I THOUGHT I DETECTED RATHER A HIGH DROP... (My poem about my father's escapade in Mawgan Porth, Cornwall. He would have been 106 years old today...)

 I Thought I Detected Rather A High Drop…

Slumbering,

Uncomfortable, but wondering, hoping

The others would be sleeping…

Then a sudden crash reverberated

On the caravan’s floor

And loudly against the thin and flimsy walls,

For in keeping

With my father’s delicate condition,

His pride had preceded one of his falls.

Floundering,

Irritable, but wondering, fearing

The worst from his wandering…

Then a sudden silence aggravated,

As I reached a door

But nowhere between the slim and flimsy walls

Was he meandering,

For my father had disappeared

And was unresponsive to my whispered calls…

I found him stumbling barefoot about the site,

His red underpants discernible in the night;

I helped him back inside the caravan, shaken

And asked what route his shaky legs had taken:

Needing the loo, he’d opened one exit door,

No steps to descend, so he’d crashed to the floor.

He’d stood and strolled away in his scarlet briefs,

Furtive, a prowler, the most naked of thieves…

I could envisage the headlines in The Sun to come,
‘Red Pantman Moons His Wrinkled White Bum…’

Thus I hurried him inside, closed the main door, 

He was surely bruised but didn’t appear to be sore.

I showed him the route from his room to the loo

But he really, truly still hadn’t a clue…

He was shown the correct exit door he should use

And blocked up the other with a pile of our shoes;

Then he stood in his Y-Fronts, naked on top

And quipped: “I thought I detected rather a high drop…” 

Pete Ray…

This happened to my dad.

There were two outside doors but only one had a set of steps to aid access to the caravan. We only used the door with the steps… 

The following evening, I wrote labels on all the doors, so that he wouldn’t wander into the wrong rooms, also labels on the toilet door and the two outside doors. 

Then I went a little crazy and labelled anything I could: the mirror, the taps, the TV, etc. This caused some mirth. 

I even left the loo door open for him to walk straight through during the night.

However, there was a crash at around 5am the following morning.

He had made a move for the toilet but his feet had become wrapped inside his duvet and he had tripped, banged his head on the floor and knocked himself out…

Unbelievable…

An ambulance arrived and he spent the morning in Truro Hospital, continually getting out of bed to answer the 

telephone, which sounded like his own at home…

He recovered…

He would have been 106 years old today...