Read One Young Fool in Dorset for Free Online

tired of queuing, they will
definitely want to buy my drinks. Ach, I can’t understand
why nobody has thought of it before!”
    “Are you sure you don’t need a licence?” asked my
father mildly.
    “ Ach, who would stop me selling a few cans of
drink?”
    My father made her a tray that she could carry, like
cinema ice cream sellers, and the next hot weekend she loaded Ivy
with cans of Coke. With a crunching of gears and cloud of exhaust
fumes, she set off towards Studland.
    I don’t know exactly what went wrong. Perhaps the
police put a stop to her activities as she had no licence. Or
perhaps nobody wanted to buy warm Coca-Cola. Whatever the reason, I
do know that she arrived home in a bad mood and with almost the
same number of cans she had taken. She stacked the unopened crates
of drinks in the garage, where they remained for years.
    I once asked her if we could have one.
    “Of course not,” she said. “ Ach, that would
be drinking the profits.”
    Summer was drawing to a close, although Dorset was
still packed with tourists. Hardly surprising as it is a
particularly beautiful county with the most sunshine hours in
England and more than its fair share of castles, stately homes,
stunning coastline and ancient historical sites. My mother knew how
attractive Dorset is to visitors, and predictably came up with
another money-spinner.
    “The giant!” she said one day at breakfast.
“ Ja, the giant with the massive erection.”
    My father coughed. We kids had no idea what she was
talking about and carried on munching our toast, but my father
stared at her. Then he hazarded a guess.
    “Are you talking about the Cerne Abbas giant?”
    The Cerne
Abbas Giant
    “Of course! I will take the kids to Chesil beach and
we will collect suitable flat white stones. Then I will paint the
Cerne Abbas giant on the stones and ask the tourist shops to sell
them for me. They will sell like hot cakes! Ach, I can’t
understand why nobody has thought of it before!”
    Near the village of Cerne Abbas is a particular
hill. Centuries ago, the outline of a huge, well-endowed, naked man
holding a knobbly club was carved out of the chalk hillside and can
be seen for miles. Exactly how old the figure is, nobody is
absolutely sure. It was mentioned in the 17th century but many
historians believe it is much older; perhaps Medieval, or Roman, or
Saxon, and some kind of fertility symbol.
    The giant now belongs to the National Trust who
maintain it. Renowned for his remarkable, eye-popping manhood, the
Cerne Abbas giant is a huge tourist attraction. Hardly surprising
that visitors flock to see it, as it must be Britain’s most famous
phallus. The giant’s pride and joy measures some 11 metres (36
feet) high. Postcards of the giant in all his glory are the only
‘indecent’ photographs that can be sent through the English Post
Office.
    “Come on! We are going to collect stones,” announced
my mother.
    We kids clambered into the back of Ivy and clung on
as my mother crunched the gears and we set off.
    “Chesil beach, here we come!” we shouted over the
engine noise as Ivy bucked away, farting exhaust fumes along
Dorset’s country lanes.
    Chesil beach has always fascinated me. It has been
the scene of many a shipwreck and was a favourite port for
smugglers, perhaps because of a unique feature. The shingle at the
north-west end is pea-sized, but as one walks to the south-east
end, the shingle gradually grows in size, until it is the size of
oranges. It is said that smugglers who arrived in the dead of night
without lights knew exactly where they were, just by the size of
the shingle.
    The beach is famous now, thanks to the 2007 novel, On Chesil Beach, but was also named by Thomas Hardy as ‘Dead
Man’s Bay’ because shipwrecks claimed so many lives.
    We collected stones from the beach, and it turned
out to be much less fun than we thought it would be. My mother was
picky, and every stone we offered her had to pass the quality
test.
    “ Ach,