When I was about 6 or 7 years old, we lived in a house on the outskirts of Port Sunlight village, 156 New Chester Road to be exact. To the rear of the house were a set of garden allotments, which were a great playground for children of my age. We got up to all sorts of mischief, which generally resulted in a telling off by one or more of the gardeners.
On one particular day, my younger brother Williams’ pram was parked at the back of the house while he was indoors for his afternoon sleep. I thought that he would not mind if I borrowed the pram for a while. With a few friends we decided to see how many could ride in the pram at the same time. I think that we got seven or eight in the pram or hanging on to the outside. Of course, for this to count as any kind of record the pram must move a certain distance, so I pushed the pram a couple of yards. As the road was slightly inclined, I quickly lost control. In a state of panic, I pulled the brake, which resulted in the pram stopping immediately. It was at this instant that the practicalities of Newtonian mechanics became apparent to me, i.e., a body in motion will continue unchanged unless a force is applied to cause a change. The result was that while the pram stopped, my friends inside spilled out of the front into a heap on the road. Fortunately, there were no broken bones, but there were a number of cuts and bruises, and I had to explain to my mum how the pram got so scratched.
The next day, at school, the headmaster asked what had happened as a large portion of the front row in assembly ware either plasters or bandages. There were even a couple of black eyes. I don’t have a photo from the actual event, but this grainy picture shows my class a couple of years later. Maybe somebody remembers.
