Crocodile tears

Chapter one: Great homer street

I was ten years old and running down Great Homer Street at great speed clutching a note from school about the forth coming trip to Chester Zoo.

Mum took the note and read it out loud to my Nan who visited our house every Friday ....Nan listened with interest and pulled out her purse and gave me a half crown and told me to buy myself some sweets for the trip....I smiled to myself as I new Nan would never let me down...Dad was out of work at the time and Mum was really struggling to even pay the rent let alone pay for a school trip to Chester Zoo.

Mum and Dad found the money somehow to pay for the trip and I found myself sitting on a big brightly painted coach clutching the half crown my lovely Nan had given me...I new my Nan would do without something so that I would have some spending money and no matter how hard you tried to give it her back she would not take it....so I made up my mind to buy Nan something really special from the gift shop when we got to Chester Zoo.

The coach pulled up at the Zoo car park and a noisey bunch of excited school kids charged forward before being restrained by some worried looking teachers.

The animals seemed better behaved than this bunch of scruffy urchins as we charged from cage to cage...teasing the monkeys...throwing things at the lions and laughing as the gorrillas made threatening gestures at us all.

We all finally arrived at the gift shop and each of us produced our spending money...most of the kids had a pound or a ten bob note and swooped on the sweet counter and proceeded to buy every sweet in sight.

I on the other hand found myself standing on my own in the corner of the shop contemplating what I could buy my lovely Nan...I wanted to buy her something that would show her just how much I loved her.

I looked around to see what my 2s 6p would buy.... and there it was on the second shelf...A beautiful ceramic Crocodile with a mercury temperature guage on its back....it was the most fantastic thing I had ever seen.

I reached up and took my crocodile down from the shelf and proudly marched thru the sweet eating crunching munching mob of school friends and placed it on the counter..."That will be 2s 11p please " said the shop assistant.