|
 ONE
SATURDAY MORNING
during the early summer of 1952, Albie was languishing in bed after
a busy week at school. If the truth was but known, he was a trifle
worried about the results of his examination, the 11-Plus, that
were due any day. Naturally, his mum and dad had expected him to
excel in all things, but the lad was the first to admit that he
had some misgivings about his recent performance in the examination
room ...
SITTING
UP IN BED
in his cosy little room – with views of seabirds wheeling and
soaring in a clear blue sky, broken only by the stark outline of
distant rooftops and chimneys – he began to read that week’s
copy of the Eagle comic, and all about his favourite characters.
Dan
Dare, was always his hero of course, and he was soon engrossed
in the latest exploits of the Pilot of the Future and his
sidekick, Digby. The latest episode in the colourful comic strip
revealed that the evil Mekon – the leader of the Treens, a
warlike nation of little green men who lived on the far side of
Venus – had captured Dan and his fellow rocketeers, and had
ordered that they be instantly disintegrated!
“They
can’t do that,” Albie declared indignantly, “not
to Dan Dare and Digby, whatever are they thinkin’ of?”
What
a cliffhanger – and how Albie looked forward to the following
Wednesday when the next edition of the Eagle would be in
Starlings, the newsagents. Putting down his comic, and reaching
across to his bedside table, he stirred the cup of coffee his mother
had thoughtfully brought him a few minutes earlier.
“Drink
it up, Albie,” she had told him, as she closed the bedroom
door behind herself, “do that’ll go cold, there’s
a good boy!”
Dunking
his Custard Cream biscuit in his coffee, he glanced at the colourful
front page of the Eagle, with its well-drawn cartoon characters.
“Those
Treens are a load of old ‘rummuns’,” he chortled
to himself, “and, as for the Mekon, his head’s too big
for his body, I reck’n. But their spaceships are much better
than ours, I s’pose.”
By
‘ours’ Albie meant Dan Dare’s, of course, but he
was so fascinated by that comic, with its stories of space travel
beyond the stars, that, for a moment, fiction became fact. Admiring
the Venusians’ spacecraft, which appeared so sleek and fast-moving,
he realised it reminded him of something, but what on earth was
it he wondered?
“I
know,” he said to himself, “tha’s just like
the Skylon!”
And
then, he recalled the day, only a year before, when his mum and
dad took him by train to the Festival of Britain on the South Bank
in the heart of London.
Albie
could remember that day as if it was yesterday and, settling back
with his head on his pillow, he closed his eyes and drifted away
into his own fantasy world where all dreams come true.
ALBIE
ARRIVES AT THE FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN
Gradually
the distant call of the seabirds gave way to more vibrant sounds,
those of a large city awakening to its day-to-day business. A cacophony
of noise invaded his ears: a vast multitude of voices, some uttering
unintelligible words from foreign climes, some accompanied by happy
laughter.
Through
heavy eyelids, grown tired through sleep, Albie could just make
out the matchstick shapes of people – bowler-hatted men, and
gaily-dressed ladies too, scurrying about seemingly oblivious to
his presence.
The wide streets were brimming with cars and buses, of all shapes
and sizes, spilling out yet more people. How he longed to know where
they were all going. One elegantly-dressed woman passed Albie so
close by it seemed he must be invisible, he thought.
Before
him, as if by magic, unfolded a magnificent complexity of buildings
housing the South Bank Exhibition of the Festival of Britain. It
was all so wonderful he thought it must all be a dream and pinched
himself, just to make sure he was awake!
“C'mon,
Albie,” said his dad, grabbing his arm, “keep up, we don’t
want to get left behind, do we?
So,
with his parents beside him, the lad joined the long queue noisily
snaking towards the turnstiles and the entrance to the exhibition.
The sight that met his eyes was truly breathtaking and out of this
world.
