A Walk through the Wildside

Today I will take you through the wild-side of Bewbush (route two)

  A Bewbush Walk 1998.

The morning dew hung on the gossamer webs spun by the spiders; they adorned the hedgerow around the school, glistening beautifully.

A moment to record our observations before heading towards the subway tunnels. We passed two big wheelie bins beside the local pub.

But,

‘When we went past the bins a blue dinosaur jumped out.

“Roar! Roar!”

Down the slope we ran to hide.

The graffiti message in the tunnel said, “Hello”.

The children enjoyed the echo as they passed through.

“Hello!” they called.

“Hello!” the echo called back.

In the middle of the roundabout stood a very tall street light, the lights at the top looked like and alien spaceship hovering overhead.

‘Suddenly aliens appeared and they tried to take us away in their flying saucer.

They must have been illegal aliens, as the police came and arresting them took them away to jail.’

There were three exit tunnels from the roundabout, which one would we take today?

We headed up the left-hand slope and into the morning mist.

Past the bus stop where a shadowy figure stood behind the glass, waiting for the bus.

Our route took us towards the old leisure center where the Playbus was standing by the side. Children playing inside waved from the top windows as we passed by and we waved back.

We took the bridge over the small river.

No time to stop to play ‘Pooh sticks.’

‘There was a load crunching sound as along the river came a large branch of wood.

Sitting on the branch sat a sad looking grey donkey.

We reached down.

“We’ll save you!” we cried.

Gloomily the donkey looked up, “Thank you, but I was hoping to maybe float on to somewhere.”

We watched him as he sailed on towards Buchan Park’.

Across the bridge we came to some houses.

We stopped to observe the different shapes we could see and the colors of the bricks and tiles.

‘As we passed the first house a witch came out, she muttered a few words and tried to cast a spell on us.

Her spell landed on her little black kitten, it changed into big black panther, he looked at us suspiciously.

We hissed at him and he shrank back into a little black kitten.

The witch took her broomstick and picking up her little black cat, flew away.’

We walked on beside the rugby pitch but no one was playing today.

We crossed the road carefully and came to a big white house with tall trees standing beside it. The trees looked old and gnarled.

‘A fox came out from behind the tree, he licked his lips and yawned.

Then he lazily lay down and watched us as we passed.’

Across the road behind the tall fence was the barn church. The painting on the side was a nativity scene. The builders were working hard to make the new church for Bewbush. We must visit again we thought.

We made our way back past a few more houses and came to the subway tunnels, this time we came down the middle tunnel, the tunnel ahead was our route back to school. Nearly there.

‘There was a metallic sound and we saw the cars in the car park were “Transformers”, they were changing into huge robots which tried to stomp on us.

We hit them with our clipboards and they broke into pieces, turning back into cars once more.’

We walked on, only the shops to pass by now.

‘We saw a lady about to post her letter. The postbox opened its mouth ready to bite her hand.

“Watch out!” we shouted and she snatched her hand out just in time.’

From the shops we walked toward the school entrance.

Past the pub, and past the community center, but

‘Oh No! A vampire bat flew out, he tried to bite us, we flapped our arms until he flew away, then we ran into school.’

Safe at last.

Or were we?

Bewbush 2023