Aunt June

I was stuck on the top of a seesaw.  It was yellow and red and a woman with a learning disability, some 15 stone at a rough estimate was at the other end of it.  The seesaw was not see-sawing.  I was 9.  I was also trying to explain - with an increasing sense of alarm why her stepping off the seesaw would be a really bad idea.  I was envisaging myself catapulted halfway across Hull.  I tried shouting, “No!” and that provided a temporary stay of execution.  My hand signals after that were somewhat inadequate.  The lady sitting on the other end smiled benignly.  “Please,” I said, “Get off gently.”  She didn’t speak, and began stepping off again. Only No! did the job.  So, I shouted again. 

My hero, as it turned out, was a 50 year old man with Down’s Syndrome.  At least, he looked 50. Rushing towards us, he seemed to have devised a way of communicating with the lady.  Then, putting his not inconsiderable weight to the matter, he balanced the seesaw between us.  My feet dangled tantalising close to the ground.  He leant my way.  Smiled.  My feet touched.  Now my new friends were in danger of coming a cropper but as I made to get off, he shifted his weight as a counterbalance. 

“Fuck me!” he said with absolute clarity.  I looked up.  It had been easy to assume that these adult people were very large children, surrounded as we were by primary coloured equipment, but he had made a lie of that. He smiled again as I stepped off fully and then helped soften his friend’s fall. 

“You should have gone on the swings Maggie,” he said. 

It had been a very confusing day.  Firstly, my mam was unusually tense as we took three buses to get to Tilworth Grange.  (In Hull, two buses is considered a very long way!) I wasn’t sure why her mood was so tense, but as this was a journey that she normally took on her own, I could only assume that my presence (I had been to the hospital for an appointment prior to this expedition) was either 

a) cramping her style OR

b) giving her additional concern in a stressful situation. 

It became quickly apparent when we entered the building where her concerns lay.  As we walked down the corridor,she swiftly manoeuvred me out of the way of a bloke in the corner who appeared to be vibrating. 

The rest is here