1952, I was 10. I lived in the Bothy with my mother, father and elder brother John. My father was the manager of Worsley Hall Nursery, now the walled garden area of RHS Garden Bridgewater.
It was a beautiful summer, but then it always was when I was a child, or is that just the rose-coloured spectacles. I spent my summer holidays in the woods, but what 10-year-old wouldn’t. I remember that we built a tree house in a tree quite close to what is now Occupation Road, in those days it was only a very rough cart track.
The tree house was nothing special just branches and bracken. We rigged a rope up to the next tree and crossed hand over hand from one tree to the next. While playing I missed my handhold and fell flat on my back. It knocked the wind out of me and for what seemed like an age I couldn’t get my breath and thought I was going to die. I’m still here 73 years later so I couldn’t have been all that bad. I didn’t tell my parents, in fact I haven’t told anyone until now.