DODWORTH Road quarry is deadly dangerous – that clear message is drummed into me from the age of six.
“You can wander off wherever you like,” my father would say, “but always be within shouting distance and never, ever, play in the quarry.”
The problem I have - and I suspect it’s been a Steele family trait since prehistoric times - is that even though I try like mad to behave, I just can’t resist temptation.
It’s like that time I was counting my marbles on a tray at the kitchen table and my mam says, “I’m just nipping to the Co-op. Whatever you do, do NOT touch that chocolate cake – it’s just out of the oven and it’s cooling.” So I sit there for ages, dreaming of the smooth chocolate texture, the fluffy sponge and creamy cocoa butter, until it’s impossible to resist. Finally, into the knife drawer I go, cut the cake in half, slice off the tiniest sliver imaginable, and wolf it down. But covering up my crime proves difficult. The two halves refuse to stick neatly back together, so it finishes up looking like an ill-fitting wig on a bald man’s head. But you ought to have heard my mam when she returned from the shop.
“Oh, my goodness! What the hell’s happened to my beautiful cake?”
I’m caught red-handed, so I have to come clean. I clear my throat.
“A boy came in when you were out, mam, and ran off wi’ a piece.”
“A boy came in and ran off with a piece?” repeats my mam as though she doesn’t believe me. “Oh dear! It looks like he’s run off with your piece of cake, an’ all. That’s a bit o’ bad luck you’re having.”
A couple of weeks later, I go with Roy ‘Budgie’ Burgess to the quarry. Budgie’s ten and I’m seven and neither of us can swim, but so what?
I avoid going near the cliff edge because my dad says it can give way under your feet and you can fall to your death. So we enter the quarry down a gentle slope and walk over to the smallest pond (the other two ponds are deep, black and beautiful but, some say, bottomless). Someone’s abandoned an upturned jam jar and a broken kid’s fishing net. Roy sits on a rock and tries to repair it. One end of the cane is splintered so he squeezes together the two pieces of green wire that encircles a small net and shoves them into the undamaged end of the cane.
“Let’s catch some fish for us tea,” he shouts.
The pond is teeming with tadpoles, tiny frogs, newts and sticklebacks, so while Roy fills his jam jar with pond water and little creatures, I race around the very edge of the pond as though I’m riding a motorbike.
“Vroom! Vroom!”
The muddy track is wet and slippery with the rain, and soon I’m sliding into the pond – splash!
Fortunately, the water only comes up to the top of my legs, but it’s freezing. Budgie rushes over, laughing, and pulls me out. I’m in shock and all I can think is, how the heck do I explain this to my mam and dad? They’ll go bonkers.
My short trousers, underpants, socks and shoes are soaked as I squelch my way homewards. The best thing to do is to sneak in through our back door, run straight upstairs and change before I’m rumbled.
However, as I enter our kitchen I find I’m in luck - the house is empty and the coal fire is roaring up the chimney back. So I whip off all my wet clothes and place them over the fireguard, while I sit with a towel around my waist, willing my mam not to return.
After half an hour I’m dressed in my newly-dried clothes and feeling proud of myself. When mam finally does get home I decide to play it cool.
“Hiyah mam. Dyer need any errands running?”
My mam suddenly freezes just as she’s lifting a bag of carrots from her shopping bag.
“Do I need any errands running? Okay, what’ve you been up to?” she demands. “I hope a boy’s not been in and run off with the biscuit barrel.”
That’s the trouble with my mam. I love her and all that, but she doesn’t believe a word I say. It’s just not fair.
