Stories Of my Life By Pete Saunders

Stories of my life Part 3

   160 Off to Chepstow.

There were many good times we had. But another the one that sticks in my mind the most; is the time that myself and Johnny went over to Whales to see his brother in Chepstow approved school. Back in those days there was no Severn Bridge. You had to either go all up around Gloucester or over on the ferry at Aust. This meant that it was the ferry for us. We rode our bikes down to Aust to get the ferry. We boarded the ferry early in the morning to get to the school at about eleven o'clock.

Well that day, I suppose Johnny and me asked for what happened. For latter that day after leaving the school end of visiting and all that. Instead of heading straight for the ferry we rode into Chepstow. Where we ended up playing on a building site. I do not think we would have stayed as long as we had had we not got the dumper truck going? you know me and anything with engines. Indeed had the police not turned up I would of stayed longer. By the time we get back on the road for the ferry it is too late we we have missed it. Well not to worry we are used to sleeping out. Only this time we are out of the country so to speak. Well that was what it was like in the old days before the bridge.

All is well we are now on a bit of an adventure, That day two had been. "One of those days that you don't get many of in this country." Well great but at night on those evenings in this country if you have clear sky's at night all that lovely heat goes up and out only to pull lots of cold air from all around. Take my word for it; it got cold that night. We wonder around till god knows what time at night. When on a piece of waist ground we found an old car with half of its windows smashed out. Thank god the windows that were left in were stopping the wind; they were at first anyway. In the dashboard of this old Morris we found an old tobacco tin; in witch we found nine pence in one penny bits. (Real money that is not this stuff we have now) Without blankets or any other means of keeping warm we did not stay in that old car for long. For after a time the wind chaned and we found it to cold. We were soon on our bikes and looking for a new place to spend the rest of the evening. It was not long before we ended up by Chepstow Castle. There in a horse's field with a couple of horses in it, on the fence are two horse blankets. There we lay the two bikes down in the long grass and get to sleep in the blankets.

Next thing I know we are in a police car on our way to the nick. I wont get into all that followed but we are accused of stealing the two blankets. Mind you we are lead in the field where they belonged. From the old car we are told that we stole five shillings and six pence. We could not believe it? The amount they said had been in that tobacco tin could never of fitted in there. In the end we are taken back to our bikes and told to be on the next ferry out of town. You know what I mean. We had been given a date to go back though. Yes they wanted to do us in court. I still don't believe to this day, the way we were treated.

Well at this point I will stop writing for a time as now I am thinking of my relationship with Johnny. I can't get it all clear in my head? I know Johnny came and went in and out of my life at different times but I just can't remember where when how or why. But don't worry I will write about it all but I will see if I can get it all into the order in which it happened.

161 I might have it sussed.

There you go I have just been reading some of the notes that I made when I first wrote this book. You know the first book that I lost from my computer. Well I had a list of the things that I wanted to write about and the order in which I thought they came. I will go back to this list at the right time. I will tell you what happened when we went back to Whales for that trial when I get to that point in my life again. But for now I am back to the point where I am mates with Steve Dorrington. So I will take it from there.