Spinning Bob.

One hot summer day after finding the park packed to the brim with kids and all the swings and roundabouts occupied with a queue as long as your arm waiting their turn, my little gang decided to do a spot of Mig jumping. When I say gang I don’t mean as in a group of young thugs with ouzies dealing drugs and committing drive byes, we were only around seven or eight years old. No, in those days it was little more than a group of bored kids from the same street whom always pal’d out together. We did have a name though, “The Black Hand Gang” there was a serial on the radio at the time and so we called ourselves after the gang in that. The problem was that every street with a little gang did the same thing, it was a popular program. I’m sure in these days of police intelligence (Now there’s a contradiction in terms) their inside information would lead them to believe we were legion and ready to take over the streets.

Hardly that, we were just looking to have fun in the summer break. The gang consisted of my brother, Turnip, Silly Sid, Spinning Bob, and myself. Turnip was my best pal and was so called because of his very ruddy complexion. Two thirds of his face was the colour of beetroot, and his hair wild at the best of times, frequently formed a tuft on top of his head much like a coconut. Wearing a school cap was impossible for Turnip; any attempt would look like a plate spinning on a stick. Until his Mother came up with the idea of sewing a chin strap onto his cap, Turnip was impressed with this and used to wear the strap just under his bottom lip like policemen did with their pointy helmets. Sometimes we would turn our school caps back to front, especially when playing at fighter pilots; this would of course give us a streamlined look and enhance the pretend factor immensely. This manoeuvre was impossible for Turnip because of the chinstrap, when he did attempt it the strap would have to be positioned behind his ears which pushed them out and made him look like Dopey, one of the seven dwarfs.

Silly Sid was as I have mentioned in another post a collector of nails and screws, what he didn’t know about nails and screws wasn’t worth knowing. He was also our armourer; Sid was good at making guns out of bits of wood, but his forte was bows and arrows. He would sit for hours in his dad’s shed, tongue licking his lips furiously in concentration as he designed yet another super bow or arrow.

Spinning Bob derived his name from the fact that he rarely walked anywhere, at least as you or I would walk. He was incapable of walking in a straight line because of his compulsion to spin. When it started nobody knew, but spin he would, sometimes quite fast. He had that trick that ballet dancers use when pirouetting of keeping his head still until the last second of the spin and then whipping it round ready for the next turn. You mustn’t think that his spin was in any way sissy or arty farty because I used the word pirouette. Bob was a boys boy for sure and his spin was very masculine, the determined look on his face, his clenched fists and the sparks that flew from his hobnailed clogs as he spun about his business, left you in no doubt that Spinning Bob was in no way girlie.

His Mum and Dad despaired of him, going to the shops with a spinning kid wasn’t that much of a problem, nor was his trip to and from school. But family and social occasions could be a bit of a bind, trying to explain to people why your child behaved like a Whirling Dervish must have been irksome for them.

I asked him once why it was he spun, he said he didn’t really know, but whilst he was spinning he felt safe and that everything was correct. When sat down he behaved like any other kid, fidgety, yes, restless, yes, when sat or prone the need to spin disappeared, But the moment his feet were supporting his body he felt the overwhelming compulsion to revolve at sometimes quite alarming speed.

So that day my happy band of little pals decided to go Migging, or Mig jumping. A Mig was a small three-wheel vehicle with a pointy front and one headlight that despite its size could pull some considerable weight. They were used to pull huge trailers that carried sacks of maize and flower from the mill at the top of our street to where I do not know. But for the short journey down the street and up to the main road they travelled very slowly, we would take advantage of this by running alongside and hopping on to the trailer, then hop of just before it reached Gorton baths. Then we would go back and wait for another one to pass and repeat the exercise, much to the consternation of the driver.

Despite being warned by mill owner, Drivers and our parents that this was dangerous, we ignored their advice and thought it great fun. That was until this particular day when the local park was choca block, and we had nothing to do. We had all jumped several migs successfully, all but Spinning Bob who thought spinning more important than our game. However as the last Mig of the day left the mill on its way to who knows where, Bob decided to have a go.
The Mig turned out of the mill and crept slowly down the street, as we prepared to jump it Spinning Bob whizzed past us spinning furiously. He adjusted his speed to that of the Mig and for a second I wondered how he could possibly haul himself onto the trailer whilst in the middle of a major spin. Then suddenly he stopped spinning; his momentum with nowhere to dissipate itself projected his spun wracked little body under the wheels of the trailer. There was a sickening crack as his leg broke in two places. The Mig driver stopped and raced out of his cab, we all went over to Bob to try and help. Bob just sat up and looked at his leg with a strange grin on his very white face.

We were all in trouble of course, all our parents had a meeting to decide what to do, but that didn’t matter really, we were more bothered about our pal who had been taken to hospital. I didn’t sleep much that night, my brother and I had been sent to bed after a stern telling off. I cried for my pal whom I thought was going to die, every time I closed my eyes I could see him spinning towards the Mig, and hear that awful crack of broken bone over and over again.

As he sat grinning at his broken leg that afternoon something strange had happened. The fact that his leg was turned backward on itself and legs that point in different directions are not usually conducive to good spinning was second to the fact that an event deep within his brain had triggered something that completely wiped out his compulsion to spin.

He made a complete recovery but spent the rest of the summer holidays in a wheelchair with a cast on his leg. He told me he didn’t remember the accident, he also told me that he knew he used to spin, but couldn’t remember why he did it. His parents were happy his spinning days were over, I think he was happy he didn’t get any more flack for revolving at speed whenever the fancy took him. But I missed Spinning Bob, it was just another constant in an ever changing world that was cruelly dragged from my comfort zone kicking and screaming and helped hasten my race toward adulthood.