The
Dome of Discovery
“Wow,”
cried Albie, “just you look at that,” pointing to a large
domed building with the morning sun shimmering on its metallic silver-sheened
roof. “That hatta be a flyin’ saucer from Mars
what I read about last week in the Eagle...”
“No,
no, Albie,” laughed his father, cutting the lad short,
“ you an’ your space ships! Tha’s the Dome
of Discovery, that is!”
Albie
gazed, awestruck, at its futurist architecture and engineering –
to him, undoubtedly, it was out of this world!
“It’s
a marvel of its age,” continued his father, “an’
how they did it, I’ll never know!”
Stepping
onto moving walkways, that went along all by themselves, Albie and
his parents began exploring the Dome of Discovery and all its wonders,
and its many surprises and hidden secrets.
Albie
found a machine that could play noughts and crosses with him and
he just had to have a go.
“How
did you get on?” enquired his dad, out of interest.
“I
didn’t lose, but I didn’t win either!” replied the
lad proudly.
Albie’s
mother began to feel a trifle faint, overcome by the heat in the
Dome and the large number of people milling around, but once outside
in the fresh air the colour soon returned to her cheeks.
“Oh,
” she sighed, “tha’s much better, I din’t fare
too well in there, it was far too hot for me.”
“Never
mind, dear, there’s still plenty to see out here,” replied
Albert, her husband, “but, hang on a minute, where’s Albie
gone now?”
They
weren’t too alarmed though, because they soon guessed where
the lad was to be found – gazing up at the Skylon!
“It’s
a bit like those spaceships the Treens fly about in,” Albie
announced. His father had to agree with him, as he was also a reader
of the Eagle on some occasions – though secretly, of
course!
EARTH
UNDER ATTACK BY THE EVIL MEKON
“Unidentified
spacecraft have just penetrated the asteroid belt!” announced
an overhead loudspeaker, prompting mass panic and hysteria, with
people vanishing into stategically-placed shelters. Soon, the South
Bank Exhibition was almost empty except for Albie and his parents
and a few fleeing sightseers.
“Come
on, Albie,” shouted his father, holding his hand out
to the boy, “we must go, or it’ll be too late...”
Albie
desperately reached for his father’s hand, and managed to touch
his fingers, and then... he was gone!
Overhead,
a fleet of sleek rocket ships were circling as if to land, firing
their boosters as they descended close to the Skylon. Airlocks hissed
open, ladders telescoped out of open hatches and the Star Troopers
of the Imperial Mekonta Division emerged.
The
boy just stood there, rooted to the spot, whilst, all around him,
gold-uniformed Treens, with their evil green faces, began firing
death rays at the fleeing crowds.
Before
his very eyes, a large silver spaceship, with Mekontan markings,
came to rest next to the Skylon.
“Oh,
no, no!” shouted Albie, as he recognised the sinister
passenger from the spacecraft – the Mekon!
 “Wake
up, Albie!” shouted the Mekon, putting a scaly hand on
the lad’s shoulder. “Wake up, here... are... your exam
results!”
“No,
no,” cried Albie, trying to tear himself free of the
Mekon. “No, no... NO!”
“Come
on, Albie,” said his mother, shaking him by his shoulder,
“wake up, the Postman’s just been. He’s brought your
exam results.”
“I
do wish you’d knock,” complained a still-sleepy
Albie, recovering from his dream, whilst outside his bedroom window
the seabirds were screeching overhead.
For
a moment his mother just stood there, speechless, clutching in her
shaking hand an envelope. Opening it, she tried so hard to pluck
up the courage to glance at the little piece of paper it contained.
Then, recovering her composure, she unfolded the official-looking
document, the very briefest of letters.
“You’ve
passed!” she screamed, waving the letter in the air.
“The 11-Plus, you’ve passed.”
Albie
heard the words, but said nothing – he just knew his world
was about to change...
NEXT:
A change of school and his mother wants Albie
to look smart!
Please sign Albie’s guestbook as I would love to hear your
comments –
or email:
|
