“Tell me about your torches please Dad”

Everywhere my dad goes he always has a torch and always wants to make sure everyone has one near them when it is dark. It’s very important to him. I asked Dad more about this and I didn’t quite expect to hear what I heard. I’d heard this story before but I had no idea how it connected to torches until tonight.

“Well…..    I think it goes back to when I had my pushbike accident on my tenth birthday.

I got a speedometer for my bike and I wanted to do 30 miles per hour so I went round my street Hollywood Crescent, Willoughby to the highest spot and turned right into Laurel Street and went down the hill as fast as I could. On my right was the fire station. I had my handlebars down and my head down and on my left hand I had a string bag to go to the shops for my mother to buy some meat at the butcher’s shop. The string bag was hanging down and it got caught in the wheel and locked it up and the bike stopped and I fell off the bike to the left. Lucky I hit my left shoulder first then my head and I was knocked out on the ground there. I was later told the fire brigade all came across and my dog Spot who was with me was trying to keep the people away from me, trying to bite them. They knew my mother and went and got her. She took Spot and I went to hospital in an ambulance.

I was unconscious in hospital for 6 ½ days and they wanted to take to the children’s ward but it was full so I stayed in the men’s ward. I didn’t know until after that my uncle Bob Giddons was in the same ward. They said in that 6 ½ days my heart stopped 3 times and the last time they thought I was gone. My body moved and they tried again and brought me back alive.

When I woke up my Uncle Bob was right next to me and either side of me there were two men unconscious – one fell off a building and he died, and the other side of me a man was run down by a tram and he died. Uncle Bob who was the head boxer for the Easter show – I remember him standing next to me with his fist up and I could see his big muscles. He wanted to move my bed up beside his bed because he didn’t want me to die like the other men beside me. They told him he couldn’t move my bed. He said, “If you stop me, I’ll knock your f……. head off.”

Ever since my accident I’ve always needed to have a torch because when I was out I was in the dark.”

Jim Arcus

Now I understand Dad. I am glad I asked the question. Thank you xo

Most of the torches here below dad got himself but some are special ones friends and loved ones have given him.
People often try to find a different sort of torch that dad doesn’t have to give to him.

One thing more about my Dad is his aim is to make someone smile everyday so this photo of him with a torch in his mouth is him doing exactly that. I love my dad