WE WAIT.

THE QUEEN IS DRIVEN PAST AT THIRTY MILES PER HOUR.

Mid-winter at Egremont. Long, long ago.

Grey, grey overcast, still, cold, with hovering drizzle.

Tiny ill-fed schoolboys in shorts. Schoolgirls in thin cotton. Blazers sparkly with mist. Red knees and chilblains. School caps, saggy socks, scuffy shoes, drippy noses. Waiting.

In a row, one child deep, on the outward-bound side of the the road. Waiting for a phenomenon regarding which we had little curiosity, having been ordained to our shivering fate by authority. Waiting, waiting.

The baths, in midwinter, were steamy-warm. Not hot, as we would have wished, as we changed into prickly woolen cozzies (swimming-costumes, togs), hugging our bony shoulders, waiting with various fear to enter the luke-warm chlorine. Waiting.

In the pool it was initially cool, then cold. Waiting to race. Always competition, seldom fun.

Then off. Action, at last; racing. A lap, two laps of the ancient, minute, indoor council pool. One more; and our spindly limbs generate a few candlepower of heat before exhaustion. Then out, then damp-dry under a wet towel, soggy dripping wool round our loins. Til the next heat: a misleading term. Waiting.

After the regimented competition was at last over, the remainder of the allotted time was finally ours to destroy; bombs and ducking and underwater grabbing, chasing and running and diving at speed. All became banned, of course. All childhood fun is banned now.

In damp-dry school uniform, again, with sopping tight roll of tog-towel, but at last warm, we exited the fug to wait for the Queen. Not warm for long. Then cold, then uncontrollable shivering, in spasms. The one or two heavier (never plump, never, ever fat)  held out longer. A torture on the wet pavement, at the wet kerbside, watching the gutter trickle, with occasional glances of bored expectation down the endless suburban grime. Self-hugging, hopping, jumping, twitching line of obedient sufferers. Waiting, waiting.

Then silence. Big cars were coming, one, two, three, through the wet mist, at the speed limit, past our endless line. Dead-silent motionless line. No flag-waving, No cheering. no smiling, laughing faces. I suppose the Queen was in one of the cars. Some still stared at the gutter. I never saw anyone. The instant finally over, we ran, and ran, for the warm waiting buses to take us back to school for our long cycle back home. Even the kids who lived near the baths had to be driven back to school.

But there was time for a few of us to race into the local shop for a penny Vantas, of which all memory and history has been erased. A huge glass sphere of gassy tap-water, infinitesmally coloured and flavoured, and a small, chunky glassful for a penny. But the brief, slight sparkle soothed the chlorine. The pauper’s champagne.

We told our parents we’d seen the Queen, but we hadn’t.