Alan Garner - Where Shall We Run To? - A Memoir

Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Bomb The Nettling of Harold Rocking Horse Monsall Porch Mrs E. Paminondas Mrs Finch’s Gatepost St Mary’s Vaccies Widdershins Bunty Bike Mr Noon Half-Chick DOWN MOSS LANE Bomb (1955) St Mary’s Vaccies (1974) The Nettling of Harold (2001) Also by Alan Garner About the Publisher

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2018

Copyright © Alan Garner 2018

Cover photograph provided by the author

Design by Jack Smyth

Alan Garner asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins..

Source ISBN: 9780008305970

Ebook Edition © August 2018 ISBN: 9780008305994

Version: 2018-09-11

For Tom

Pancake Tuesday’s a very happy day.

If you don’t give us a holiday we’ll all run away.

Where shall we run to? Down Moss Lane.

Here comes Twiggy with his big fat cane!

Cover

Title Page Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Bomb The Nettling of Harold Rocking Horse Monsall Porch Mrs E. Paminondas Mrs Finch’s Gatepost St Mary’s Vaccies Widdershins Bunty Bike Mr Noon Half-Chick DOWN MOSS LANE Bomb (1955) St Mary’s Vaccies (1974) The Nettling of Harold (2001) Also by Alan Garner About the Publisher

Copyright Copyright Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Bomb The Nettling of Harold Rocking Horse Monsall Porch Mrs E. Paminondas Mrs Finch’s Gatepost St Mary’s Vaccies Widdershins Bunty Bike Mr Noon Half-Chick DOWN MOSS LANE Bomb (1955) St Mary’s Vaccies (1974) The Nettling of Harold (2001) Also by Alan Garner About the Publisher 4th Estate An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.4thEstate.co.uk This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2018 Copyright © Alan Garner 2018 Cover photograph provided by the author Design by Jack Smyth Alan Garner asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.. Source ISBN: 9780008305970 Ebook Edition © August 2018 ISBN: 9780008305994 Version: 2018-09-11

Dedication Dedication Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Bomb The Nettling of Harold Rocking Horse Monsall Porch Mrs E. Paminondas Mrs Finch’s Gatepost St Mary’s Vaccies Widdershins Bunty Bike Mr Noon Half-Chick DOWN MOSS LANE Bomb (1955) St Mary’s Vaccies (1974) The Nettling of Harold (2001) Also by Alan Garner About the Publisher For Tom

Epigraph Epigraph Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Bomb The Nettling of Harold Rocking Horse Monsall Porch Mrs E. Paminondas Mrs Finch’s Gatepost St Mary’s Vaccies Widdershins Bunty Bike Mr Noon Half-Chick DOWN MOSS LANE Bomb (1955) St Mary’s Vaccies (1974) The Nettling of Harold (2001) Also by Alan Garner About the Publisher Pancake Tuesday’s a very happy day. If you don’t give us a holiday we’ll all run away. Where shall we run to? Down Moss Lane. Here comes Twiggy with his big fat cane!

Bomb

The Nettling of Harold

Rocking Horse

Monsall

Porch

Mrs E. Paminondas

Mrs Finch’s Gatepost

St Mary’s Vaccies

Widdershins

Bunty

Bike

Mr Noon

Half-Chick

DOWN MOSS LANE

Bomb (1955)

St Mary’s Vaccies (1974)

The Nettling of Harold (2001)

Also by Alan Garner

About the Publisher

John and I were going up the Hough to pick watercress in Pott Brook and to look at the anti-aircraft battery in Baguley’s fields.

DANGER. DON’T TOUCH.

The notice was on the board outside the police station on Heyes Lane. A red arrow pointed to pictures of a high-explosive shell, small bombs with fins, a hand grenade; and there were some harmless-looking things too. And underneath was printed:

IF YOU FIND ONE OF THESE, TELL TEACHER OR A POLICEMAN.

DO NOT TOUCH IT, EVEN WITH A STICK.

AND DO NOT THROW STONES AT IT

Pott Brook goes under Hough Lane, and we jumped from the bridge into the field and began to look for caddis fly larvae in the water.

Caddis larvae build tubes from grit and bits of leaf and twig bark to protect their bodies, with only the head and legs poking out. They showed the water was clean. If there were no caddis flies we didn’t pick the cress.

It started to rain.

We walked along the bank to where the cress grew, and John found five tubes. We left the cress to be gathered on the way back and went upstream to look at the guns.

We were nearly across the field when we saw it.

It was on the other side of the brook, floating in a tangle of alder roots. It was grey, with a neck, and a black mark or letters or numbers on the side. We couldn’t read them that far off. But we knew.