From roaming the streets and feeling totally secure in doing so as toddler I have a confidence that when I put a coat on, I will get back to where I started from, no matter what...

In a previous 'write here' I mentioned a canal....

Near to where I was born and was allowed to grow for five years before being carted off to somewhere woefully boring in comparison, was a derelict, unused canal.

To get to it wasn't that particularly hard. It did mean the crossing of a fairly busy road but hey ho, I'm still here, so it couldn't have been that difficult, dangerous, yes, difficult, no...find the edge of the pavement, wait for the dog, 'our' Vic, he'd do his stuff of barking growling dancing charging at wheels and the like and I'd cross to the other side as if this was all a normal occurence, which, to me, it was...

On having safely reached the other side it was a matter of walking towards the end of a cobbled road where upon there was to be found some steps leading down to a place full of water and 'stuff' and on one side a little brick building that didn't have a doorway that you could immediately see from up at the top.

Some time in the distant past some one had put an hand rail down one side but it must have been for giants as I couldn't reach the thing so I just slid down each step with my back against the wall that was holding the useless hand rail.

Now once down at the bottom the excitement was building as it was a complete and utter treasure trove full of all kinds of things that people had left behind or had thrown over the side of the bridge that crossed over the canal. I use to spend what seemed like hours down their, exploring, climbing and sometimes just sitting. It was my oasis, my idyll, my black lagoon....full of garbage

On the occasions I found myself sitting I would sit on the edge with my feet in the black water that filled up what was left of a once functioning piece of the good old Industrial revolution...later on in life I found out that the canal carried raw materials to the flour mill, that towered above me, and then loaded up with the flour it made from it all and took it back down to another place where it was subsequently split up to continue its journey to all parts of the north west and midlands...but anyway that was what I found out much later....

On one particular visit I found myself just sitting, feet dangling and...

Suddenly there was a noise on the other side of my black pool which made me jump...and there was another noise tquickly followed by another and that noise lead to the time I saw my first rat...although I didn't know it was a rat, but a rat it was....

I sat and watched it, then it was joined by another then another...I was totally fascinated, so too was my companion, 'our' Vic.

But....Painfully...He just HAD to bark.

He barked and barked at the creatures on the other side of the black pool making them run off which I wasn't best pleased over, at all. So, I turned round to smack him to make him stop barking and well...fell into all that blackness...bedumph!

Talk about PANIC!

Now I did have an understanding of water and its overall wetness. I use to have a bath every week in front of the fire, after first being kept out of the way until my older sister had had her bath before me. I knew that water went in a big tin bath and although it was clear at first, by the time it was my turn to 'jump' in, the water had changed colour...to a murky grey...and if I put my head under it, my eyes were stingy and I couldn't see a thing...

However, that murky bath did not prepare me for what I was experiencing right then and there...the water was pitch black for one and it didn't smell anything like that bath water....in my blind panic all I could do was flay my arms about. kicking with my legs as hard as I could and by some minor miracle managed to find the edge where I'd been sitting quite happily only moments before....my hand held firm, so I put my other hand on the edge too....'our' Vic was barking his head off and totally useless in helping me...

I don't quite know how I got out of that black pool, but I did. I never once felt any reflief, nope...because now I was too busy freezing...I couldn't stop shivering. Somehow that insane dog must have worked out I needed him to sit on me...not something he hardly did, sit, nor did he ever sit near anyone, even when he did...

But when he did sit on me and then lay across me I felt warmer, and eventually stopped shivering.

How long we both lay like that I don't know, but I do know it was long enough to have been noticed that I had disappeared....and how did I know that?

'PAUL'

'PAUL'

Yep that was my name I heard being called from up there beyond the steps and up above the bridge I was now lying under.... I knew I was in trouble and so too did 'our' Vic...he just scarpered . leaving me to whatever I was going to be 'in' for when found...

I remember my sister was in tears holding mam's hand when I reached the top of the steps...my mam was not in tears, far from it...how my head stayed on its shoulders I'll never know, not that it hurt much, just annoying more than anything...

That day I also found out that not only could I now swim but I could also walk on air....that's how I managed to cross over the road, or that's how it seemed as my mam grabbed me by the shoulder and lifted me up as she stormed to the otherside...

'Your father isn't going to be happy, he's had to wait for his tea'

Ordinarily most of my little wonderings were never reported back to my dad in presence...because he was quite fond in giving a slap where a word of advice would have been much better, he lacked most forms of intimacy with me, except when it came to a good old thump or two, which unlike the slaps from my mam...hurt. On this occasion my mam had no choice but to tell him that I couldn't be found and although he had just come home from work and had expected his tea to be on the table, he would just have to wait until I had been found...

Every one knew that I was out somewhere, but nobody saw me descend the steps to the black lagoon, and hadn't I been told NEVER to go anywhere near that canal, plenty of times?

Obviously I survived that memorable day, and a few years later the old canal was finally filled in but some of the old steps are still there. You can't see them from the road like you once could, but there's a pub that has always been there and it now has a car park where at one end you can see the steps have been condoned off but still recognisable... they stand as silent testament to my story, of the day I learned to swim in the black lagoon....and also of where I presumably got my confidence in that no matter what may befall me on my travels, I'll always make it back home...!