The gut-wrenching terror of crashing a Raleigh Chopper
Every single day the kids come home from school with a little note tucked in their bags, headlined ‘ACCIDENT REPORT’, followed by a description of how one of them fell over in the playground.
I suppose it’s all part of growing up and you eventually learn to be a little more careful in everyday life.
Every single person will have their own collection of childhood accidents – which got me thinking of my own.
My worst injury as a child was when I fell off my Raleigh Chopper bike.
It was bright purple and I do remember feeling slightly nervous on it, as if it wasn’t quite trustworthy in a way I couldn’t put my finger on.
It turns out my suspicions were correct, as I discovered on one warm summer’s afternoon when, accompanied by my dad – who was on foot – we embarked on the four-mile journey to my grandma’s house on the other side of town.
To get there, you had to cross a motorway bridge, which rose quite steeply and then descended just as steeply on the other side.
I pedalled like mad to the top and then embarked on the descent, which was quite thrilling. Then – and I still remember this moment so vividly – I went to turn the handlebars to straighten up and… nothing happened. I moved them again but nothing. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt fear like it because I could see I was veering at terrific speed straight off the road and was utterly powerless to do anything about it.
What happened next was that my bike – and me – smashed straight into an unfortunately (for me) placed lamppost and I was knocked unconscious.
What I later learned was that my dad – who hadn’t yet reached the crown of the hill and so hadn’t witnessed what had happened – strode down, spotted my prone body but assumed I was playing a trick and so ambled purposefully on.
I’m not sure when he realised it wasn’t a joke but when he did, he sprinted back, scooped me up in his arms and ran about half a mile to the nearest house, where, fortunately for both of us, an off-duty nurse answered the door, administering first aid before I was taken to hospital with swelling the size of a golf ball on my forehead and various cuts and scrapes to my body.
To this day I have a large scar on my left hip and my dad’s slight embarrassment about the day he told his comatosed son to stop mucking about.
In fact, parental neglect must have been a thing in our house because the other bad injury I had happened when I fell off a seesaw while my mum was playing rounders.
Thankfully, my own children have yet to suffer a major injury, though it is surely a matter of time. I just hope to god it isn’t me on parent duty when it happens.