(50) 'My Lucky Escape'

[Ken]

I was born LUCKY.  Lucky because I was born in a beautiful village and lucky because that village was in Great Britain. I was lucky to have two wonderful parent's who loved each other, and lucky to have eight older siblings who would guide me in my growing up years.  I was lucky in the forever friends I made and lucky that in 1968 one of our village's richer families employed a new gardener.  I was doubly lucky that the gardener's daughter became my wife and luckier still that in the years to followed we would be blessed with two healthy and intelligent children.  This memory is about the the biggest stroke of luck I ever had, the luck that saw my predicted success evaporate and proved that a Gypsy's one time forecast was so very wrong!

This particular memory begins in the early 1990's with yet another downpour of rain that the forecasters had failed to predict.  Once again I was stranded alone at the barbecue while my family and guests dashed for cover and I vowed that the very next day I would build a garden shelter.  It was during our very hard up period and all I had to use were some old tarpaulin covers that had once been used by market traders. I also discovered I had hundreds of pairs of sports shoe laces that I had once purchased in a bankruptcy sale.  After a few days of what others described as my bodge work I had built the required shelter and to every ones surprise it kept out the rain and stood up to the strong Welsh winds.  I had placed an old desk in it, one that I had used in my very first office, and quite soon I found myself adding some old display units that became benches for us all to sit on.  I found myself eating most of my meals in what my daughter Kathryn called, 'Dads Den', sometimes on my own, but mostly with my ten year old son Morgan sitting beside me.  They were grand days and on each of them I would do something to improve the garden shelter.  I added more Tarpaulins on top of the existing ones, all of them tied up with sports shoe laces.  I then planted some fast growing Ivy plants that I hoped would soon grow to cover everything.  My friend, Malcolm Scott, visited and bought us a Russian Vine plant that he described as a mile a minute grower, and his son Ali gave us a rather large radio/cassette player he no longer needed.  So the garden shelter now had somewhere to sit, a table to eat off and something to listen to, whatever the weather!

However, Dads Den would not do as a name, I needed the name to be unique, for what I had now planned to create in my small garden would be unique, and so 'Kens Kingdom' was born.  I have often, in later years, described how the Kingdom seemed to build itself.  Off course it had some initial help with the laces and the tarpaulins, but it's sturdiness was assisted by nature.  One of the Osier stakes, that I had made a temporary fence with, luckily took root.  Morgan made sure when I mowed the lawns that I didn't cut the small self seeded maple sapling and together we watched it grow into a tree, perfect for the Kingdom's entrance.  To continue to describe how the Kingdom looked back then in it's glory days would be tiresome to those who never experienced it's magic.  Those who did will be able to recall the laughter that was constantly heard as they imbibed in my home made beer and hedgerow wines.  Some may recall the custom I introduced on unusual beer cans and that is worth retelling.  Near the heart of the Kingdom was a holly tree and on it one evening I attached an empty Fosters beer can.  I then tied a Heineken can onto another branch and announced the following Royal command,  "From this day forth all who visit the Kingdom will try to the best of their endeavour to bring, for joint consumption, a six pack of a beer of a type not yet hanging on the Kingdom Holly".  A little pompous I suppose but that was what my friends expected from me and it worked, for before long the tree began to be covered in empty beer cans of makes new to all of us.  The tree's upper branches could be seen from the road near our house and I have often wondered what passers by thought when they saw that tree.  To me it looked glorious, like some giant Christmas tree, but this tree had beer cans twinkling in the sunlight instead of baubles and fairy lights.

