Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

First Memories

It's like something out of an English children's storybook. We lived on a farm in Southern England. Dry stone walls surrounding the 13 the century house, bluebells and buttercups in the garden, hedgehogs coming for a saucer of milk, black and white Fresian cows dotting the fields. All quiet, calm and ordered. And then - something different. Something my four year old eyes were fascinated with and the memory embedded forever. A brightly coloured, traditional gypsy caravan just outside of our boundary wall, parked under a large tree with sunlight filtering through the shiny green foliage.

We moved to Australian not long after this so it was not something I'd ever encounter again. Fifty years later that image is as clear as a bell. I have no idea whether they were working on our farm or passing through but I have never forgotten the image. I like to think I was lucky to be a part of what is a distant part of rural England that we will never see again.

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