Back in Time

By Ernest Merchant

Ernest and Larry Marchant

Evening Argus

Ernest Marchant, aged about 20, with mum Ethel in the garden of 4 Twineham Road, c1958

Lilian Marchant (sister)

In 1976 in the winter time just looking for bits of firewood for the fire, I took my 7-year old son Larry with me, and another young lad who lived up the road. As I was walking round the back of the buildings, I heard this voice calling out "I don't like it here". I came back round to the front and asked the other young boy where my son was. He said he didn't know where he was. But I could hear this voice, so I walked round, trying to find out where it was coming from because I couldn't see him. I looked down and I saw a piece of door laying on the ground. I could hear his voice calling, so I lifted up the door and there he was looking up at me, saying I don't like it down here!". He had fallen down a drain that must have been about 8 or 10 feet deep, lucky there was no water in it.  I laid on the floor and reached right down, grabbed hold of his shoulders and pulled him out clear. I looked at him: "Are you hurt?" and he said, "No, I want to go home". When we got home, he had dirty shoes so I took his shoes and trousers off to see if he had hurt his legs, but there wasn't a mark on him.

The next day, my daughter came home from school and said the teacher had heard about it and when I came home with him after school there was a knock at the door and the Evening Argus reporter was there! She asked me whereabouts the drain was. I explained that I was only getting firewood and shouldn't have been there. She said "The site looks dangerous so I want you to take your boy over and have some photographs taken over there. For safety reasons, it should be fenced off". And that's what they did in the end.