In those long ago days of the 1990's we had, on average, visitors staying with us every three weeks. These visitors had names many of you will have heard before, names like Bushell, Bowbrick, Marshall, and Scott, good people who all added to the atmosphere of well being that the Kingdom created. I recall in particular the many visits made by the Scott boys, the sons of my dear friends Malc and Jan.  Their youngest son, Ali, came alone once, just days after his seventeenth birthday for he'd passed his driving test at the first try.  I recall with pleasure the long chats we had, both in my new Kingdom and in some of the local Pubs.  In the years that followed he was a frequent visitor, bringing with him a whole host of his friends and some we grew to know very well, like his adorable friend, Beckie.  Likewise, with his older brother Duncan who also heard the Kingdom call.  My whole family so enjoyed his many visits and they continued right through his University days and beyond.  Two of the many friends he would bring, we got on really well with, they were called Miles and James, and sometimes the Kingdom rocked with laughter when they were here.  If anyone brought a lot of people with them some would have to camp in our garden but, however many there were and no matter how hung over they felt, they would all be awoken by my melodious voice the next morning.  They were then forcibly encouraged to arise to enjoy the breakfast Jenny had cooked for them, none of them minded for many of these young people made multiple visits to my now famous Kingdom.

Throughout this period I had to ensure that wines and ale's were always available and this was no easy task.  The wines I would make came from hedgerow fruits and they were many and varied, they would be made from Elderberries, Blackberries, Sloe's and the fruit of the Mountain Ash tree, the Rowanberry.  We made wines from the young leaves of the Oak in early spring, as we did with my children's favourite, which came from the perfumed flowers of the Elder tree. This we called Elderflower Champagne.  To make six bottles of any of the above one would need what is called a Demijohn, which was a one gallon size glass container.  These were what we used to ferment the above wines and we would watch them daily as they worked their magic.  I would boast that I too could change water into wine and at one time I had forty nine of the above mentioned Demijohn jars bubbling away in every corner of our house.  This was wine making on an almost industrial scale but it was not only wine that I made.  In addition I was brewing cider and various types of beer and to do this I needed the use of two five gallon plastic containers.  For almost a decade these large plastic tubs were in constant use and I became adept at brewing.  My boast was that  I could turn a five gallon tub of an ugly watery mix into a clear inviting looking ale in less than two weeks!

There was one other thing that I needed to ensure the Kingdom's atmosphere worked in the way I envisaged and that was candle wax.  I commandeered this from my friends who would pass on to me the stubs of all the candles they had used in their homes.  I would then re-mould them.  These candle stubs I would mix with some imported candle wax and, after melting them down, I would pour them into small glass dishes.  In each of these dishes (stolen from Jenny's crockery cupboard), I would place a four inch length of my sports shoe laces to make a wick, and, once the wax had cooled, I had the most perfect candles.  I will remember forever the feeling of perfect peace Jenny and I felt on some evenings in our Kingdom.  The make do benches would be covered with hessian farm sacks for us to sit on.  Some of our favourite music would be softly playing as the flames of those twenty home made candles shed their flickering light throughout the heart of the  Kingdom.  We would sip our beers and the hedgerow wines if it was just we two but, if there were more of us gathered together, then the sips would become swigs, and the mood would become one of merriment.  They were grand days and never to be forgotten evenings.

During those years when the Kingdom was at it's peak, I had one weekly activity that must equal, if not beat, all other times in my life of good fortune.  It took place every Thursday evening.  But before I reveal what that was, let me just dwell on some of the outstanding times the Kingdom has created.  Like the time when Kathryn and Sue Bushell composed and sang some country songs to all who were there.  I still have taped recordings of them.  Or the time Duncan and Miles met my brother Gordon and his wife Audrey. The beer we drank that night became laughing beer, although no one could explain why everything seemed so damned funny.  On another occasion our friends, Chris and Eilish Cray, brought their visitors from overseas to see the Kingdom.  We then spent an evening with two, charming and interesting, young ladies from the USA.  They were from South Carolina and they had the accent to prove it and during that evening we enjoyed Southern Comfort in more than one way.  We found out, during one of our many cultured conversations, that the art of the Dutch Oven torture was alive and well in the State of South Carolina.  

