busker

Tolo Rollover

On return trips to Silverdale, I like to take the Day Road turn off the 305 for a leisurely drive thru dappled side roads back home.

I've a further detour to take in Tolo so I can pass the sad scene of the accident, with its flowers and photos and memorials and, most poignant of all, an arrowed sign noting simply 'Sarah'.

Anna and I took that detour last weekend and I pulled over so we could actually stand over the spot and absorb the implications.

"That must be where she's buried," said Anna, but I suggested too soon and hardly appropriate. More likely where the poor thing was actually found.

It's not a route I knew, but each time I drive those swooping hillocks - to be respected even at a cautious 35mph - I think of those children bombing along that early morning - 80mph? dear Lord - and their shrieks of enjoyment at each 'roofing', and that appalling moment when everything lost control and went topsy-turvy.

I'd cut out the relevant coverage in the local paper for Anna to read some time, but she opened it there and then and read it in silence.

Driving back today, I was struck by how *every* car slowed and how many stopped, parent and child walking back to stand in silence.

Today, I too stopped and joined a father and 2 girls. As I turned to walk away, I looked at the father and his eyes were brimmed with tears which immediately set me off. Wordlessly, we advanced on each other and hugged, much to the baffled stares of what I assume were his daughters.