Backwords: Wooded Wonderland
A stroll along a footpath close to where he was born brings back happy memories for Mike Shaw.
Backwords by Mike Shaw - Three generations of us strolled in the warm sunshine along a footpath beside the mill dam.
For the younger ones in our family group it was a gentle Sunday afternoon walk in pleasant surroundings.
But for me it was much more than that.
It was a sentimental return to the wooded wonderland of my boyhood. A place where time has stood still for half a century or more.
A little corner of Colne Valley which for me has magic memories.
Five days of the week for seven years I walked through the sylvan setting on my way to and from school.
Treading a path which winds through the fields from the Olive Branch pub and meanders mid the glade.
Past the Square Dam, over the little wooden bridge which crosses the mill goyt.
Across the girder bridge which spans the Colne and through the fields to the canal and the tiny hamlet of Booth.
As I walked hand-in-hand with my grand-daughter I was turning the clock back 50 years.
And this precious jewel in Colne Valley's countryside crown sparkled with a host of past experiences.
This was the place where as a young boy I spent hours fishing for sticklebacks with a length of cotton, a bent pin and a worm.
Where I used to sail a paraffin-driven model speedboat which often finished up drifting in the middle of the dam or became caught up, out of reach, among tree branches dipping into the water.
Where I saw my first kingfisher, darting and swooping over the surface of the dam in glorious Technicolor with an ease of movement that no man-made object could match.
Where, on a balmy summer evening, I witnessed a remarkable phenomenon as dozens of fish broke the surface to feed on a swarm of midges hovering above.
Where my cocker spaniel puppy, catching his first sight of water, stepped straight out of his depth, clearly without realising what he was letting himself in for.
Where, in Tom Sawyer style, we built a makeshift raft of logs, driftwood and empty oil barrels which was never launched for the simple reason that the river there was not deep enough.
Where, with a boyish sense of adventure, and no realisation of danger, I dared myself to do a long jump performance across the goyt - and just made it.
Where, in a similar frame of mind, I walked over the river on a girder parapet only a few inches wide.
Where my over-confident bravado ended in disaster when I tried to jump from the parapet into a field, fell short onto the rocks below and staggered home with a head wound which needed six stitches.
Where, in particularly hard winter with the dam deeply frozen, we played a primitive form of ice hockey despite the distracting sight of a supremely skilful skater performing graceful pirouettes and figures of eight.
All these years later, I‚m still enchanted by the place.
With such blissful - and occasionally painful - memories, can you blame me?
