Close Shaves
A "Young Jimmy Bakewell" story
Jim was not an accident prone individual, but he had had several close shaves in his time.
There was the incident in the park, for instance. Not a grand park, you understand, just a kids’ playground tucked away behind Blythe Avenue. He was seven or eight at the time.
His family had recently moved to the town from Stanford-le-hope, step two of the migration away from 'The Smoke', as London was called. He had just about settled in at Thorpedene Middle School, and had figured out the new geography, including the nearest park which was just three minutes walk down to the end of his street, Bunters Avenue. He pretty much kept himself to himself, but had made a couple of new friends. This particular day, he went down on his own and occupied one of the swings.
The Carpenter’s were hard-nuts. The father was in prison, goodness knows how the mother got by, and the three boys were constantly expelled from school. They were the closest that the small town of Shoeburyness had got to having a ‘mafia’. Billy, the youngest Carpenter, was unknown to Jim, but was standing on the cheese-cutter opposite him as it swung slowly side-to-side. He jumped down, slowly walked over to where Jim was swinging, grabbed hold of the swing chain and forced it to stop.
‘Were you staring at me?’, said Billy.
Of course, Jim being Jim and totally naïve, said, ‘No I wasn’t,’ at which point all hell broke loose. And, Jim being Jim, was not about to get beaten up by anyone. Something snapped inside him. It wasn’t being picked on that enraged him, it was the mere thought of being accused of something that he didn’t do. But in the end it didn’t matter what made him snap, just that he did. A few minutes later young Billy was on the floor and blooded and when he finally got back up on his feet he had changed his tune, offering Jim his hand and declaring to the audience that, ‘You're OK, Jim.’
How nice of him to say so. Jim lacked the killer instinct that would have driven anyone else to restart the match and beat the living shit out of him.
But the fight was not the close shave - it was the accident on the swings that nearly killed him. One of the rewards bestowed upon him for standing up to young Billy was the offer of a lifelong friendship, and a willingness to teach Jim all he knew, including how to walk the high rails of the cheese-cutter, where no boy was meant to go. But the swings got him before the cheese-grater did.
The idea goes something like this. Stand up on a swing and work it up to an angle of one hundred and eighty degrees, then jump off as the swing reaches its lowest point and land on your feet as far away as possible as the swing continued on its way.
Jim’s first two tries, although a little lame, were deemed a success, and he began to build up more courage to go higher and jump further. Then came the flop. His last jump, as it happened, landed him hard, face down like a pancake on the concrete. And that was that.
He woke up about an hour later at home. Someone had ran home and fetched his dad and Jim was carried home in his father’s arms like he was a soggy roll of carpet. The doctor left as soon it was clear that he there was no permanent damage, but it was a week before the puss stopped oozing from his ears and his life returned to normal. The incident, like every other bad incident in the family’s life, was never mentioned again. It became just part of the dream. Only the humorous happenings were told over and over again at family reunions.
Another example of a brush with the proverbial grim reaper was in the early seventies, when Jim decided to jump into the deep end of the newly built swimming pool at his old senior school - before he really knew how to swim.
Jim always had a problem understanding his limitations.
A friend at work had taught him how to swim, but only ‘kind of’. He had figured out how to get along on the surface as long as he could put his feet down on something solid at any time that he felt tired. He had never figured out how to tread water, and so deep in his sub-conscious he had never overcome his childhood fear of water. Something had to happen to bring this fear to the surface, if you can excuse the pun - and something did indeed happen.
His friend, a jovial forty-something Liverpudlian, had also taught him how to dive off the high board at Southend baths. This seemed to be no problem for Jim, since the diving pool was separate from the main pool and was fairly small. He could dive in, down a few meters into the water, push himself up and crawl to the edge before he ran out of steam.
But this day at the school pool was different. The board was lower, just the height of the pool edge, giving him a false sense of courage. What could go wrong? This was nothing compared with the high dives at Southend. He threw himself off the board and hit the water badly, hurting his chest and jarring his head back. He was winded. He struggled to the surface three times, coughing and spluttering, the edge of the main pool seemed so far away from him and we was panicking. He was in desperate trouble and no one at the poolside had noticed him struggling. There was no way that was going to make it to the edge by swimming on the surface. He had just a split second to make a decision. He knew that he could control his swimming strokes under water with is breath held, so on his last visit air-side he took a deep gulp, twisted his body and dove downwards like a porpoise. He managed to turn himself horizontal and pushed his way to the side of the pool.
When he bumped into the wall (he couldn’t keep his eyes open under water) he knew he was safe and pushed once more to the top, clinging on to the side and choking his heart up. A few minutes later he had regained composure and looked around him. No one had seen him. No one had realized his plight. He noticed the lifeguard strolling leisurely along the edge - she had no idea. A hoop attached to a long pole, positioned and ready for such an emergency, was lying untouched on the ground beside the pool.
It was a long time before Jim took to the water again. And that antiseptic chlorine smell had been burnt into his bad-memory synapses for good.
