Guy Mitchell

2nd draft

23 June 2003

The Camel

As a child my father worked hard and seemed to be constantly at work. My mother enjoyed various activities set up by the WI and parish society and every Friday my mother went to sewing club. I would stay at my grandfather’s house. He was jolly but a slightly bewildered aging man.  He had been an officer in the Great War who got shot in the leg during his time in Belgium and received many and silver and gold medals that he cherished but would not tell me what they were for. He lived alone in a grand Edwardian Mansion but only used three rooms.  I barely saw him while I was there. He would sit in the living room and read a book for five minutes after which he would fall asleep.

I would run through the long corridors upsetting dust that had not been touched for twenty years. Every now and then pushing open a heavy door, listing to the creek, trying not to breath in immediately for the amount of dust. I held the door open worried that it might close behind me and that I would not be able to open it again. I would look around for the brass rim of the light switch. I would flick it down and the bare bulb would flick on for a moment. I would see the room and then it would flick out of sight and then back in. The next moment it would go out.  This went on until the bulb had made up its mind whether to stay on or keep itself off. If off then I would wonder off not particularly upset, as I knew there were other rooms to explore.

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If it stayed on, however, then I would see the room and the relics of my grandfather’s youth, guns and bayonets stuck to the wall or just left on the bed. Paintings the same, often just left on the floor. I once found an easel with a half done piece of work left half done. It had obviously been forgotten about a long time ago due to the dust resting and dulling on yellows, oranges and blues which looked like a Cornish beach scene. Next to the easel lay a pallet of dried up oil paints with a brush now ...

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