In the summer of seventy three, Gaz, Baz, Beefy and me..
pooled our cash for a big bottle of Corona lemonade from the Spar shop ("standard shared drinks rules" applied - wipe the top with your t-shirt before and after your swig, try not to deposit any of the bits of breakfast still adorning your teeth into the bottle)and set about the day's business - larking soccer and poking dog shit with sticks on the school field. After a while we got bored and wandered further afield, eventually coming across a railway line, which as pre- teens we were honour bound to explore. Any safety concerns were swept aside by Beefy's confident assertion that "They don't use this bit of track anymore." Beefy was slightly older and more streetwise than the rest of us, however his knowledge of train routes proved to no better than ours, as evidenced by the train that appeared from round the bend a few hundred feet up the track. Oddly we all stood stock still and peered in disbelief at it for a second before someone shouted and we all scrambled down the banks, the bottle being dropped in the process. The train shot by with the driver leaning out of the cab to shout at us. (Of course we thought he was just telling us off and didn't give a moment's thought to how frightening it would be for him.) We picked ourselves climbed back up the track and peered after the train. "What's he doing, coming down here?" asked Beefy in a defensively incredulous tone. We noticed that the bottle was unbroken having fallen into the pea gravel between the sleepers, picked it up and decided to head back for more dog shit poking (you got plenty of white dogtod in those days).

A narrow escape? Bloody right it was - we could've lost the 5p deposit you got for returning the empty bottle.
(Cave Duck, Tue 24 Aug 2010, 12:13, 5 replies)

www.b3ta.com/questions/escapes/post834872
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Tue 24 Aug 2010, 12:32, closed)

Pah. That's just showing off.
*sulks*
(Cave Duck, Tue 24 Aug 2010, 12:35, closed)

That's from Stand By Me, you silly.
Sulk ye not, for yours is a fine tale!
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Tue 24 Aug 2010, 12:52, closed)

You're very kind.
I'm afraid I haven't actually seen a lot of popular cinema and your reference whizzed straight over my head.

If you'd posted a story about how you found yourself alone in a flat with Marloln Brando, with him having a glint in his eye and a tub of butter in his hand, I'd have got it, though.
(Cave Duck, Tue 24 Aug 2010, 13:28, closed)

5p?
That ages you. I remember it being 8 or 10p about thirty years ago. Gathering discarded bottles off the beach was a great way to supplement my holiday pocket money.
( SteamedCleaner, Tue 24 Aug 2010, 19:30, closed)