Corgi tractor...

I guess my Corgi tractor must have looked something like this. I was given it one Christmas by my Auntie Sheila and Uncle Mick. They always gave good presents; a clown on a bicycle that went along a tightrope strung between two dining chairs; a William Tell crossbow brought home from their honeymoon in Torbay.

Of course my tractor led to an argument. Well, it was Christmas and I’d had hardly opened it before I couldn’t find the farmer driver. Perhaps it became lost inside the mass of discarded Christmas wrapping paper then was quickly scooped away and thrown into the beginning-to-rust galvanised dustbin that stood outside our back door. He couldn’t stand a mess, mess made him angry. I loved tractors back then. I’d always ride the tractor on the roundabout at the fair and when we’d visit my great grandfather beg to sit upon his ‘real’ tractor whenever I got the chance.

I’m sure there were once photos to go with these memories - me on my great granddad’s tractor and driving a roundabout tractor at the fair. But it seems that somewhere along the line the big blue photo album crammed full of the past has gone missing. Strange – perhaps that too was lost in some discarded Christmas wrapping paper and thrown away.

At least I have my memories and I can be pretty sure they haven’t been embellished by spin and sugar because as a family we hardly ever talked about past times, it was almost as if they had never happened. With no photographs and no speaking of the past my memories are all I have. It’s a good job that I remember so much and know how to access it - at least it is for me.

A few days after that Christmas, my farmer mysteriously turned up. He’d found it under the sofa he said, so I placed him back on my tractor and drove it around my imaginary farm until one day I lost him for good and never saw him again. Who Knows? Perhaps one day he may fall out of a pocket and I'll get him back again.