My Sunday school trip? It was pants!

AS a seven- year- old many years ago I was on a Sunday school day out to Wicksteed Park in kettering, Northants, with my mother, nine-yearold sister and two- yearold brother.

It was a gloriously sunny day and soon my friends and I were having a great time on the amusements.

after a while, we made our way to the paddling pool. Short trousers being the norm, we had to remove only our shoes and socks.

Everything was fine until I decided to step over a rope stretched across the pool. What I didn’t know was that this marked the boundary of the paddling pool and the boating lake.

Immediately I was up to my waist in the deeper water. I managed to scramble out, but with my trousers wringing wet.

While all the shouting and recriminations were going on from my mother, an announcement came over the Tannoy that all the children were to make their way to the pavilion for a buffet lunch. My mother didn’t know what to do about me and the state I was in.

Then came the suggestion from one of the ladies in our party that the only solution, if I wasn’t to miss lunch, was that while my trousers were laid out to dry in the sun, I wore my sister’s knickers and she had her underskirt fastened between her legs with a safety pin.

Reluctantly I agreed — my sister was equally reluctant, but in the end accepted.

I can honestly say that was one of the worst hours and most unenjoyable meals I’ve ever had.

When it was over, I rejoined the rest of the party and then my mother revealed she had suddenly remembered she had a pair of trousers for my younger brother in case he had an accident.

adding to my embarrassment, I was squeezed into these for the next couple of hours — squeezed being the operative word.

Eventually my own trousers were sufficiently dry to be worn and we made our way back to the bus and home.

Many years l ater I visited Wicksteed Park with my grandchildren and re-lived every single minute of that embarrassment. Dennis Woodward,

Coalville, Leics.