Stories Of my Life By Pete Saunders

Untitled Part 2

88 I must mention my choking.

Well I suppose you are thinking, what bad luck that I choked when I did. Well Choking like that has bugged me all my life. Earlier in time so to speak while messing around with Ronnie Briton, throwing make believe karate chops at each other, Ronnie had acutely hit me in the throat for real. That day I had nearly choked to death. He had actually hit and blocked my windpipe. It had been ages before I could breath properly again; I was lucky that day. Well from that day on and indeed for the rest of my life up until I had the last of my teeth out about eight years ago. I actually choked like that at least four times a week. So no, it was not bad luck that day that I choked. One could say I was bound to choke that day but that the timing was bad. Yes as I am sat here typing away I have not got a tooth in my head. But now I do have more room in my mouth for my tungue. I supposed the last time I choked like I did that day must have been about two years ago. Who needs teeth anyway? Well we all swallow down the wrong way at some time don't we? Anyway, another side to having no teeth is I don't have to make sure I get all the dirt out after meals. There is not a lot that I can't eat either, I just have to use my knife that little bit more. Also you want to see me suck a peanut to death. But I do miss that sweet corn straight of the charcoals and still on the cob covered in butter.

89 One can drowned in sandpits.

Just a little note! Back earlier in this book, I told you about the time I dug a large hole on the beach. How the chap had nearly drowned when he had fell in and the sides fell in on him. Well I am now fifty-seven years old and since that day I have never heard of anyone dyeing in a sandpit like that. About an hour ago I left my office to go down stairs to have something to eat. On the news I heard that a young girl die just like that yesterday. I just thought it funny that I had only wrote about my hole not that long ago. Well they said that the hole she died in had only been two feet deep. Wasn't I lucky my hole had been a lot deeper than that? As I told you in that chapter, as I dug so the holes sides feel in on me and I had to dig wider. God help her parents to live with their grief. 15/8/05

90 Arthur got more than a thick ear this day.

Well the day I am about to tell you of was also from our playing around up that old mansion. This day a gang of us had been up there playing around. This day too the police had came. We all split up as we would at these times. Look after number one so to speak every man for himself. I managed to find a way out but it tuned out that Arthur had got himself trapped on the first floor landing in-between two coppers. One above him and one below him on the ground floor. Arthur had always been a "Jack the lad," as bad as me I suppose? He had always wanted to be a stunt man. Well that day, there he is on that landing and nowhere to go. You have to hand it to Arthur no way was he going to get cult alive. He decides he is going out that landing window. Outside above the large front door had been a wooden frame left from what used to be a canopy over the doorway. All the glass from this canopy has been long gone. Arthur fell forward out the window to dive down onto the top rail of this canopy. People that saw it told us after that indeed the canopy had stopped his fall to the ground. But that as he hangs there swinging from the drop, upside down from his momentum, the rail that had broken his fall gave up the ghost. There was not a lot that Arthur could do. Mind you he still got up and got away. Latter after going to the hospital they had to keep him in, he had fractured his skull. He to lived to tell the tail.

91 Thank god those air guns were only weak back then

As I have told you Arthur was a bit of a lad. One day he turns up in school with a couple of air guns. You must know the type, You have to push the front in then put a pellet in the back pushed in with a little screw. Well I had been given one to play with. Thank goodness they never had mush power as it was not long before we were shooting at each other. Yes we went home from school that afternoon to play cowboys and Indians for real on the field in front our house. It hurt when you got hit and on looking back I suppose we were also lucky that we never hit each other in the eyes.