Early Childhood Memory

The year was sixty-seven, mid July, a summer's day, and Hucknall was the place, I sat beneath a cornflower blue sky, sun hat on head, and ice cream on my face. Strange mixtures of aromas filled my nose, like aviation fuel and candy floss, hot dogs with onion, I had one of those, got ketchup down my shirt, my Mum was cross. Not angry for too long, she treated me to my first trip aloft, a pleasure flight, a 1930s biplane, the Rapide, all wood and struts and wires, like a kite. Mum leaned across and handed me a sweet, she said to me that sucking it would stop the pressure change around two thousand feet from making both my eardrums go pop. We bumped along the grass, took to the air, warm currents rose then dropped our little plane, my face at one point took on colour where the lime boiled sweet and it were both the same. We landed, I climbed out, all beaming smiles, and pleaded with my Mum to go again, my next flight I would have to wait a while, but that was when I fell in love with planes. For contest 'Early childhood memory', sponsor Line Gauthier 22nd April 2018