As I carefully folded back the neatly cut turf, it was as if I had opened up a portal to the Bronze Age...
I do not know exactly what happened that night. One person on their own might have imagined it, but when two people simultaneously witness the same event there has to be something to it...
It was the last thing that I expected to see in the Shropshire countryside. It was futile to try and run, as I was no match for the power and agility of the animal that stood before me...
Buckingham's eyes fixed upon the old man like a hawk after its prey: "May a curse be upon thee for thy treachery," he snarled....
Poor old Mrs Brown's house took a direct hit. I laughed as her wooden leg came flying over the rooftops, clattering as it bounced off the rusty corrugated roof of our toilet at the bottom of the garden...
A rather large. well-endowed lady appeared in the doorway. Why I suddenly thought about Zeppelins I can't imagine...
John had not believed me when I told him that a Mr Crapper had invented the flush toilet, so it came as no surprise that he would not believe the origin of Zippo lighters...
The Ghost of Bannister's Wood - final page
By late afternoon, the light began to fade as John and I finished the contents of our flasks. Hunger made me home sick. As I yawned and stretched my limbs, I heard a voice: "Col, fancy a Mars bar?" With a wry smile, I thanked the Quartermaster.
In the gloom of evening, the wood took on an eerie atmosphere. One could almost see Old Bannister swinging in the breeze, tongue hanging out and eyes bulging. Did I see a leg move, someone bedding down for the night? No, it was just a trick of the light.
We decided to give it another half hour before calling it a day. This extra thirty minutes would present us with another thirty-eight basketballs and the crowning glory of my day.
I ignored the quiet signal in my headphones thinking it was just another musketball, and carried on searching. For some unknown reason I decided to retrace my steps. Picking up the signal again, I dug down to try and locate the object. After a great deal of effort, the mass of tangled roots making retrieval difficult, I held in my hand the elusive find - a Charles 1 shilling!
To describe how I felt at that moment in time would not be easy. Suffice to say that had I been born of the female gender the earth would have moved.
As I sat drooling over the coin, I could not help but feel a retrospective sympathy for Buckingham and his men. Maybe now, I know what side I would have fought on.
The sound of knocking brought me out of my hypnotic trance. The Quartermaster had been busy assembling a two-seater Microlight that would take us back to the car.
Vowing to return, we taxied across the field leaving Bannister's Wood to its ghosts.
...End
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