Swede Heist..

It was a misty early winters evening in about 1975.
About 5:30pm...
Close to Halloween.
It was conker season.
Shops were just shutting
I was walking back from St Georges Park, where I had been conkering. As per usual, most of the good conkers had been harvested, and I had to be content with 'conker residue'...that's the left over conkers that had been left in disgust on the grass under piles of smashed horse chestnut husks, and where only a desperate non conker owning kid would have searched. I was not proud, and knowing that not to own at least one conker at this time of year was, in boys terms, in the same classification as Walter the Softy of Dennis the Menace fame.
One measly conker.
The size and shape of a butter bean,
It was ridiculous, I had to make amends and reclaim my stakes in the boys department before anyone found out I was indeed virtually conkerless.
A butterbean conker counted as conker destitution.
At that point, as I turned down a small lane that drifted past the greengrocers in Church Road..and then something happened..it was FATE...
My jeans caught on a sack..I tugged but the sack wouldn't give, a staple had lashed itself to my leg..this was terrible...first beaten by the conker harvest, and now taking a kicking by a sack. The sack itself was on the edge of the pavement display,or had been, for it still continued to follow me up the lane.
The dark lane...
The dark lane that was occupied by just me, and an unknown sack of undetermined value.
Of undetermined value, or wealth...
Wealth!
No, it didn't belong to me, and yet, like a stray dog, it wanted to be with me.
It wanted company, and it had chosen me.
I was the chosen one.
I realised that the wealth within the sack was going to be limited, but then again, no veg was free and the old man would be pleased of any 'windblown' freebies.
Wondering....
No, only truly bad kids stole stuff, and I should drag it back before I was caught.It would have been the right thing to do.
Only bad kids done this sort of thing.
And kids who had great conkers.
Sixers.
I dragged the sack further along the lane, commando style,dragging the look-out behind the hedge in my mind...it was first class skulduggery, a genuine crime, real boys stuff, not the capers of a butterbean conker owner, but the antics of a Huckleberry Finn type school boy...this was it, I was in an adventure!
My excitement dimmed slightly as my wealth was fingered in the darkness.Earthy spherical mounds that slowly dawned on me as swedes.
Flipping swedes. Muddy,earthy,grimy swedes.Grime everywhere.Mud and earth and swede-grime.
Only Shaun Paintworthy would queue up in the school dinners queue for seconds of swede.
Actually, he queued up for thirds of swede, an amazing feat of gastronomical endurance by anyone's standards.
But swedes...I ask you.
Thank you FATE.
But I had to have them.They were now mine.In a way.
I stashed as many as I could about my person.
Now this may be easy to say, but if you have ever tried to actually stash a swede, then you would realise the error of this decision.I crammed as many as I could into the arms of my jumper, and then into my shoulders, and then into my jumper belly area, and then left the scene of the grime.
I tried to walk in an innocent manner, casually walking down the road, acting as if it was perfectly normal to pretend to be Charles Atlas..Charles Atlas with muddy hands and a red face. And a small butterbean conker.
I eventually got in, and closed the door behind me. The old man was rolling a fag, his tea brewing next to him.
'I found some swedes Dad.In a lane,Loads of them.'
'Well done boy,put them in the kitchen, we'll eat them next week.'
Great.Just great.
Just great with effing bells on.
What was I thinking, of course I would end up eating them.
FATE still had a hand to play in this particular episode.Halloween was just a week or so away, and not having a pumpkin, I decided to hollow out a swede.
As John Noakes made the pumpkin episode look easy, I followed the programme with dedication,and hacked away at my largest swede as he spooned out the pumpkin seeds easily.
The swede was like concrete,, and no spoon would ever get through it.
I chose my sharpest knife, my sturdy craft knife, and within seconds bitterly regretted the whole Swede Heist, for I nearly severed my thumb with with a badly timed slash of the blade into the hardened swede.
Typical.
My life of crime was over, before it hardly began.
Just one happy footnote.
With a makeshift bandaged thumb, I was excused conkering.
Butterbean would never see the light of day.
And neither did my partly hollowed swede,one less to eat.
Only Shaun Paintworthy would have been sad.