It was never there.......then.

Having a bath was a bit of a performance. There was no bathroom. The toilet was in an outside falling down shed. You wiped your bum on newspaper. This was the 50s after all. No shower of course, they weren't invented until the 80s or something, and until then you made to with a rubber hose attached to the bath taps. Anyway, enough of the history of bathrooms.....back to 'having a bath'.

The kitchen contained something, which a first glance, looked like a biggish box with a worktop attached to the wall. Ingeniously, whenever a bath was called for, the top hinged upwards to reveal a rather respectably sized 'bath'. No taps of course, no plumbing to it. You filled it from the cold taps at the kitchen sink, which, conveniently, was in the same room. If it was winter you could fill a few pans of water and heat them up at the cooker and you, carefully, added those to the mix.

All set.

And so it was one time when us five kids and mum and dad had driven up to Auntie Lally's house [her name was Zilpha really, but my oldest sister could never pronounce that and so she got to be called Lally by all of us following on]. It was a bit of a drive for my dad from Coventry to Wrexham in the Morris Oxford, and

not easy I'm sure, with 5 kids squashed into a back seat designed

for two. We made the trip a couple of times a year, and stayed for a week or so, in that tiny house that just about fitted Aunty Lally, Uncle Dai and Uncle Ron [there's another story there, but I'll save that for another time].

I'm getting off-topic.

Back to the bath.

I was already a rather nervous child but that day the main topic of conversation had been the problem of rats. They were 'everywhere' it seemed. They were 'a menace' and 'dangerous'. They had been known to 'bite the baby’s toes' as they lay innocently in their cradles. It was the talk of the village, and 'something had to be done'. I’d overheard all this talk whilst trying my best not to. Rats were awful things, I picked up that much whilst covering my ears with my hands whenever the topic came up between the adults [which was often]. I was on the lookout for them all the time, those nasty creatures, as big as a cat, with sharp long fangs just ready and waiting to sink into an innocent 6 year old’s arm or leg [probably

leg, I thought, or ankle].

I was, generally, all-round, terrified.

It was my turn to be first in the bath. We all went in one after the other, a production line of filthy kids who were pushed out of the house to play and not allowed to come back in until dinner time, no matter the weather. Those long days seem alien now; there’s probably some health and safety / child abuse laws against letting

your children play outside, especially in the freezing cold. We didn’t care, in fact we loved it and we could and did get up to all sorts of mischief.

Back to the bath.

I was in. It was lovely. The water was exactly the right temperature, not too hot, not too cold [thanks mum!]. And it was clean, because I was first in. What a treat.

“Right, you stay there, give yourself a good scrub” handing me an old washcloth and a dried up piece of hard soap. And with that mum left the kitchen / bathroom, going into the only other downstairs room to stare at that wondrous thing, the 12-inch tele [black and white, no such thing as colour in those days].

I wallowed. It was perfect. I’d never been first in the bath before.

But…..

I heard a noise that wasn’t meant to be there. Faint to begin with, getting louder every second. Leaves rustling? That didn’t fit. I wasn't outside. Just the wind blowing? In my 6 year old brain I went through a few possibilities, trying to match what I was hearing to what I knew, the sounds that I was familiar with.

Nothing worked.

But then I knew.

Those long rat claws scratching, scratching, trying to get at me, at my 6 year old arms and legs, toes and fingers, my eyes, my ears. Biting me, eating at my plump toes and fingers, feeding on me. And me, naked in the bath, nothing to protect me. I was going to either die straightaway, eaten away, or I was going to catch some

horrible rat-disease which would kill me [it might take a bit longer, that’s all, same ending].

I screamed. I don’t know how I managed it. I felt frozen with fear but managed ‘Rat, it’s a rat!’

Uncles to the rescue! The next few minutes were chaotic. Lots of shouting, furniture scraping, hands scrabbling, kitchen knives [and forks] at the ready to kill the nasty dangerous creature.

Me, scooped out the bath and carried to safety, wrapped in an old towel, on the comfort of mum’s knee, allowed to look at the tele. I calmed down, slowly, slowly.

The uncles returning.

“Well?’ [this from Lally]

 “ Nowt, no rat” [Dai]

“ Nowt there” [Ron]

I never believed them. That rat was coming to get me. I knew it, I knew it. It was just waiting for its chance. I had to be alert, at the ready, watchful for those beady eyes, those sharp teeth hungry for human flesh, those nasty dangerous animals hiding in sheds at the bottom of the garden, or in the attics of old houses, or new houses, or the cellars of each of those. Always be on the look-out, never relax your efforts. Be ready to grab your weapon. Don't leave any doors or windows open, ever. Watch out for anything that doesn't fit. Check your car before you get in it, under the footwell, in the glove compartment, in the boot among the shopping bags, check the engine; they will chew their way through cables. Behind the fridge, move it and see. Under the bed, in the bed, in all those cozy places that the demons will like to hide. Don't drop your guard.

It's just a matter of time.