Grandpa's house

Us young kids were all playing outside Grandpa’s house after going to Grandma’s funeral while our parents and other visitors chatted inside as adults do after occasions like this in the country.

So we were tearing about the garden, seeing if the fruit was ripe on the trees which it wasn’t and trying to prize open the lid to the old well and while we were doing that Grandpa must have come outside without us hearing to have a smoke or use the outside toilet which he still had.

By this time I had crawled on top of the well cover and was trying to open it up when he must have seen me he shouted, “Keep off, I don’t want you to go near there”  waving his stick at me. I stiffened with shock and confusion and blurted out, “Why, is Grandma down the well?”

Hearing this Grandpa just collapsed in a heap bawling his eyes out causing my sister Win who had been watching us to run inside to fetch Ma. All this happened many years ago and here I am nearly sixty and as I recall that incident my eyes are wet with tears too..

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