My first trolley was certainly the simplest – and arguably the most fun.
Just a plank and two axles with tiny cast-metal wheels, a significant score around 75 years ago, just three years after the end of World War II (think back to the Covid lockdown) when the country was still struggling to get back on its feet and such consumer goods were hard to come by.
But here we were with the miraculous wheels and plank, with a rope on the front axle and a butter box nailed on the back by my practical farmer’s daughter mother one wet afternoon when I was about five and my little brother three. There’s a picture of us sitting in it somewhere but I haven’t seen it for years.
That plank served us well for a long time and gradually attained wheels with rubber tyres before we graduated to something more free running, utilising large steel lawnmower wheels which made a thunderous noise running down the concrete footpath outside our house and rivalling the occasional distant roar from Eden Park when a try was scored.
On that sloping Mount Eden street, with grass berms between us and the road, we could attain a goodly speed with a safe run-off onto the grass, although it did not always work, especially if freshly mown, and crashes did happen. And at the very bottom of the road, a right-angle bend required a frantic spin round a blind corner. No brakes and – luckily – no pedestrians. • David Waters
Full story in this week’s Gulf News… Out Now!!!
