I watched him pull off his trousers hunker down in the nettles
then hobble from patch to patch for fresh stings my dad said
it was for his arthritis he added

the comics I read always had stories about the war
I couldn’t imagine what the war was like
my dad never talked about it but my mum told me and my sisters stories
not about the fighting but about ploughing and cutting hay with horses because there were no men to help my granda work the land
she had done that after school anyway from she was 13
she told us also about buying geese to eat the barley because there were no men to harvest the crop and about keeping rabbits for meat because of rationing

while I couldn’t imagine the war I could imagine gunfire from watching my dad shoot crows during lambing season so they wouldn’t peck out the eyes of the new-born
I could also imagine how he dispatched the rabbits when it was time to eat as I had watched how he euthanised one we found infected with myxomatosis and had tumours and ulcers that had eaten its eyes:
finger and thumb around the neck quick twist push and pull and death was instant
its better for it he said it would just hop about in pain until a fox got it and that might be days

I tried to imagine what being blind was like by closing my eyes when riding my bicycle on a straight bit of road
at first I would count to ten peek where I was correct course and count again working up to counting to thirty without peeking then doing so at full speed
I liked the jeopardy
eventually I could freewheel down the farm lane with eyes shut navigating by familiar patterns of vibration, the drag of ruts rain had made in the quarry dust and the shadows of trees sensed through closed eyelids
I was 15 when i grew out of it mostly because the big bike i got then just didn’t have the same road feel
I say grew out of it but I still did the 10 count now and again to keep my hand in
jeopardy is addictive

I couldn’t imagine what arthritis was like only that it must be worse than nettle stings
I had no trouble though imagining the eccentric artist hobbling round the nettle patch in his garden with his bare arse in full view of the public road and I remember my dad saying it probably worked because if it didn’t cure it it helped him forget it for a few hours

it was 1961
i was 9 my dad was 39
a bit of us still is