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Killing Sparrows
I’d never killed anything before. Seen dead animals of course — my siblings’ had guinea pigs that never lived long and I’d lost a rabbit or two but I’d never been party to a killing.
Earl, the lad who lived across the way was 4 years older, 14. He was big, fat really, practical and seemed to be able to drive anything. His father was a construction contractor and regularly had large machinery parked up in their front field.
Sometimes there’d be a JCB, a road-roller or single-cylinder dump truck there too, which he would sometimes let us youngsters have a little ‘go’ on. Irresponsible as it sounds, he was actually very good at supervising us and ensuring we didn’t do anything too silly.
Earl had his own ‘grey Fergie’, a Ferguson TE20 tractor from the 1950’s which he could often be seen driving about. And not just on their field. We used to tie a 4 wheel trolley to the back of it and then loads of us kids would pile onto it while he towed us about.