When I was nineteen years old I approached the taxi rank opposite Ealing Broadway Station<\/p>\n
Due to a football injury I was unable to walk long distances<\/p>\n
I lived about a mile away<\/p>\n
It had begun to rain<\/p>\n
There were two cabs to choose from<\/p>\n
Initially I chose the leading cab<\/p>\n
But then changed my mind<\/p>\n
Which was rare for me as I considered it absurd to change my plans when travelling<\/p>\n
This was only a micro aggression but it could have cost me my life<\/p>\n
I chose the second cab and at about 23:1o that night we hit a streetlight and then a sturdy stone wall at about 51 mph<\/p>\n
If by some miracle I was totally unhurt apart from a cut on my forehead<\/p>\n
The driver who was at the time fifty-four years old suffered serious injuries<\/p>\n
He never drove again and retired a few month later<\/p>\n
After the crash the owners of the house without a wall came out to offer assistance<\/p>\n
They had been awoken by the crash<\/p>\n
The husband on seeing that the driver was badly injured went to his immediate aid<\/p>\n
The woman and her young son took me into a large kitchen<\/p>\n
I was given a tea towel to stem my bleeding<\/p>\n
The son who was about five sat opposite me but did not speak<\/p>\n
I was given a cup of sugary tea<\/p>\n
About ten minutes after the accident a cop entered the kitchen and in all seriousness asked who had been involved in the accident<\/p>\n
The woman was wearing a pair of male pajamas and a Japanese style maroon and gold dressing gown<\/p>\n
The child was wearing a pair of pajamas featuring space rockets and astronauts<\/p>\n
I was wearing a pair of pale jeans and a grey sweatshirt and was covered in blood<\/p>\n
I thought the cop was joking<\/p>\n
After being checked out at the local A\/E I was sent home without stitches and told to rest<\/p>\n
It was during these weary days that I questioned the absurdity of the event<\/p>\n
If I had ridden with my original choice then I would not have crashed<\/p>\n
But it changed me as I ever never alter my travelling plans<\/p>\n
A few years later at an airport in Zagreb I was offered a later flight back to London<\/p>\n
But I made a fuss as I was sure that the second flight would crash<\/p>\n
As it was both flights arrived safely<\/p>\n
I smile now at the absurdity of my fears<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Stephen Masefield\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was nineteen years old I approached the taxi rank opposite Ealing Broadway Station Due to a football injury I was unable to walk long distances I lived about a mile away It had begun to rain There were two cabs to choose from Initially I chose the leading cab But then changed my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9612"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9612"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9616,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9612\/revisions\/9616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}