Pigeon

My Mum loves animals, especially one’s that need some love and care, as this story shows. It is a family tradition to tell this story every Christmas. I was seven years of age.    There is a rather steep road from Seaford to Eastbourne, and in case cars have brakes that don’t work, there is a pebble verge that will stop them instantly. We were driving slowly down this hill, then Mum saw it. An injured pidgeon. Being an environmentalist with an emphasisation on the mental part she just ‘had to pull over’ as she tries to convince us these days.    Much to me, my Dad and my sisters aggravation we pulled over and got out of the car. Mum wrapped her jumper around the pigeon and said ‘we’ll take it to the RSPCA’. ‘Throw it out the fucking window’, I thought. We tried to get back out onto the main road. Oh cock. In Mum’s frantic attempts to rescue the pigeon, she didn’t realise we were in a place that stops cars going 70mph down a steep hill.    We got out of the car shooting glaring looks at Mum and her fucking pigeon. For half an hour we called relatives to see what they could do, and then a miracle happened. We were saved by a bunch of blokes in a tow-truck who asked if we needed help. In an unbelievable turn of events, five minutes later, one bloke was stopping traffic coming up the hill, one was stopping traffic coming down the hill, and our little Vauxhall Corsa was being towed out of the shit by a great big truck. My job was to keep my sister occupied and to stay out of the way. The car finally started to move and was winched out of the pebbles and to the safety of the main road. We made a quick escape after thanking the workmen and headed for home, red-faced and tired.    What happened to the pigeon? Well, as we drove away it flew out the fucking window and got run over.