Flares considered harmful.

[hirez]

It's the seventies. Summer. Blue sky, blue lionels, green grass... And a large, red, expensive tractor mower that belonged to the chap who owned the village of Charlton Abbotts.

Charlton Abbotts church (St. Martin's, Sudeley parish) is tiny. Two names are listed on the roll of honour. The churchyard looks down into the valley and has a terraced lower extension some six feet below the level of the rest of the area surrounding the church.

Since dad was churchwarden, it fell to him to mow the churchyard. This usually meant steaming around the easy bits with the large, red and expensive Wheel Horse driven down from the manor garages and then tidying up the fiddly parts with a walk-behind Hayter.

For whatever reason, he'd allowed me to pilot the tractor mower, so I gleefully navigated around the top half of the churchyard. Carefully avoiding both the gravel path and the marble corners of the larger plots. Eventually, I'd done all I could and needed to swap to the smaller mower. The tractor mower was pointing out downhill over the valley about two yards from the top of the terrace. I tugged the handbrake on, put the centre-mounted gearlever into neutral and swung one leg over the steering wheel to dismount.

I was wearing a particularly Southern Rock pair of flares.

They caught the gearlever and jammed the thing into first.

The large and expensive tractor mower lurched enthusiastically toward the six foot drop.

At times like that, everything really does stand still. The oversaturated green, the cloudless blue sky, the apple tree in the garden of our house across the valley. Self + father sliding on fresh grass cuttings as the tractor mower slowly won the tug of war and inched forward. The front wheels hit the ridgers on the terrace wall and bounced over easily. With a crunch, the chassis settled into them and stalled the engine.

There was a very loud kind of silence.

Dad favoured me with one of his special looks and indicated that I'd better get on with the rest of the job with the Hayter. At least if I had an accident with that, it would only be my fingers or toes and therefore nothing important.

After some struggling, he heaved it off the wall and drove it back up to the manor. We never spoke of the incident again.

I have never worn flares again (until recent 'boot cut' trouser-based innovations), nor have I driven a tractor mower.

Comments

[reddragdiva]

"(until recent 'boot cut' trouser-based innovations)"

HEATHEN! BACKSLIDER!

[steer.livejournal.com]

Ah... excellent. I well remember the joys of the tractor mower -- I spent a happy summer mowing our back field every week and singing the "I like trucking" song from not the nine o'clock news.

[I'm not sure quite what boot-cut trousers are though I see them advertised. Are they trousers you can still take off if you're too pissed to remove your boots? That could be useful.]

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

You should start a blog called What Not to Wear.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

There could be comedy forklift accident video inserts.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Straight-leg strides make you look like an arse (or Jez Clarkson) if you've a beer gut.

Actually, anything bar a sugar beet sack and a bag over one's head makes you look like an arse if you've a beer gut.

[reddragdiva]

"Straight-leg strides make you look like an arse (or Jez Clarkson) if you've a beer gut."

You, like me, are in early middle age, and exercise is in your present.

(I've also discovered that if I build up my arms, my back stops hurting. Considering I've been a hair's breadth from continuous back pain for the last fourteen years, this is really quite the incentive. I stopped for a couple of days recently and it came back. Eeeeek.)

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

Yes. And graphs correlating trouser hip height with percentage use of minor chords in popular music.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

And this:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/steer/200210.html?thread=6745874&style=mine#t6745874

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

Hm. Something like this ?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HOWARD-BOLENS-28-CUT-RIDE-ON-MOWER_W0QQitemZ7723123113QQcategoryZ50377QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Yes. Bugger. Rear engine, too.

You're a very bad person.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

http://www.msaffer.com/flame.html

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Not in the same league by any means: you know the leather jeans with the laces all the way up the sides - I got caught up in an escalator and was frantically hopping on the spot shouting for some bugger to hit the emergency stop while the laces tightened at the top of my leg. I look back and laugh, oh alright, I was laughing right after the incident, but I sure wasn't laughing at the time.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Yus. If'n you're going to work on your stomach muscles, you need to be putting in equal work on your lower back.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

There's no way this isn't going to end in JATO units, is there ?

[liz-lowlife.livejournal.com]

I now have a desire to see all your sepia 70's photos of a mini Hirez in his unfeasibly flappy flares!

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Boot-cut trousers - they're slightly wider at the bottom, to go evenly over a pair of boots without breaking the line off the trouser (hence the name). NOT to be confused with either flares or bell-bottoms.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Thankfully, there are no pictures. I tend to destroy them when I find them, so the parents have taken to hiding the rest.