Writing for Fun
February 2023
Witness - Jenni Bowers
It was a hot sunny lunchtime one day in 1964, so my 2 friends and I took our sandwiches and headed for the Cliffs Gardens, lucky enough to work in such a nice area. Employed by a large insurance company, Willis, Faber and Dumas, our office was almost at the top of the cliffs overlooking Thames Estuary Yacht club, so there would be plenty to amuse us for our wonderful lunchtime hour.
Finishing my sandwich, I stood up and told Michelle and Pauline that I’d go and buy us ice-creams from the large Italian cafe down on the seafront – so, moving quite quickly I traversed the winding path down to the pavement, avoiding children on scooters, roller skates, bikes and chasing each other amongst the shrubbery, lovely to see so many other happy sun-seekers picnicking on the cliffs too. Also admiring the gardens, which were beautiful in the summer, with lots of colourful bedding plants. The yacht club seemed busy and as it was the school summer holidays there were many youngsters enjoying a regatta, canoeing and Kayaking, swimming and splashing, screams and laughter filled the air.
Reaching the pavement, I joined the long queue for the famous, local vanilla cornets – but suddenly I noticed a middle-aged lady totter from the kerb into the path of a slow-moving MG! She fell onto the road just as the car reached her, with squealing brakes the driver had tried to stop before he collided with her. She had fainted but soon a crowd of people surrounded the area and police and ambulance were summoned from the cafe’s telephone (no mobiles then).
I didn’t know what to do, I still hadn’t purchased the ice-creams for my friends and it was almost time to return to work, however, the young bobby who’d arrived first was asking for witnesses – deciding that I couldn’t let the poor car driver take the blame and perhaps lose his licence, I stepped forward and gave my statement.
‘The lady seemed to faint constable and just fell off the pavement in front of the car’. I heard another lady and a gentleman agreed with my statement but others, who were not sure, began to argue.
‘I have to go back to work, here’s my address’ – the policeman allowed me to go and get the ice-creams and return to my friends. We arrived back at work just in time for Mr Jones (who used to sit in a glass office watching the typing pool), look at his watch and frown. ‘Oh no, we’re in trouble now,’ I thought. However, he believed our story (the friends backed up my explanation) and told us to ‘not let it happen again!’. Well, clearly we all hoped not too and I was never called to a court to repeat my witness account, but did read in the local paper that indeed a lady had been taken ill on the seafront that day and it was confirmed she suffered from angina, regularly experiencing moments of dizziness.