Petrol indeed
Chivers Corner is a wonderfully named petrol station in Burry Port. And as I have with every part of my hometown, I have a story about the station. A few in fact come to think about it but one stands out like the red topped lighthouse which greets mariners every day. I was around eight years old and very adventurous, and I remember my parents deciding to take my brother and I to Porthcawl fair. An announcment like this was enough to excite children until they were filled with an almost uncontrollable amount of energy. And so it was with me. The family car pulled in to the Chiver's Corner forecourt to fill up with petrol for the journey and this prompted me to get out to stretch my legs (eventhough we'd barely gone a mile). Years ago the petrol station had a small shop which sold Smurphs and toy cars and it had a concrete walkway which went around the back of the place. This narrow path jutted out over a drop of around 12ft, the bottom wild with sharp rocks, nettles and thorns. Hardly a soft landing.
Now owing to my wreckless streak I thought it would be a good idea to climb over the metal railing and hang from my fingertips over this prickly and quite frankly dangerous area. Over I went and just as I lowered myself down my brother joined me to see what I was doing. In this I was fortunate because after I had been dangling for a minute, the grit from the path began biting into the flesh of my fingers, and as I looked below, I could tell that dropping into the debris underneath was going to result in a nasty injury.
So I began yelling at my brother to fetch our father to help me up. Of course he was busy filling the car up so I had had to wait, clinging painfully for life. It might have been 12ft but it looked way more than that to me at the time. I remember glancing down, trying to work out what type of injury I was likely to sustain if I let go. Broken ankle, lacerated shins, bruised legs, shattered knees, mangled toes. There was no end to the agonies I conjured up in my increasingly terrified mind.
When the old man who owned the gargage at the time walked around the corner to come to my aid, my arms felt like they had been pulverised by a steamroller and I gritted a smile from my mouth because by now Id been hanging for something like seven or eight long minutes. After pulling me up I offered my heartfelt thanks and we went on our way to Porthcawl with me looking quite sheepish on the back seat it has to be said. Ego and a devil-may-care attitude brews strange feelings in a young, and not so young mind.
