Whilst at the Westwood Secondary School in the centre of Scarborough behind the railway Station, a new kid joined our class. His name was Christian and he was American, and his father worked at RAF Fylingdales up on the Yorkshire Moors. Fylingdales was always a mystery to us kids, and smelled to us of James Bond, spies, and the like.
Christian was a huge boy and bigger in both height and width than any others of us. In fact, some kids cruelly made unkind remarks when he stumbled into last position in running races at the sports field on top of Oliver's Mount. I can't recollect me being one of the people who made rude remarks (but I could have been), and Christian actually became quite a close friend for a while until he eventually moved away, because he lived in a house at the top of Castle Gardens (presumably rented) at the foot of the Scarborough Castle, and just up the street from where I lived in Princess Terrace.
Christian always had lots of pocket money, and when I visited his house, he's always have some new fangled gadget, such as an a small engine that ran on metholated spirits. He was fun to be around, probably because of his American accent and the fact that his house was filled with stuff I'd never seen before - including a Kayak!
Along with a few other school mates, we ended up in the inner harbour one afternoon, each taking turns in the kayak. None of us had any experience at all with kayaks. The tide was halfway out, so everyone stood on the muddy shoreline of the harbour where, if you were not careful, you could easily be up to one's knees in mud.
After a while, it was my turn to have a go in the kayak. It was also about the time when the rest of my mates started to get a bit bored, and thought that throwing rocks at the Kayak WHILE I WAS IN IT, IN THE CENTRE OF THE HARBOUR, would be a good idea - so they did. This included Christian who said that it didn't matter if the rocks went through the skin of the kayak because they could easily repair it. It didn't occur to anyone present (except me) that I COULDN'T SWIM if the kayak sank. I was quite scared. Even today, the hairs stand up on my arms when I recollect the experience that day. I did, at some point, think that I could have drowned if any one of the rocks had gone straight through the kayak, and sunk it.
The rocks kept coming for what seems like an hour, but in fact was probably only around ten minutes. Most missed the kayak, and many bounced off the its upper skin, but at least half a dozen rocks went through the upper skin. Luckily, none of the rocks went all the way through.
I got back to shore okay, which seemed to be a disappointment to some of my school mates, who I'm sure would have happily have watched the kayak sink.
We went home after that, having had a most eventful afternoon. Christian later told us that his father was a 'little annoyed' about the kayak having holes in it, and a few days later, he showed my the kayak bright and new with no holes. I declined his invitation to go down to the harbour again.
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