Little Ted & The Cloudburst

I think it would be safe to say, without likely chance of retribution or a libel case at the High Court, that my brother is and always has been very, very naughty and very, very funny.

I could give you many, many examples of the former and the latter. Many, many of these examples are not blog fodder to be fair Hey, this is a family show

But once upon a time, a good long while ago the signs were there.
This cherubic little boy….

had a teddy bear called Little Ted, was there a Big Ted? No-one can remember! It may have come from PlaySchool- The Cbeebies for the 70’s generation. I had Selly, an elephant I had from birth, I could not pronounce elephant, so she was my Selly.

So, the story of the cloudburst, in 1978 when I was 4 and Rich was 3 our lovely Mum took us out for a walk. Now we were such blessed children, we lived on Lundy Island until ‘78 and this was our first summer on the mainland but we moved to a hamlet next to a farm so it was still quite wild and we had such great walks. One of our favourite new walks was to the local reservoir which was just about do-able for Rich’s little welly-feet.

On this particular occasion we had insisted on taking Selly and Little Ted, I can remember as clearly as yesterday (if not more so) us showing the ducks to Selly & Little Ted and enjoying seeing the water tumble down from the lower reservoir to the Wilder stream, which runs about 50 metres from where I live now.
As we trundled back Mum pointed out the big dark clouds that were streaming over ten-acre field which was on the hill over the hamlet…….

It started off with a few fat drops of rain and then suddenly as if someone was wringing out the clouds there was a deluge….Rich and I were so surprised and shocked, it was quite scary. But Mum took us through it so well; she has such natural people skills and you should have seen her. She made it so exciting rather than scary.
"Oh it’s a cloudburst" she said, "the clouds are so full they have burst on us, lets run and jump in it." "This is what wellies are for."
I remember rushing along in it holding Mum's hand in one hand and Selly in the other and the feel of the water dripping off my eyebrows and eyelashes and being so taken by the imagery of a new word, cloudburst. I have experienced cloudbursts a few times over the years and I am instantly transported back to that red welly walk.

Well we were drenched, not just damp but soaked.
Mum did what any Mum would do and hustled us indoors with towels, lit the fire (we had a real one) and whilst she was running the bath and making hot choc got us to strip off to pants and vests and sit in front of the fire in our dressing gowns.
Being the good girl I am, I went out to the kitchen to see if I could help-more likely looking to see if there were any biscuits to go with the hot choc
Mum suddenly said “What’s that smell?”
Then “Oh God, what’s he burning?”
A mad wet rush of wet Mummy in wet, drippy clothes dashing past me to the lounge.
Me scarpering after her…
Where we found Little Ted’s feet smouldering in the fire.
“He was cold Mummy, I wanted to warm his feet up”
Poor Little Ted, his feet had melted and the fibres fused into plasticky brownness.
Little Ted wears a pair of Rich’s little brown patterned socks to this day to hide his poor little feet.

Rich meant well; and my goodness there are more tales to tell of well-meaning out-doing sense over the years.
This story was inspired by Sian’s Story-telling Sunday series that she has hosted this year.
I hope She runs it again another year.
Please pop over to From High In The Sky if you haven’t arrived from there to see this months stories. There is always a lot of cracking stories to read.