The Dream

You won't know where this is unless you are privileged to know the memories that float in my mind. Geographically it is Kirkford Hill (even Google Earth would not take you there!) it in truth is just a bump in the landscape but in my childhood was the place the expatriate Polish soldiers rehearsed their defensive activities from trenches dug in the summit, co-operating with Dad's Army to pacify a population's fears that werwolf parachutists would descend from the heavens to murder women and children in their beds.
In 1943 however the only Battles the Hill witnessed were between gangs of children (unthreatening gangs by modern standards!) who played 'Cowboys and 'Indians' or 'Commandos' through the long Summer days until Autumn when the 'Firecan' became the vogue (bet you don't know what they were!), and the dried grass of the Hill was set ablaze while , the precursor of the barbecue, potatoes (plundered from back gardens) were roasted in their jackets in the furnace of a grass fire. The flavour, smell and happiness of these days come back when I see now an overgrown bump in the ground of which I present here a vision of the near summit which an old man struggled to reach.