John's Memoirs

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In the year of 1961 I was married at Warfield Church in Berkshire and with my then wife lived in a cottage owned by my father-in-law in the village. He had two taxis in London and was only with us on Friday nights through to Monday mornings. My wife and I were immigrating to New Zealand and as the weeks went by tensions grew between her and her widowed father so much so that we decided to move out of the house,-but to where as accommodation was very hard to come by at that time.

During a conversation between my wife and an old friend our situation was mentioned and she offered us the use of a flat that had been the home of her dear friend who had passed away some months earlier. The friend was an artist, and such was their friendship they had connived to have the flat built onto the café and accommodation owned by her and her husband, which, now empty, was where we moved into.

The flat was warm and cozy and had an all encompassing feeling of well being about it, which our land lady told us was due to Pat’s having lived there. We accepted that as we knew what a remarkable lady she had been, a very kind person always looking to help others in any way she could. As the weeks past by and the weather became colder with snow on the ground and ice on the roads (just out side the front gate) we settled into our home routine.

Last thing at night it was my ritual to check all the electric lights were off before retiring to bed. One particular bleak evening/night/early morning I awoke and looked through sleepy eyes at our alarm clock it was 5minutes past 3am so immediately went back to sleep.

Next morning (Saturday) after having a wash I went into the lounge, which faced the road, and was horrified to see dried blood rivulets on the windows. From behind me I heard the land lady say, “I’m amazed you never woke as we had quite an early morning fright when a man was beating on your windows and calling out for help. We called the ambulance and gave him a hot drink and covered him as best we could because he was in an awful state. His car skidded on a corner about half a mile away and had gone over a hedge into a field and rolled several times. He tried to raise other people to get help but he kept passing out and until he reached here there was no help. The accident happened about 10.30pm and it took him till 1.15 am to reach here, all he could say was ‘I saw the light I saw the light’. “The ambulance men said he could not have gone much further.”

I said,’ “Lights, what lights, I always switched them off.” There-by is another story and a history lesson.

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