The Big Wave

It was a chilly day in October and I was over in Barrow collecting Amy, my mother's schoolfriend and great friend to all of us. We decided to go for a walk on the beach.

It was a grey day: the waves were all fiddling and small. Not a day that was very photogenic really but of course I had my camera with me and was at the top of the beach taking a photograph of some driftwood when I turned round and saw Amy standing looking at the waves.



Ah! that'll make quite a good picture, I thought, but as I pressed the button I realised that the wave - pictured above - was not as fiddling and small as it looked. As it approached the beach it was obvious that it was was a freak wave that was just going to keep coming and coming up the beach. I shouted to Amy who had already noticed this but had no time to turn round so ran backwards up the beach until the wave caught up with her and knocked her over. While she was running backwards, I was running towards her and by the time I reached her she was already on her feet, apparently unharmed, though very wet.

"Did you get it?" she shouted.

"Get what?"

"The photograph! Of the wave knocking me over!"

"Well, no," I explained, "because by then I was trying to stop you from being drowned, which seemed a distinct possibility."

She was rather disappointed by my lack of photographic evidence of this huge wave doing its worst, and we continued our walk.

When I am over eighty, I hope that I will have the same approach to life as Amy.