With Josiah’s imagination:

Inspired by the quarry.

A Young Smuggler’s Night

I was ten years old when my Father took me on my first smuggle.  It was a cold October’s night.  Up the steep track went the little golf buggy engine roaring like thousands of lions all roaring at the same time.

Once there, I carried sausages of gun powder to men drilling rat sized holes in the rocky granite cliffs.

“Stand back!” boomed a big voice, that echoed around the cliffs.  I heard the snap of a match and the hiss of the flame as the flame curled itself around the wick.

I looked up at the white cliffs; whiter still as the moon shone and made it look like a white-washed house.  A cloud hid the moon which turned the cliff to black; black as ebony, yet the shadows were even blacker.

“Put these in your ears” snapped my father, close by me.

The moon had fought through the cloud and shone on the cliff.  I could now see what my father shoved into my hand.  They were like marshmallows, but orange and foamy.

“In your ears, you clod-pole” hissed my father as I stood staring.

I put them in my ears and then! the marble like cliff face came flying out like a jigsaw puzzle being punched in the back and a big boom followed.  It was like billions of cannon balls all firing at once!  My ears were ringing for a long time after that!

I looked up at the cliff.  It was all jagged, course and ugly.  Then large tractors came and loaded big lorries which were taken to a pier down the hill.  A monstrous ferry took all the granite away to Holland.

It took ten long, hard hours to do all the smuggling.  I was back to bed by 6am.  I have never forgotten my first smuggle.