As you pass through life, one thing that is always with you is a little book of memories that seems to be in a pocket somwhere regardless. It is meant for more-special memories, can be fleeting moments or a big occasion, but what is interesting it that they always just appear in it for you by themselves, you never actually need to write anything down. Magic? Oh yes!
Until some time in my early teens I was taken to the Onion Fair every year by Dad, keeping up a tradition from his own childhood when his father did the same with him.
One very special memory I have of Dad, who died in 2003 just a couple of weeks before his 76th birthday, comes from a time at the Onion Fair when I was probably around 7, as near as I can make it now.
We always had so much fun on the rides and the stalls, and of course constantly had some fairground food on the go!
Dad always let me steer the bumper cars, though he also made sure to get a go himself as well!
And it was on the shooting range that I first fired an air rifle when I was around 9, and seemed to be a decent shot which led to Dad giving me his own first air rifle, a break-barrel .177, that was safely packed away still where he lived as a boy and where my Grandmother lived until her death. Oh the tons of clothes pegs we shot off the line in the garden over the years!
But anyway, this one time was a couple of years earlier and we were moving around the various stalls and games in the centre of the fairgroud, and stopped to have a go ar the 3-darts-in-3-playing cards one. I can't remember ever winning anything though maybe I did perhaps, but on this occasion when Dad had his turn I said to him with great certainty "When you win, I'll have that Teddy Bear please!"
Not "if," but "when". No pressure then.
When the first dart went in to a card however it only reinforced that I had been right in thinking Teddy was mine, lol, and when #2 dart did the same I suppose that Dad was mentally keeping his fingers crossed ... well in the non-throwing hand anyway.
And ... yes the third one was another good shot, just as all little boys expected from their Dad, right?!
So that glorious glistening golden-coloured Teddy with the deep brown eyes was reached down and handed over to me, as tall as up to my chin! I think we were going around for a little more time yet because it was still quite light and the real magic happened when it got dark and all the lights and colours mixed in with the smells and the noises properly.
And I remember that a goldfish in a plastic bag joined the family too, but that was for Dad to carry because I wasn't letting go of Teddy, lol.
And eventually we needed to leave, and getting home was a 2-bus journey with me sitting by the window and Ted looking out of it to see where his new home was going to be. And he waved back at people who noticed
Mum's eyes opened wide with surprise when we walked in, and she asked me between laughing to tell her all about how we won him!
In the meantime Dad was busy taking care of the goldfish that I'm sure must have been a handful to manage at times lol, and Goldie was clearly happy in his new home and seemed to enjoy his bowl and gravel and shipwreck and weed that Dad came home with a couple of days later (when it hadn't already died!)
And Ted? He's still mine though has been shared with three sons across the years, and is still with me on a chair just a few feet from the desk I am writing this on, still with his mostly glistening golden fur though now just slightly threadbare here and there ...
But what else would you expect after so many squillion hugs?
