An Ode to Mark Wilson

I left the Bugle Horne Estate in the village of Stone, near Aylesbury, just before my eleventh birthday. That's how I know all these things happened somewhere between the age of five and ten.  Here's the thing about childhood, it all seems so serious at the time.

I'm not sure how much it hurts to be hit in the eye by a one wood golf club, but I do remember the panic when blood started pouring from a small cut to my left eye, just under my left eyebrow. It was a small nick, in the outer corner of my eye. I'd grow up to have worse shaving accidents in my teen years. Razor blades back then were brutal. But that cut really was a bleeder. Mark Wilson, my first ever best friend, whilst whacking golf balls in his back garden into the field behind his house, had managed to swing the club, miss the ball and connect with my eyeball. I assume he missed the ball altogether but in all the drama whatever happened to the ball is lost in the myth of the story. Despite retelling the story over some forty years, for many of those years I never stopped to think of how it happened. I remember I was kneeling behind where Mark was teeing up. I was tying my shoelaces at the time of his swing. Adult me knows that there are likely three points in his swing where Mark could have connected with me. It could have been the backswing, which is the theory I’ve always gone with or the follow through. But in recent years of telling the story I began to think of whether it was possible to make that much impact with a backswing. I pondered other options and came up with a nasty scenario of Mark somehow missing me on the backswing and then, with all the attack that was meant for the ball, caught me with the full force of the club going forward. Part of me thinks that would actually have taken my head off, but I suppose there's only so much damage a child can do with an adult one wood golf club.

The narrative within my family is that Mark brought me out of my shell and I brought him down to Earth. Sure, there was the occasional one wood to the eye or plastic airplane landing on my head, but those were the cuts and bruises of childhood. The airplane one is a weird memory. I remember it was a bright orange plane, about thirty centimetres long and a wingspan to match. It wasn’t supposed to fly, but I don’t think Mark had flying in mind. Stuff got broke around Mark. The flight plan was simple. The launch site was Mark’s back garden. The plan was for the flight to go straight up in the air and then straight back down and smash into the lawn.

I look back at this with adult eyes and assume that some thought went into this. Maybe it did. But I doubt it. If you were filming this on some old twelve mill 1980s camera, what you'd see is two kids in a back garden flinging a plastic airplane into the air, only to watch it come falling back down on them. Mark got out of the way. I didn’t. It went vertically up and vertically down and landed on my head. It wasn’t as traumatic as the one wood incident.

Mark had a weird setup. I always remember that his Mum, Glynis, who seemed to always wear a hairnet, no matter what she was doing, always ready for housework, would take an afternoon nap, and at that time Mark was sent out of the house to go and play. He’d actually be locked out. They say that kids growing up then got out more. Well, Mark didn’t really have a choice.

That’s how we met. It was a time when you could go and knock on your neighbour’s door and say, “Can Ally come out and play?” Actually, it started with Mark asking if my sister Judith could come out and play. But he got me. As children we spent a lot of time together and he will always be my first ever best friend.

The one story I find myself telling over and over is the one about the Kinder egg. I only found out much later, in adult life, that Mark’s dad Jack was an alcoholic. It sort of puts a different slant on the tale, but it still doesn’t change the story.

It was the afternoon and Glynis Wilson, hairnet and all, was having her afternoon nap. Mark was out on his ear. The doors were locked and Mark was free to do what he wanted. On this particular day his dad had given us some money to go and buy chocolate. We walked to the convenience store opposite our school. Looking at it now on Google maps, it’s about a ten-minute walk, but would have felt much more for us at that age. I don’t want to pass this off as some sort of Willy Wonka type of magical moment, but I would stress that kids buying chocolate is very different to the way, as adults, we’d make a casual impulse buy at the checkout. I have no idea what I bought but obviously I remember what Mark had. He bought a Kinder-Surprise egg.

Kinder Surprise. I remember there was a time when they were new to this country. Dad bought some back from a works trip. Look, we didn’t have PlayStations back then. We had to get excited about chocolate with a toy inside. The family joke forever since has been that they were packaged in such a way that it was impossible to get into them and Mum said that the first surprise is you can’t open the damn things. When we did get through the packaging, we had some nice double layered chocolate egg that was milk chocolate with a white inner lining of creamy tasting white chocolate. I still like that combo. The toy inside was supposed to be the surprise though. I think I might have once got something that was worth keeping. I think it became the thrill of finding out what shape the piece of plastic inside the egg was going to be. You never expected an Action Man toy or a Star Wars figure to jump out. Some people, grown adults even, to this day buy Kinder eggs because they like the taste. Really. And there might still be some interest on what the toy is going to be.

That day, way back when. We sat on the curb side outside Mark’s house, eating chocolate. Jack was going about his day but stopped to ask, “What chocolate did you get?” And when Mark showed his dad the Kinder egg that he’d bought the instant response was, “You child. You bought the one with the toy in it!” I’m remembering, maybe correctly, maybe not, that Mark got a clip around the ear for that one.

As I write that just now, it occurs to me that socking me in the eye with a one wood golf club doesn’t even raise a single issue but buying the chocolate with the toy in it is a problem. I’ve always rounded this story off with the idea of adult me going back to then and saying, “Err, they are children. What are they supposed to buy? Are they supposed to be eating Ferrero Rocher at the Ambassador’s ball?”

There’s a funny ridiculousness in all of this. It feels like all childhood stories have an element of that. The perspective is skewed. There is no one to say, “But they are children.” The Kinder Egg is, in that moment, seriously the wrong thing to have bought.

Years later, decades later, I was in Aylesbury for work, attending an event at a college. We had an hour break, and I knew I was going to venture out to the old house and see the little estate of thirty or so houses. I took the half hour walk to get there and the first home I ever remember living in was still there. The Bugle Horn estate is full of memories of childhood adventures. Seeing the ground floor extension reminded me that I laid a brick in that particular wall. The garage door reminds me of when I accidentally dropped it on Judith's head. I genuinely do not know what I was thinking. It was the worst timing ever. The idea was to close it after she’d cycled in, not whilst she was cycling in. I don’t fully remember but I bet that bled a lot. Don’t worry. She gets her revenge when she and Mum accidentally dropped a heavy tray from the loft on to my head. When I think about it there are a hell of a lot of stories of objects falling on our heads in that house. We all have thick skulls, I guess.

They didn’t provide food at the event I was attending. But I knew where there used to be a convenience store. So, I took the walk. Obviously, everything felt small. Our school looked tiny. The netball court, where we’d play tag, seemed like adult me could traverse it in five strides. I went over to the shop, it’s still there. I bought myself a meal deal, drink, sandwich, crisps and at checkout I saw they had Kinder eggs. How could I not?

I took a bus back to the event and opened up my egg. After eating the chocolate, I pulled apart the plastic capsule that lies inside the egg to find my toy. I bought the chocolate with the toy in. I have to say, the toys are much cooler these days. Inside my capsule I found my toy, my surprise, and it was a little plastic figurine, with a pink monster-like mask, or maybe it’s his head, and white hair and blue body. Of course, I kept him and gave him a name. And although I have long since lost touch with Mark Wilson, my first ever childhood best friend, he is immortalised in memory, and obviously, I had no choice. The little plastic figurine is called Mark Wilson.