trick75
The boy is walking down to Bamburgh castle. He looks young, and the castle looks very far away; but it will wait for him, just as it has waited for centuries. There’s been a structure at Bamburgh for more than 2000 years, and it will stand a while longer. I wonder if the boy even knows about Vikings yet.
When my dad was a child he’d walk to another castle; Carreg Cennen, hundreds of miles from Bamburgh. King Edward I, the King who conquered Wales, had castles like Carreg Cennen built. Dad would hike there, with his little brother, and some neighbour kids. It must have taken them hours to cross the muddy fields between their colliery town and the ancient fortress ruins. Later, he had a recurring dream, that he would open his bedroom window and fly to the castle’s craggy hilltop.
I visited when I was a girl, and decades later took my children there. My eldest was maybe six years old, and even though we had no torch, I took her hand and led her over windowless rough ground, to the total darkness of a limestone cave in the very belly of the fortress. A teenager now, she grins as she remembers the adventure.
Look at this boy, he has such an awfully long way to go; but I have never known a child who would refuse a walk to a castle, even if in dreams they will fly there.
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