There seemed to be countless good times in those Kingdom days and nights.  I remember many visits from Kathryn's, 6ft 4inch Rumanian boyfriend, Tudar.  I also recall visits from her chain smoking boyfriend, Bob the Biker.  I discovered that not only was he a rebel without a cause, he was also a biker without a bike, which I found hilarious.  So many memories flood back when I think of those years, of Morgan's friends turning up on barbecue nights for sausages and free home brews.  Or of Jenny spotting that some people were feeling the chill and I would watch her disappear, knowing she'd soon return with warm blankets for those less hardy than myself.  One of our favourite guests was the delightful Irish lady, Eilish Cray. "You're a star", she would tell Jenny in her wonderful Irish voice, as she was handed a hot water bottle to go with her blanket.

It would be true to say that none of the above would have occurred if I had not experienced what I call my magnificent failure.  When events forced me to move to Wales to live the life I now enjoy.  I would never had met the Cray's or watch the Scott boys as they grew into impressive adults.  I would never have covered that holly tree with hundreds of empty beer cans or experienced those special Thursdays that I mentioned earlier.  They were the evenings when Jenny would go swimming with a group of her lady friends.  Kathryn had began her four year college course which meant that on that night, Morgan and myself were left home alone.  I had made a clever wrap around wind brake that encased the small Kingdom and I would described the experience of sitting inside it as being similar to being below decks in a boat. It was here on those Thursdays, with an ample supply of beers and snacks for later, that Morgan and I would shut ourselves away from the world.  My home made candles would give us the gentle lighting required and we would watch the clock, warm and snug and together as we awaited our invisible buddy.  

At 7pm, on our radio, after the familiar opening jingle, we would hear the words, 'WALLY WHYTON,' and the weekly two hour programme called, 'Country Club,' would begin.  How Morgan and I used to love this weekly event when we would sit, safe and warm, together, as our friend, for that was what Wally Whyton seemed to be, would play us his choice of country songs.  Morgan and I each had what he called our pint glasses and together we would sip and talk and listen. Morgan was just ten years old and so he was aloud just the one glass of ale before going on to Cola.  I would have a little more.  Both our glasses were of the same mug design and it never seemed to enter his head that they were of a varying size.  It didn't matter that my pint mug held a litre of ale while his pint mug held just one eighth of that amount.  What mattered to to my son was we had two beer mugs and he was happy to be having a 'pint' with his dad. If the weather outside was bad, particularly when the wind blew, we would enjoy our time together even more.  For we'd sit and chat to our hearts content,  safely away from the full force of the wild Welsh elements. Whenever a familiar song came on we would sing along with it with gusto, for the world outside of our Kingdom hideaway no longer seemed to exist.  I said at the beginning of this memory that I was born lucky and I never felt it more than I did on those long ago Thursday evenings spent with my son.

The Gypsy's earlier forecast's had all come true.  So when she predicted I would become not only a rich man but one of the very rich, it was quite feasible.  At one stage in my life it seemed that wealth of that level was a certainty for I believed I possessed all the qualities required.  I was supremely confident and I was ruthless when I needed to be.  I had an incredibly talented staff who wholeheartedly believed in me, and I had a unique ability to constantly think of new ways to motivate them to do my bidding.  But think of all I would have missed out on if her later predictions had come true?  So many of the wonderful events written of above would never have occurred.  My daughter would not have met her husband and, heaven forbid, our granddaughter would never have been born.  But fate was being kind and somebody upstairs proved that they truly liked me, for I had been born lucky and all turned out well.  The gypsy got it wrong. Instead of making money I made the Kingdom of LO-AM, and I lived happily ever after.
 
I never did became one of the financially super rich and it's what I will always call, 'My Lucky Escape'!        

           

[Ken]

To believe one could have been one of the worlds super rich may indicate self delusion, but to rejoice in the fact that one failed to get anywhere near to that lofty status, indicate's self satisfaction.  This pontification of my post business years expands on what luck and wealth may truly mean.