Butser Hill, 1976
When I was maybe five, my parents took us sledging on Butser Hill. I remember my dad, who must have been in his late-20s, behind me on our Rosebud sled, as we accelerated down the slope, and the sudden suspicion that we had continued accelerating rather than reaching some flat-out speed. Then my disappointment, as my dad threw me off the sled, and I tumbled to a stop in the hard snow, only to see him continue, down, across the foot of the slope, and into a fence, hitting a post; the wooden frame shattering into fragments beneath him. And then, him being carried, and somehow we were at the top of the slope, surrounded by people, the ambulance dealing with him, a shard of wood puncturing his thigh millimetres from his femoral artery.
He has lived on, against the odds, these 50 years, and, with great affection my son and I took him to the National Motorcycle Museum last weekend where we spent the day reminiscing about bikes he'd raced in the 1960s, and I now think back at the blood running down the steep snow-covered slope, and the ambulance dark against the sky on the hilltop, and how close we came to losing this terrific, generous, and wise human being.
12 Dec 1976; 20 March 2024