Lorry Drivers

"Let's play lorry drivers grandad"

I can hear Matt now all those years ago after my father bought two tonka toys to play with when he visited his grandparents in Stacksteads where I was brought up.

It must be over twenty years ago now. They loved to play together on their hands and knees behind the settee pretending to go on long journeys from Portsmouth up the motorways and stopping off at transport cafes for meals on the way.

Ironic, poignant, the stuff even of a Hardy novel you may think given how he died.

I have often thought about it and more so this last day or so as I have been banished to the back bedroom because Teapot has a cold and there the lorry now stands on a chest of drawers.

You see it is a very special lorry. The picture of it is taken at Rosary Road because when grandad died Matt took it there as it held special memories for him of his grandad. It somehow captured part of what they meant to each other.

And now it is here and for me it carries memories of both my father and my son. It is something they touched and held, enjoyed and laughed over. You may think it would remind me of the awful accident where he died but in an odd way it has the power to transcend that with other thoughts. It wraps up in it a family tie and bond that is not erased by one night of mayhem.

We may think that memory is something almost wisp like. We try so hard not to forget and hold on. But memory is more concrete than that. It is anchored not only by photos, letters and videos but also things like this lorry which are so rich in meaning.

I shall treasure it.