» Fire!

Barn
I am posting this under a different account despite being a regular talk boarder .

When me and my mate Richard were about 13 we used to hang about in the next village. There was a farm with a huge metal hay barn containing the farmers whole stock of hay for the next winter.
So over a period of a few weeks during the holidays we proceeded to make tunnels in the hay, it was prety impressive with tunnels leading to small rooms on about three levels reaching to about thirty feet high. (Up to the roof of the barn)

But one fateful day Richard, whilst playing around with a lighter, set fire to the inside of one of the rooms we had built. Frantic slapping of straw walls and panic followed until we put out this small blaze.

Or so we thought.

A good half hour later sitting on top of our structure laughing at our brush with a firey death Richard decided pulled back a bail to check the damage. Due to lack of oxygen the fire had been smouldering away quite happily to itself and when Richard pulled back the bale the fresh air rushed in and re-ignited the fire.

We shat our pants and did what all brave kids would do in the same circumstances...Ran, and kept running for the three miles back to our village.

We could see the smoke from home for about three hours.

After leaving it a week we went to inspect the damage, the metal frame of the barn had warped beyond recognition from the heat and unsurprisingly there was no hay left

So I feel the need many years later to apologise to the farmer and his hungry cows.

Sorry man, it was an accident.

Moo.
(Sat 5th Nov 2005, 15:46, More)