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Hi everyone I would have to say that I seem to have a fairly high threshold of pain both physically and emotionally and I certainly have had my fair share of both in  my life so far. 

When I grew up as a boy we lived in McKenzie St Wonthaggi . I lived with my family and our house was at the site of the current Evan’s petroleum service station. 

The town was a lot smaller back then and the adjacent Outlook Drive and the golf course housing estate was also completely non existent and all the way up to near the Cyclone factory was just bush and sand dunes . 

The bush wasn’t just an important part of my life but it also was for all of my adjacent neighbours and our friends alike , some of my closest neighbours were the Pryors, the Cargills , Jacksons and the Littles. 

We all used and enjoyed the bush land for lots of things as we all grew up with activities including bonfires for guyforks  night , motorbike riding , neighbourhood War play  , cubby hut building , bird nesting and all sorts of outdoor adventures, 

as back in the day we weren’t allowed to be inside the house except for at mealtimes , so we were left to our own devises outside unless it was raining , every day. 

I think for this story that I was  at somewhere at that time of around 10 years old. 

So one fine day me and my little sister Megan got together with a next door neighbour Brad , 

now Brad was a little bit older and a bit different, not in a bad way but he was an only child and sadly never allowed to have any friends visit his house as his mum was  really quite strict on cleanliness and germs and she even had all of the furniture inside her house covered over with white sheets , so they wouldn’t get dirty , as I had seen this  for myself first hand from the open front door once , while  for some reason I was there one day meeting up with Brad . 

So you could say he may have had a few issues. 

We all decided to venture out into the bush together to make a secret underground cubby hut , 

I’m not sure if I’d watched Hogans Hero’s to much and got the idea there, and then for some reason for a spot we went to the bush that was behind Brads house instead to build it , which was over the other side of the big storm water drain that ran through the bush , and nearer the golf course and it seemed to us three that it was the perfect  place for our mission . 

We took a few garden digging tools with us and we also dragged along a few sheets of rusty old iron  that we had scrounged up to be used  on the cubby for the roof . 

I didn’t think anything of it but Brad must have brought along some rags for him to wipe  any dirt and germs off his hands and  to stay clean. 

So we found a great site not that far in from the drain but a fair way from home. 

So we then all began to clear the chosen site from the standing six foot tee tree ,  when done then we marked out the size of our new hut on the ground and we all started digging away at all the loose dirt and then down deeper into the hard clay , and it was pretty tough going and I thought in my head at some stage that I’d hate to be a grave digger at this pace.

We spread the excess dirt and clay out around the edges of the pit that now was beginning to get fairly deep and I would say it was  about a foot deep by now . 

So I must have hit a hard bit or a tree root in  one corner so I got down into the pit with my pick , and started digging away at it again . 

Then for some reason  I just stopped and I looked up and in that split second I saw Bradley swinging with what I thought and was a mattock but it was later said that it was an old axe , 

It was aimed and coming strait at my head and he brought it down at full force with a clean connection and massive blow to my scull. 

I guess what I saw next was probably a few stars , I was stunned , with a massive split on my head and bleeding  out more than someone at their local blood bank . 

Megan started crying loudly and then for some reason things settled and for a minute everything stopped and was silent . 

I was conscious and 

I was quite aware of what had just happened and I was feeling a fair bit of pain  and a bit dizzy now to go with it.

I couldn’t believe that I knew 100% that Brad had hit me completely on purpose  and as hard as he could , as I caught a look his eye at the time and there was no mistake. 

It was no accident. 

When the dust settled and they both saw just how much blood was coming out of my head , they started to panic then they both applied first aid as best as they could , and with Brads  used dirty rags  they went out to the drain and wet them there with the water running in it and came back to me and put the wet dirty rags on my head to  try to stop the bleeding. 

It was early afternoon and me and Megan  both decided that we couldn’t go home , as I thought that mum would kill me , 

so we decided to stay put and to try and think of a better plan . 

I think that Brad had already left us and gone home because he was frightened himself to get home late . 

I had a bit of a headache for the afternoon and by nightfall mum sent my other two older sisters out to find us , as we could hear Vicki and Debbie coming closer calling out our names in the bush. 

When they got right near us  Megan came out of the bushes and met them and then she told them what had happened , and they both came in to get me out and they then helped me walk home as I was just a bit weak from everything that had happened. 

To my surprise when we got home mum wasn’t angry at all instead she was quite concerned and she took me straight up to the casualty for the hundredth time for another set of stitchers, 

I remember thinking that the anaesthetic needle the doctor had put inside the massive cut on my head too many times actually hurt worse and stung me more than the blow that caused it. 

So to top it off the doctor then gave me another tetanus needle in my arm . 

So l was all sewn up and a fair bit balder  but that didn’t matter as I had a skinhead already sobit wasn’t that noticeable and then I was let go home. 

I don’t think that the incident actually slowed me down much at all and by the next day I was back out in the bush on a new adventure. 

Ps we never did go back and finish that underground cubby hut and a few years later  on my own I went back to the site for a look and it was still there pit and all and exactly the same except for weed growth , 

So all the rest of the cubby’s from then on we ever built were all above ground and some were thrown together as tree houses . 

And Brad didn’t get off scott  free as he  soon had to deal with the wrath of my older sisters . 

Cheers 

Curlyg