Hiking with a hitch
On the outskirts of Norwich, travelling north, a kind driver responded to my upright thumb. As the wide road passed through suburban housing, a young boy of 10 ran from nowhere straight in front of the car. We weren't speeding, but the action was in slow motion as the boy hit the grill, up in the air, landing on the bonnet. Alive, adrenalin filled, he leapt off, continuing over the busy road, across the path of an oncoming lorry.
We stopped. Kid OK. On the slowest journey back to uni, with driver in shock, I earned my lift, playing counsellor.
- Category: True Stories Told As Fiction
- Tags: Return to university. Hitch hiking. Miraculous escape. Instant growing up.
1 comment add one below
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Neville Hunt over 7 years ago
Thanks very much, Drew. It was completely true and was prompted by Lisa's powerful drabble earlier. I'd forgotten how skin-of-the-teeth it had been for that child. The driver was in pieces, but needed to go north himself. He wasn't exactly going into Sheffield, but he dropped me at my house. (I hope he got safely to his own destination.). Wow, what a memory I'd rather not have had.
