A trip down memory lane

I suppose everyone looks back on their old home ground with deep if sometimes conflicting emotions, and this is how remember West Surrey, where I was born and raised. My patch is only 30 miles from London, but has many large areas of land which have remained unchanged for thousands of years. Frensham Common is one such place.

A few square miles of sandy, acidic soil, a sparse forest of conifers and two large lakes which, in typical British understatement, are referred to as 'ponds'. This is the venue I chose for my first acid trip.

I was about 20 years old and thought it was high time I found out what LSD was all about. A friend of mine lived in a small cottage in Frensham, and one Saturday afternoon I turned up unannounced (as was the custom in those days) and knocked on her door. When she opened it, my first words to her were, "Hello. I've taken a tab of acid."

I have come to realise that I was insufferably rude when I was younger, but arriving on her doorstep expecting to be chaperoned through a self-inflicted, life-changing experience topped arriving unannounced by a long way. I forced her to take responsibility for me as a more experienced woman, and I still suffer pangs of guilt over it.

She looked at me for a moment, then I saw the weary resignation in her face as she understood that her whole Saturday was to be spent holding my hand and watching out for me. I was all about me.

She put on a pair of boots and we headed for the Common. Coming toward us on the sandy path were a tweedy couple with an old and friendly labrador dog. This dog looked as pleased to see me as I was to see it. It was wagging its tail and I was patting it affectionately as the elderly couple looked on with smiles on their faces. The five of us were stood on the path, three patiently waiting for the chance meeting to come to a natural conclusion when I decided that simply patting the dog was not enough.

I got down on my knees and started hugging it as the other three humans began to get a bit worried. Soon, the dog and I were rolling around in the dirt, laughing and barking as my friend tried to pull us apart. She explained to the dog's owners that I had some sort of mental problem and she was taking me for a walk in the fresh air that day. She wasn't really lying. Eventually I stood up and walked away. The dog and I exchanged backward glances.

About half a mile in, the acid properly took hold and I came to the sudden realisation that time had not only stood still, it had stopped completely. I looked up at the clouds which were supposed to be racing along on a strong breeze, but they were not moving. I waited for them to go on their way but they were frozen in space. I started to panic. All I could think of to kick-start time was to run as fast as I could to get the Earth to spin again.

Explaining why I was about to run away, I told her that time had stopped and I had to start it again, then I took off. She began shouting after me to stop, but I took no notice. I had a job to do.

She eventually caught up with me after I had stopped to examine a dead blackbird which was lying on the side of the path.

As I looked, I could see the feathers gently undulating and I understood that it must have had hundreds of maggots eating away inside it. I looked up at her and said, "It's alive", meaning it was alive with maggots.

"No it's not", she said, "It's dead. Now leave it and come away." Somehow I couldn't explain what I really meant, so let the misunderstanding go.

After several more hours of this sort of thing, we decided to visit a friend who lived nearby. I think she needed some moral support, poor thing.

We were let into the house and went to a room where a girl was watching an old film of the liberation of Berlin during WW2. The film was taken from an upper floor of a bombed-out building, and a tall man in a nazi uniform was trying to kick an American G.I. in the arse. The G.I. casually took out his Colt 45 and shot the man dead before walking away. Tea was brought in to us and I began to feel a bit more normal.

The girl watching the film turned out to be the daughter of one of the Generals who were running Greece at the time. I began to flirt with her and her dark, brown eyes. She flirted back and I realised I was at home at last.

How could things ever be the same again?