When physics proves it’s worth.. 

So there we were, several very short people standing in the tall grass at the end of a large park, below the towering pine tree, which appeared to be mocking us, as it held out kite hungrily in its branches. We gazed up into the swaying limbs, well above the combined height of at least three of the tallest ‘under-tall’ persons present. The tree may have stretched high above us, but it was just a tree. We certainly were small but we were young, thoughtful and resourceful. The tree might have our kite….. but we had stilts!

 

Yes, before you ask, we did try to extricate the kite by the line, recovered after it had escaped from its handlers. We coaxed it gently, we tugged the line, teased it away from various small twigs which snapped and fell to the ground, we jerked at the line which was tangled in the insignificant (or so we thought) branches, yet the tree held the kite firmly. The ‘inconsiderable’ branches held the line, which we pulled at and tugged at and …..snapped.

 

Have you ever noticed that unlike the string or rope that you saw in the cartoons you may have seen at the movies (and back then you used to get cartoons before the main feature… and a short film), have you ever noticed that a long length of string when falling from a height does not tumble neatly in a sequence of ‘nearest to furthest’ when it falls in a pile at your feet, rather it spills outward in a mass of chaotic vertices's, piling one part, then a section towards a further length away in a confusion of swirls and spirals and a ‘clump’ (abbreviation for ‘collected lump’?) is formed. That ‘clump’ lay in the grass and the tree creaked loudly (with laughter I am sure) as we again considered the option of climbing for the kite. As to whom would climb… that became a matter of debate. It was then that inspiration struck!

 

‘I’ll use the stilt’ I stated excitedly. Various heads turned to look at me blankly. The concept of how I intended to use the stilt had not yet entered their slow thoughts. Their thoughts were obviously still entertaining the idea that even standing on the stilt would not create sufficient height, but I had gone well beyond that. I had seen the television broadcast (yes we did have a black and white television in the house for special occasions at this time) of what was the annual spectacle of that wonderful world class presentation ‘The Edinburgh Tattoo’ shown at New Years and I had seen and remembered the incredible highland sport of Caber tossing! 

(continued tomorrow)