A TRUE STORY THAT NEEDED TO BE TOLD

The Masthead of the introductory pages of My Diary tells readers that My Story needed to be told: in other words, I had a need to tell My Story! ‘Why’ I ask myself. No doubt my readers are posing the same question:- so I relate another much briefer True Story, which I hope goes some way to explain why I do not need to answer ‘Why’, but should just counter the question with ‘Why not?’

‘T was on the evening of Wednesday 25th April of the year of our Lord 2009 that I attended a Lecture given by Mr John Avery about Titanic’s People which was held in Ford Park Cemetery’s Victorian Chapel: I am a Friend of Ford Park Cemetery Trust.

By the time I was walking back along Ford Park Road - and then along Central Park Avenue - to the bus stop, it was dusk. As I walked past the granite wall abutting against the slope down from Central Park, I came across a waterfall (no icebergs) running over the top of the wall and across the pavement and into a large puddle spreading over the carriage way. I spotted a young lady and gentleman in the driveway of a house opposite, and circumnavigated the flood to ask them if flooding in Ford Park Road was a common occurrence. They informed me that a spring – which sprung from the slope in Central Park - was always overflowing from its culvert after heavy rain . . . of which we had had rather a lot!

Then I distinguished the features of a life-sized blue and flowery Fibreglass Cow - with a very fetching yellow hat - standing in their front garden! As you do - we had a conversation about collecting cows [or even hippos] - the young man explained that he had spotted Fibreglass Cow on a website - and so he had bought her.

The owners of Fibreglass Cow had not given Fibreglass Cow a name, so I subsequently ‘asked about’ and – of course – was told that Pink Cow in The Magic Roundabout is called Ermintrude, although her flowers and hat, and herself, are different colours to those of Fibreglass Cow. I determined to make a suggestion to the young lady and gentleman:– that Ermintrude was thought to be an appropriate name for a cow – but Fibreglass Cow had been taken to fresh pastures, where I know not. I passed along Ford Park Road several times in the lighter evenings, and even enquired of other residents, who happened to be out in their front gardens, but they had no recollection of seeing Fibreglass Cow. I came to the conclusion that the young lady and gentleman had been sorting out the contents of their boot and garage and so had put Fibreglass Cow out to pasture in their front garden only briefly; she had then returned into her cow-house garage.

On the Hippolady asking why he bought a multicoloured Fibreglass Cow – the young gentleman said that he needed to! So the Hippolady says ‘Why not’ again!