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Jump to navigationJump to searchBilly the Kid by Michael Morpurgo (view source)
Revision as of 11:12, 16 October 2015
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''I'm sitting on my favourite park bench, under my favourite tree, a great spreading chestnut tree. And the bees are out. Lovely. I've got a picnic on my lap, and there's a bunch of kids playing football. What more could I want? One of them's good too, skinny like I was, a bit scrawny, little bandy legs, but he leaves them all standing. Like I did, once."''
It is Billy the Kid's eightieth birthday, and as he sits on his favourite park bench, whiling away the hours before the match, he reminisces about his life. And it has been an eventful life. All Billy ever wanted to do was to play football for Chelsea FC. And he did too, before the war. He was good, scoring nine goals in his first season. Word had it that he would be playing for England before the year was out. But then Hitler came. And then war came. And Billy remembered his father's words that he must never go fighting in a war, any war. But Billy's brother Joe, full of fire, joined up to fight Hitler and within the month was dead, a casualty of Dunkirk. Because of Joe's death, Billy broke his promise to his father and joined up too, as a medic. And from then on, nothing went right for Billy. Nothing went right for Billy for a long, long time. The peace and safe harbour of that park bench has been so very hard to find...
