Rare photos from an early "mission" with Greg.

It was Greg's birthday yesterday (happy birthday Greg!) and whilst digging around in some old photo albums on my computer I found an album called "Abbots Bromley" which contained the only known photos of some of mine and Greg's old missions. I'd say this is a later one, dating from about 2008 with Greg being 16 and me 18. At this point we had exhausted most of the fields east of Aldridge, so we would hop on the train to Lichfield and set off from there.

We almost always walked away from these missions with  a couple of great stories, and this day was no exception. Early on, just after the photo of Greg sitting on the little bridge, we were chased by a man on a quad bike out of some horse fields. We escaped by climbing over the fence and into another field which he couldn't access (see 4th image)

Soon after that we found ourselves on Seedy Mill Golf course. A year prior we had somehow sneaked into the clubhouse and then into the spa, rolling up our tracky bottoms and using their swimming pool and sauna, before retreating into the steam room after some funny looks. This time we planned to mission our way across the golf course without being seen, but because of the open nature of the course we found ourselves in an exposed ditch where we were seen by golfers. We ran down the fairway where the golfers pinged balls at us from 100 yards. Balls whizzing over our heads, missing us by a couple of metres, the groundsman suddenly turned up in a golf buggy. A portly man in his late 60s, he was very unsympathetic with our situation to begin with, ordering us into the buggy to be escorted off the premises. But me and Greg, cocky and confident, but respectful, we charmed him with our story. We told him we simply loved adventures and exploring, which he admired. We asked him about his long golfing career. "Have you ever got a hole in one??" we asked. "only once, he replied" .."when was that, like June 1973?" we asked cheekily, but with genuine interest. "I'd say around that time, yes!" he replied. We bonded on our ride back to the front entrance, riding the grassy mounds that lined the various holes and the practice area, and by the time he dropped us off, we had a mutual liking for each other. In the 5th image you can see him literally tipping his hat to us as we continued on into the fields.

The next picture is of a massive mansion called Hanch Hall. We could see it from quite far away as we walked through the fields about 5 miles north of Lichfield and decided to head for it. We entered through a wooden gate from a field at the back of the property, and at the time, we didn't really think that we were trespassing because of the sheer size of the place. We thought it might be open to the public. As we walked up the garden we heard a strange banging noise. On closer inspection, we could see that a blackbird was stuck inside one of the greenhouses and was hurting itself in it's panic to get out. We took it upon ourselves to inform the owner, approaching the huge manor house up the Porsche littered drive and knocking on the door. A snooty woman answered. She looked like the woman from "come outside" the 90s kids TV programme. Please google it. "what the hell are you doing on my property?" she said. We told her about the blackbird. "I couldn't give a shit about the blackbird!!" she exclaimed in her posh accent. Venturing outside now she quizzed us on how we got in. "A wooden gate at the back" we said. "sorry, we didn't know we were trespassing" Our attempts to charm her with our philosophies on adventure were met with absolute hostility. "aren't you going to save the bird?" we probed.. but again, no interest. She booted us off her land at the front gate with more hostile words. We threw crab apples at her house with apples from her own tree, and ran north into the fields.

We ended up in Abbots Bromley, a lovely village where Greg's dad picked us up. These missions wouldn't have been possible without Greg's dad, he loved that we were out in the countryside and not on the streets, so hats off to him too.