tarily remembered from t you mig of difficulty in believing I ever belonged to it.
I suppose by time you’ve got a kind of picture of me in your mind—a fat middle-aged bloke eet I t forty-five years is a long time, and t c deal, and I’ve ly ups. It may seem queer, but my fat a a son of or-car and live in a tle above my origin, and at otimes I’ve touc we she war.
Before t, I almost be before tually remember tbreak of t-class ro Fat it. I’ve several ot e from about a year earlier t.
t t up tone passage t led from tco t stronger all te in to prevent Joe and myself (Joe ting into till remember standing tcery smell t belonged to t till years later t I someo crase and get into t one of t and ran bet. It e six.
o suddenly become conscious of t ime past. t you so your mind one at a time, ratance, it ’s gone out no cable and in some o grasp, it t moment, t o us and t earlier, I’d discovered t beyond te at tself, in se lettering on ts cage—, because ty—all to place in my mind one by one, like bits of a jig-saw puzzle.
time goes on, you get stronger on your legs, and by degrees you begin to get a grasp of geograp like any ot to tants. It er all till exists—about five miles from t lay in a bit of a valley, self and top of t of dim blue masses among op of t been for a iced tence of Binfield look into tance. But by t time I knereet a little before you got to t-place, and on t-s a y old ced ting ttle, t for Abdulla cigarettes—tian soldiers on it, and curiously enoug to takia. Be-place tone rougop of ter t and chaff.
Before t e a t’s a delusion. I’m merely trying to tell you o me. If I s my eyes and time before I I remember it. Eit’s t-place at dinner-time, of sleepy dusty o ’s a afternoon in t green juicy meadoo’s about dusk in tments, and tobacco and nigocks floating t in a sense I do remember different seasons, because all my memories are bound up o eat, times of to find in t tting red enougo eat. In September ts. t s of reacer on ts and crab-apples. t you used to eat mucaste if you clean t of ty, and so are tems of various grasses. tter, and pig-nuts, and a kind of e. Even plantain seeds are better thing when you’re a long way from home and very hungry.
Joe o pay Katie Simmons eigo take us out for ernoons. Katie’s fateen c t for odd jobs. S very different from ours. So drag me by t enougy over us to prevent us from being run over by dogcarts or c so far as conversation on equal terms. e used to go for long, trailing kind of ing t tments, across Roper’s Meadoo ts and tiny carp in it (Joe and I used to go fis older), and back by to pass t-s stood on toion t anyone bankrupt, and to my o imes a s-s it ion for c o glue our noses against tie in t above ss and quarrelling over ss uff called Paradise Mixture, mostly broken ss from ottles, ols, popcorn kinds of ss, a gold ring, and sometimes a see prize packets nos toes printed on ticky pink stuff in an oval matciny tin spoon to eat it a s, and so e pipes and sugar matc standby Penny Monsters? Does one ever see a Penny Monster no le, of fizzy lemonade, all for a penny. t’s anot tone dead.
It alo be summer coming out of t in t coming trailing along, eating stuff out of tie dragging at my arm and saying ‘Come on, Baby!’ and sometimes yelling ao Joe, ‘Joe! You come back ‘ere te! You’ll catc!’ Joe of remendous calves, t seven into s trousers, ockings dra clumping boots t boys o ill in frocks—a kind of Moto make for me. Katie used to descended from sister to sister in ails , and a long, draggled skirt ton boots rodden do mucaller t not bad at ‘minding’ c a c as soon as it’s times sry to be groing you s o care’, sely:
‘Don’t care o care, Don’t care in a pot And boiled till he was done.’
Or if you called rue one day ting along pretending to be a soldier and fell into a co. tle rat-reet beo dodge going to sco do in tarted running errands and doing ot a montealing turnips. Sopped taking us out for er ting too tougo in Katie’s five in a bed, and used to tease t of it.
Poor Katie! S baby too certain people believe it ie into service in alton. Some time afterime I saaves, certain times of t t least fifty years old, came out of one of ts and began s a rag mat. It ie, y-seven.