Railway safety.
Apr. 18th, 2013 01:15 pmOne of my more unusual memories of childhood is of a nightmare that I had. Like most childhood memories, it's quite dim and distant now, but I distinctly remember having a dream in which a school held its sports day on some railway lines. The children would run up and down the lines, and periodically a train would come along and squash some of them. It was quite a graphic dream - there was lots of blood, and there were weeping children and doctors trying to find who owned which leg and so forth. It's rare I remember much about my dreams, but this one clearly made an impression as I can remember it pretty clearly even now.
Anyway, after decades of thinking this had just been a juvenile nightmare, I discover that it wasn't a dream at all - it was in fact a safety film which I had been shown at school warning me of the dangers of playing on the railway. This must have been when I was about seven, remember. I mean, if you showed seven-year-olds films like this at school now, I'm pretty confident that someone would be arrested. Certainly, there'd be some harsh words about it on Twitter.
Anyway, after decades of thinking this had just been a juvenile nightmare, I discover that it wasn't a dream at all - it was in fact a safety film which I had been shown at school warning me of the dangers of playing on the railway. This must have been when I was about seven, remember. I mean, if you showed seven-year-olds films like this at school now, I'm pretty confident that someone would be arrested. Certainly, there'd be some harsh words about it on Twitter.