Times they are a changing.

1953

My eleventh year on this planet started out amazing. Mummy and Daddy were wonderful as always and gave me a shilling for my birthday and a large delicious lemon cake with pink icing and a candle. My brother was 13 and turning into a young man. I was happy- school was good and I had a couple of friends that I could chat to at lunchtimes. I attempted my first cartwheel on my birthday and by the following week I was a pro. A big deal in my 11-year-old brain.

Three weeks into the second term the days were becoming longer as spring moved into summer and I rushed home to change into my street clothes so I could play hopscotch on the footpath. It was lovely in the sun and I played all afternoon, my brother wandered in from his high school which was in another direction from my school. He teased me for a few minutes then went inside for afternoon tea. I could hear through the open window my mother in the living room humming some old song while folding the washing. 

The night was rapidly approaching so dinner was prepared and the table was set but as the darkness descended and the evening temperature turned chilly a car stopped at the end of the lane it's headlights piercing the night.

The shadows got longer as they approached our window stopping and hesitating outside. A constable stood in all his finery carefully looking at his blue notebook and glancing up at the house numbers not wanting to get this important knock wrong.........

The shadows of the two bobby's, policeman in their high helmets, moved in unison towards the footpath, clunking boots shattered our silence and the heavy thump on the door made me jump. 

James started for the door but as if on a mission Mummy sent him off and pointed for me to follow him. We scattered up the stairs but only up the first few, unseen by our mother but close enough to hear the quiet, terse, almost whispered conversation that would ring in my ears for many years to come. 

One of the bobbys' Senior Constable Charlie Knoble, was actually an acquaintance of fathers so upon opening the door mummy was, at first, relieved.

"Ello Charlie dear, Colin is...." She was halted by a hand on her arm.

"Nancy I have some news" Charlie the bobby said. He had his policeman voice on, all proper and strict. "There has been an incident down at 3Iron Mill" His voice suddenly faltered, his professional demure slipped off and cracked, to that of a friend.

"He's gone Nanc. There was a boiler accident. He's gone luv....."

And with those uttered words my world, and alI I ever knew, seemed to disappear.