Under the crab apple tree

I was reading a posting on our local Facebook community page today, there's a discussion about how Crabtree Road in our village got its name. This sparked memories I thought I'd forgotten of growing up in Cambridgeshire. 

There was a gnarled crab apple tree on a big patch of grass on a housing estate near to my childhood home. Ball games were prohibited because householders didn't want their windows breaking. To us kids it was still a playground and a battlefield. 

The fruits were tiny, rock-hard, and mouth-puckeringly sour (one bite was enough!) One older boy, whose name I can’t even remember now, had a particularly lethal aim. I learned to avoid the green whenever the crab apples were falling in abundance. Hidden in longer grass, they wouldn't even break but roll underfoot and trip you up. There would be a sudden whizz of airborne fruit, and either shouts of laughter as you dodged out of the way or groans as one hit home — it was chaotic, exhilarating, and terrifying all at once.  

I wonder where he is now. Maybe he became a world-class cricketer, honing his yorkers from an early age beneath that very tree. Or maybe he’s just an exceptionally accurate paperclip flicker in an office somewhere. 

Thinking of recent news reports of England’s latest Ashes series, I can’t help but draw a comparison: I’d rather face a rain of crab apples than the bowling in the last Test! Dodging those balls requires all the same reflexes, not to mention courage — and maybe a helmet too. 

It’s funny how a chance comment stirs a small slice of childhood back to the forefront of your memory. Unnamed school friends, impossible-to-eat fruit, and the lessons learned beneath a humble crab apple tree all coming back to me unbidden but most welcome. Despite England losing the Ashes, I enjoyed a smile recalling a lawless patch of grass from decades ago.