The dead tramp and cow poo

A couple of friends and myself, at the age of about 14 went on a jolly jaunt off to a nearby town to have a look around, being bored stiff of the town we live in. And, being the type of boys we were, we soon found ourselves a treasure trove of a shop…in other words, a junk shop!

It sold everything, trumpets, old world war two German trench coats (which smelt as if the German had probably died in it as well), ukuleles (yes I did get one…all I could play on it though was the opening riff to the Rolling Stones’s Satisfaction….it sounded like George Formby getting funky with it) and loads of other stuff that nobody needed, or wanted.

George Formby getting funky with it

Except us, of course.

It soon came to our attention that they sold knives (which actually wasn’t quite illegal in those far off days), including great big machetes, catapults and air pistols and air rifles.

We were big boys for our age.

We came out with three air pistols.

Now we just needed something to shoot at.

We found a couple of tin cans which seemed good to start with, so we found a bit of space and started to shoot at the cans, cheering when we hit them and good naturedly abusing each other when we missed.

This continued for about 10 minutes when someone took a shot and we heard a loud "Uuuuurggghhh" coming from the bench where we were shooting the cans.

It wasn’t until then that we noticed an old tramp lying there, he must have been sleeping there and we never noticed.

One of us had hit him…well….maybe all of us had hit him, but this was the first time we heard any such Urrggh from him.

"You shake him, see if he’s alright", said one of us.

"No way, you do it"

I prodded him…he didn’t move.

"You’ve killed him", said one of us

"No, it was you", replied the others.

We decided in no uncertain terms to leg it.

We took the train back home and promptly forgot all about the dead tramp.

And once again, with all thoughts removed, as boys tend to do, we found some more cans and promptly set about shooting the hell out of them.

So there we were, all having a jolly good time and harming no one (this time) when a police car crept around the corner and stopped.

We all as one, stopped what we were doing and gawped in amazement as the coppers both got out of the car and started to walk towards us.

Well we all think the same thing at once.

The dead tramp!

So we’re off and running and the rozzers are behind us and catching up.

We jump over a fence into a cow field to try to escape the clutches of the law.

Everything seemed to be going well. Two of us are ahead and hiding behind a tree, when Mick decides to make a break for it, the policemen immediately give chase when the clumsy git slips on one recently deposited cowpat and falls straight head first into another.

One of the policemen gingerly pick him up and as I burst out laughing at his misfortune the other copper nabs me while the youngest of the three of us bursts into tears.

The copper who I assumed was the driver takes one look at Mick, says simply one literal word, "Shit", and lets us off with a warning.

Oh and the dead tramp?

He was just drunk, the reason the cops were called in the first place to us was that some old nosey biddy didn’t like the look of us having so much fun and enjoying ourselves.