There was the incident in the park, for instance. Not a grand park, you understand, just a kids’ playground tucked away behind Blythe Avenue. He was seven or eight at the time.
His family had recently moved to the town from Stanford-le-hope, step two of the migration away from 'The Smoke', as London was called. He had just about settled in at Thorpedene Middle School, and had figured out the new geography, including the nearest park which was just three minutes walk down to the end of his street, Bunters Avenue. He pretty much kept himself to himself, but had made a couple of new friends. This particular day, he went down on his own and occupied one of the swings.
The Carpenter’s were hard-nuts. The father was in prison, goodness knows how the mother got by, and the three boys were constantly expelled from school. They were the closest that the small town of Shoeburyness had got to having a ‘mafia’. Billy, the youngest Carpenter, was unknown to Jim, but was standing on the cheese-cutter opposite him as it swung slowly side-to-side. He jumped down, slowly walked over to where Jim was swinging, grabbed hold of the swing chain and forced it to stop.
‘Were you staring at me?’, said Billy.
Of course, Jim being Jim and totally naïve, said, ‘No I wasn’t,’ at which point all hell broke loose. And, Jim being Jim, was not about to get beaten up by anyone. Something snapped inside him. It wasn’t being picked on that enraged him, it was the mere thought of being accused of something that he didn’t do. But in the end it didn’t matter what made him snap, just that he did. A few minutes later young Billy was on the floor and blooded and when he finally got back up on his feet he had changed his tune, offering Jim his hand and declaring to the audience that, ‘You're OK, Jim.’
How nice of him to say so. Jim lacked the killer instinct that would have driven anyone else to restart the match and beat the living shit out of him.
But the fight was not the close shave - it was the accident on the swings that nearly killed him. One of the rewards bestowed upon him for standing up to young Billy was the offer of a lifelong friendship, and a willingness to teach Jim all he knew, including how to walk the high rails of the cheese-cutter, where no boy was meant to go. But the swings got him before the cheese-grater did.
The idea goes something like this. Stand up on a swing and work it up to an angle of one hundred and eighty degrees, then jump off as the swing reaches its lowest point and land on your feet as far away as possible as the swing continued on its way.
Jim’s first two tries, although a little lame, were deemed a success, and he began to build up more courage to go higher and jump further. Then came the flop. His last jump, as it happened, landed him hard, face down like a pancake on the concrete. And that was that.
He woke up about an hour later at home. Someone had ran home and fetched his dad and Jim was carried home in his father’s arms like he was a soggy roll of carpet. The doctor left as soon it was clear that he there was no permanent damage, but it was a week before the puss stopped oozing from his ears and his life returned to normal. The incident, like every other bad incident in the family’s life, was never mentioned again. It became just part of the dream. Only the humorous happenings were told over and over again at family reunions.
Another example of a brush with the proverbial grim reaper was in the early seventies, when Jim decided to jump into the deep end of the newly built swimming pool at his old senior school - before he really knew how to swim.
Jim always had a problem understanding his limitations.
A friend at work had taught him how to swim, but only ‘kind of’. He had figured out how to get along on the surface as long as he could put his feet down on something solid at any time that he felt tired. He had never figured out how to tread water, and so deep in his sub-conscious he had never overcome his childhood fear of water. Something had to happen to bring this fear to the surface, if you can excuse the pun - and something did indeed happen.
His friend, a jovial forty-something Liverpudlian, had also taught him how to dive off the high board at Southend baths. This seemed to be no problem for Jim, since the diving pool was separate from the main pool and was fairly small. He could dive in, down a few meters into the water, push himself up and crawl to the edge before he ran out of steam.
But this day at the school pool was different. The board was lower, just the height of the pool edge, giving him a false sense of courage. What could go wrong? This was nothing compared with the high dives at Southend. He threw himself off the board and hit the water badly, hurting his chest and jarring his head back. He was winded. He struggled to the surface three times, coughing and spluttering, the edge of the main pool seemed so far away from him and we was panicking. He was in desperate trouble and no one at the poolside had noticed him struggling. There was no way that was going to make it to the edge by swimming on the surface. He had just a split second to make a decision. He knew that he could control his swimming strokes under water with is breath held, so on his last visit air-side he took a deep gulp, twisted his body and dove downwards like a porpoise. He managed to turn himself horizontal and pushed his way to the side of the pool.
When he bumped into the wall (he couldn’t keep his eyes open under water) he knew he was safe and pushed once more to the top, clinging on to the side and choking his heart up. A few minutes later he had regained composure and looked around him. No one had seen him. No one had realized his plight. He noticed the lifeguard strolling leisurely along the edge - she had no idea. A hoop attached to a long pole, positioned and ready for such an emergency, was lying untouched on the ground beside the pool.
It was a long time before Jim took to the water again. And that antiseptic chlorine smell had been burnt into his bad-memory synapses for good.
Unless otherwise stated