Comfortably Numb
Antediluvian
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2018
- Messages
- 9,008
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Must be around 30 years ago now.
So, just on my way home from a later shift, it's about 8 o'clock at night, it's in winter and I duly disembark from my local bus stop in the Scottish Borders.
It's the X95 bus, which runs from Edinburgh to Carlisle and that stop is just out of town - it's kinda isolated.
There's a young lad waiting at the bus stop, he's around 5ft 6in tall, with curly hair and couldn't have been much older than 15-16. Think of Elijah Wood as Frodo...
As he's seemingly hesitant about getting on the bus. I duly enquire, 'You wanting on?'
He responds - although this is obviously not exact, I do recall this relatively clearly because of the shock:
'Don't think I'll bother. It's just that I got a text from my ma saying my brothers been stabbed to death down in Doncaster'.
I'm naturally heartfelt, 'So sorry to hear about that'.
He simply then walks away, down a path, which is in the proverbial 'pitch darkness, and only leads, eventually to a few houses near the River Tweed.
When I got home, I decided it was such a bizzare experience that I phoned the local Doncaster newspaper.
Having explained the background:
'Never heard about this incident, if it had happened, we would have known about it'.
At the time, I subsequently concluded he did live in one if the houses at the bottom of that path, was intending heading down south on that Carlisle bus, decided not to go and just went back home.
Why though, would you text such dreadful news instead of phoning?
Maybe the family were estranged... that's certainly possible.
Why though, zero knowledge of that "seriously newsworthy incident" at the local newspaper?
The fact this all happened in the dark of a winter's eve and then he disappeared down a lane which only ends up where hardly anyone lives...
A mystery to this day...
So, just on my way home from a later shift, it's about 8 o'clock at night, it's in winter and I duly disembark from my local bus stop in the Scottish Borders.
It's the X95 bus, which runs from Edinburgh to Carlisle and that stop is just out of town - it's kinda isolated.
There's a young lad waiting at the bus stop, he's around 5ft 6in tall, with curly hair and couldn't have been much older than 15-16. Think of Elijah Wood as Frodo...
As he's seemingly hesitant about getting on the bus. I duly enquire, 'You wanting on?'
He responds - although this is obviously not exact, I do recall this relatively clearly because of the shock:
'Don't think I'll bother. It's just that I got a text from my ma saying my brothers been stabbed to death down in Doncaster'.
I'm naturally heartfelt, 'So sorry to hear about that'.
He simply then walks away, down a path, which is in the proverbial 'pitch darkness, and only leads, eventually to a few houses near the River Tweed.
When I got home, I decided it was such a bizzare experience that I phoned the local Doncaster newspaper.
Having explained the background:
'Never heard about this incident, if it had happened, we would have known about it'.
At the time, I subsequently concluded he did live in one if the houses at the bottom of that path, was intending heading down south on that Carlisle bus, decided not to go and just went back home.
Why though, would you text such dreadful news instead of phoning?
Maybe the family were estranged... that's certainly possible.
Why though, zero knowledge of that "seriously newsworthy incident" at the local newspaper?
The fact this all happened in the dark of a winter's eve and then he disappeared down a lane which only ends up where hardly anyone lives...
A mystery to this day...
