A continuing journey

 

I found out that the bus times have been changed. Not surprising, I suppose. After all, I hadn’t been on the bus to Plymouth for almost three years. Now there’s only one bus an hour. Which meant I left home at 3.30 pm to catch the 3.50. The usual half hour journey to the city had been altered, too. Extended in fact, to pick up passengers in places with which I had no previous acquaintance. The bus stop where we were expected to alight was at one end of Royal Parade, and my onward bus stop was at the other end. I began to regret volunteering to bring a weighty supply of courgettes with me. And those lovely blue drinks for the children that their mother would never have bought for them. There’s so much fun in being a grandma, you know!

Anyway, I had to pop into Dingles for the loo. This cannot be described as a convenience because it’s on the sixth floor. I headed for the escalator. The peace was suddenly disrupted. A girl of no more than twelve galloped across my path, hooting and giggling, and started running up the down escalator. A member of staff shouted at her, and, still euphoric, the girl ran back down and hooted her way towards the exit.

I turned the corner, and there was a boy, also no more than twelve, RIDING A BIKE around the ground floor. Of DINGLES, which for years was regarded as the poshest shop in town. A number of adults came running after the miscreant, shouting instructions about getting off that bike AT ONCE, which made the boy speed up like a fox being chased by a hunt. Eventually a clever member of staff darted about and outwitted the boy, and, joined by others, forced him to get off the offending vehicle.

When I told my son, a primary school teacher, about these incidents later, he said the children were probably in their first year of secondary education, and being allowed a bit more freedom than they were used to, spending time in Plymouth after school on their own.

I caught my next bus without further surprises, deep in thought. This is the age group I’m writing for at the moment. These kids are the sort of people my own dear grandchildren mix with at school every day. I remembered one 14-year-old granddaughter telling me about girls who had boasted about shop-lifting, and the other describing some of the horrible things some girls said to each other or put on social media. This is the world in which my protagonist lives.

It's all very interesting, and has proved a very useful tool in developing my characters, and possibly my own character, too. I almost wonder if I should stick to writing a memoir. To the present generation it would probably read like fiction anyway.

It’s strange how some people ignore God, but He is in the city, and He’s not going away. Can we sneak Him into every story we tell or write? Even into stories for the kids who run up the escalator the wrong way, or ride their bikes around a department store? I think I'll take up the challenge on that one.

 

Veronica Bright has won over forty prizes for her short stories, now published in three collections. She is working on a novel for early teens. She is the ACW short story adviser, and runs the ACW Writing for Children group, whose members meet up on Zoom. For more details look on the Writing for Children Facebook page.