat with a leather waistcoat and a bare chest and wearing chaps with just a g-string, which myself, Wobble and the bar man found very alarming.

We drunk our pints very quickly, and as we were leaving, the bar man, “ fuck boys, don’t leave me here with these people”, wobble said “ your on you own mate, best of luck”.

We left quicker than we went in, nothing happened but the situation was very surreal.

Wobble said “ I’m never going back in there again, I think I recognise that suicide bomber he is a copper from Bridgend “, we both laughed at the strange unexpected experience, and carried on our way in to the darkness, heading back to Brackla across the dark fields, and thought nothing more about it.

( Photo 2 ) . The Kings Head, Pencoed, photo taken in 1977.

On our journey back across the fields it was necessary to cross a railway line, and then simply follow the hedges, and then through a couple of small wooded areas to get back to Brackla, we already knew the route, but we had neglected to take a torch with us, so we were relying on the moon light to guide our way back across the fields.

As I say, we knew the route, we had used it a few times in the past, but only in daylight.

So we headed for our short-cut, it was slow going stumbling more than walking with only the light from the moon guiding our way.

The moon was full, and the sky was clear, the night air had chilled dramatically compared to how it was in the day, we did not notice the cold too much, we had to much to drink in the pub to feel the cold, and we were wearing our leather bike jackets, because we walked to the pub we did not wear our cut-offs, the moon shone down on us, it was what airmen during the second world war called a Bombers Moon, the pastel blue light cast uneven shadows through the hedges and cast our own shadows in front of us, but the pale light was very helpful in negotiating the darkness.

We could just about make out shapes in the blue darkness, but nothing really stood out, everything seemed to be a collection of different shadows, we were stumbling around and trying not to fall over, every step was an adventure.

The blue moon light cast eerie shadows and distorted the overgrown hedges and bush’s to the point of where the bush’s started and where they stopped, it was impossible to tell, reaching out for a branch that was not there, caused no end of laughter from both of us.

We eventually came up on to the gravel bedding of a raised railway track, we climbed up the banking, and had a breather on the actual railway track.

We hung around on this spot for a little while, we were in no rush, and it helped to get our bearings back in the darkness, we kept the now dimmed lights of Coychurch at our backs, and the deep darkness of the fields in front of us.

You need to keep in mind that we had both been drinking, and a large consumption of alcohol does tend suppress logical thinking, and the obvious answer to a question after you have been drinking is not always the correct one.

As we stood there on the tracks, we spotted something in the trees some distance away.

We stayed on the railway line, looking in to the dim distance, trying to make out what we were seeing, we could see what looked like a number of torch lights being shone randomly around into the trees.

The lights were moving around quite a lot, wobble said “ it looks like some people with torch’s “.

I answered “ yeah, I think your right, it look’s like someone maybe lamping”.

( Lamping, is illegally hunting at night without permission, on someone else land, basically poaching “.

We watched the lights as they moved through the trees, it seemed to be moving closer to us along the track.

Wobble said “ it looks like they are moving this way”.

I added “ I think we had better move before they think we are a pair of rabbits, and get shot in the dark”.

The strange thing was that there was no sound, the night was totally silent, the only sound we could hear was the gravel crunching below our feet.

We kept watching the lights, but we moved off the railway track, and stepped down off the gravel shingle banking.

We stopped there, still watching the lights flickering through the trees, watching the lights getting closer.

The lights were flickering madly behind the screen of trees and moving very fast, which puzzled us in our alcoholic haze, we still had not worked out what the actual lights were.

Our assumption that they were a Lamping party was still our first choice.

Wobble said “ they must be all running, the dogs must have picked up the scent of a rabbit or fox, they are coming straight up the railway line”.

And then as if coming out of nowhere a passenger train thundered past us in the darkness, we did not hear a sound until the train was right on top of us.

We were only standing a couple of feet from the track, the train and the carriages sped past us, and believe me that was far to close for comfort.

The noise from the passing train and the movement of air created by the train screaming past us, was hell of a shock and possibly sobered us up a little.

This surprise arrival scared the crap out of the both of us.

Only less than a minute before we were both standing in the middle of the railway track, with no idea that a train was hurtling toward us.

It finally dawned on us that the lights flickering through the trees were the lights from the passenger carriages as the train was moving along the track.

The train rushed past us, we were so close, we did not have time to move, the train was so fast, the wind and the noise was tremendous, I still had long hair at the time, and the passing train blew my hair around like as if I was standing in front of a fan.

We were both stunned by this sudden appearance of this huge multi tonne man made metal monster, it had not made a sound until it was on top of us, if it had not been dark, I don’t think either of us would have noticed the train at all in the day light, if it was not for the lights in the trees, it is very likely we would have been still standing on the railway track when the train arrived.

If the train had hit us, I don’t think anyone would have known until the following morning, when maybe someone found the dismembered limbs and the blood soaked clothes filled with hamburger meat on the side of the track, we would have looked like road kill, the train driver would not have known that he hit us, unless we were splattered over his windscreen.

As the train passed us, I said to wobble “ fuck, that was close”, we watched the long train disappear in to the distance, it was the London to Swansea express train, this train did not stop at the village stations on it’s route, but kept going at high speed for most of it’s journey.

And then it went all quiet again, there was a total silence after the rumblings of the train disappeared down the track, the train had come and gone in seconds.

Wobble simply said after this close call “ come on, lets get some home brew and warm up “, we both laughed, I’m not sure if it was from shock or just that we were used to having close calls, things like this never bothered us, it was just something that happened, we both walked away, so happy days.

We just had another close call, we were not safe walking, let alone riding bikes.

We survived another day, what’s to worry about.

Happy Days.

( Photo 3 ) . The White Horse, Coychurch.

NOTE

Just to let you guys know, back in the day, I had a talent on how I could remember exact details verbatim for long periods of time without forgetting any part of the message, this odd talent got me a job with the government for a period of time, in which I had to sign the secret act stopping me discussing any details up to the time of my death, I may write an edited version of my time in London one day.

Me remembering details in random obscure story’s is a normal thing to me, not so much nowa days, age does not come on it’s own, but I can still remember the colours of curtains, the weather and what people were wearing in random unimportant irrelevant situations, memories do play tricks, but small irrelevant details remain.

I`m starting to forget stuff, and I know my memory is not as sharp as it was back in the day, and this is one of the reasons why I am writing all these memories down, having dyslexia as not helped, it has affected me with spelling and word blindness, strangely, colours and numbers are the complete opposite, I used to be able to work out a complicated math`s problem in my head before it could done on a calculator, I was never one to give up easily and I will continue writing until my memory fades completely, even if no-one is bothered to read it.