THE CHRISTMAS TRAILER

 … Once upon a time there was a little trailer. 

He was only a little trailer. He lived in the barn behind Mr Towers house. 

Mr Tower’s house used to be a farm house.  Most of the land had been sold off for houses long long ago, but Mr Towers had kept a very big garden, full of lovely flowering shrubs and roses and he’d spent a long time making sure that all summer long there were flowers. 

At the back of the house Mr Towers had had a very very big vegetable patch.   He’d grown all his own vegetables. Mr Towers had also had an orchard, full of old apple and pear trees.  Mr Towers had always had plenty of fruit and vegetable to give to his friends and relations.  Sometimes Mr Towers sold the fruit and vegetables to passers-by, leaving them on a little table at the end of the drive, with a box for people to leave money.  Behind the house and down the lane Mr Towers had had a compost heap and a place where sometimes he had bonfires.

In days gone the little trailer had had a lovely time.   In the summer Mr Towers used to fill him up with prunings and bits from the garden and the vegetable patch and tow the little trailer down the lane to the compost heap behind the house.    In the autumn, Mr Towers took the little trailer down the lane to the back of the orchard and filled him up with fruit, taking the little trailer backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards between the orchard and the house until all the fruit was off the trees.  Then later on, some years Mr Towers would fill up the little trailer with things for a bonfire and have a lovely big bonfire, sometimes the grandchildren would come and they would have fireworks as well.

Nowadays the little trailer didn’t go out much.  Mr Towers was older and he couldn’t manage the big garden and the vegetable patch and the allotment anymore.   Mr Towers made the old garden into a lawn and a man came and mowed it in the summer.   He rented out what used to be the vegetable patch and the orchard to a lady and her daughters who had some ponies.  The place where the compost heap and the bonfire used to be were now a little lean-to stable.

For a long time the little trailer had been all by himself in the barn, with just the lawn mower and the rakes and spades, and an old wheelbarrow - and they weren’t very good company.   He used to think about the summer and the lane and Mr Towers and of the happy days he had had, going up and down the lane. 

In the last year, in the winter, a caravan had come to stay in the barn and had kept the little trailer company.   The caravan told him stories about all the different places he’d gone to – the seaside and the forests and the lakes.  He’d been to Wales and to Scotland.  One year he’d even gone on a boat to France, where they drove on the wrong side of the road, and none of the words on the signs made any sense, and where there were some roads which you had to pay to use.

The caravan told the trailer about the roads he’d been on.  Most of the roads the caravan went on were much bigger than the little lane.  Sometimes the roads had three lanes of traffic, all going in the same direction and the cars went ever so fast, although the caravan wasn’t allowed to go as fast as the cars.  

Sometimes the caravan went through busy towns, where there were ever so many other cars.   The caravan didn’t think that towns were meant for caravans.  There were lots of high buildings and so many cars and everyone was always busy busy busy, thinking about where they were going, not about where they were.  Sometimes, even though the caravan was ever so big, people didn’t see him, especially if he came round a corner with a high building, or if there were ever such a lot of other cars.   People seemed to look but not see what was in front of them.

The caravan said that one day he was on an island – he had to explain to the little trailer what an island was - and that even though he was ever such a big caravan, another car and its driver didn’t see him.  The other car tried to get between his own car and him.  If his driver hadn’t been very good he thought that something bad would have happened.  He said people didn’t always see what was right in front of them. 

The caravan said his driver was a very careful driver.  He said his driver knew that other drivers had lots of things to concentrate on when they were driving and he wanted to make sure that everyone knew about it when he was towing a caravan, just in case they didn’t notice.  The caravan said his driver had some special signs that he put on the car doors when they were going somewhere, “just to make sure”.  He said the signs were ever so clever – they were made of special magnetic material, so they went on and off the car doors ever so easily, and they even showed up in the dark.  The special signs said “TOWING” so that everyone would know.  The caravan said he wished everyone cared as much about being safe as much as his driver did.

The little trailer didn’t know whether he would ever go out of the barn again – he missed seeing the outdoors, especially the trees and the birds and the rabbits, and the grandchildren.  Even though the caravan kept him company in the winter, he was quite lonely.

One day Mr Towers came in to see the little trailer.    He had a man with him, a big round man with a very white beard – the other man looked even older than Mr Towers, but he was very jolly.  Mr Towers introduced the man to the trailer and the man laughed loudly and said “I think your little trailer will do very well!”  And then Mr Towers and the other man left.

The next day the little trailer had another visitor. A man in dark blue overalls came and he gave the little trailer some TLC.  The man in the blue overalls checked the little trailer over.   He checked that all his nuts and bolts were tight.  He oiled the bits that moved and he made sure the electric bits for the lights worked.  He changed the little trailers tyres.  The caravan said to the little trailer, “I think you must be going out on the road!”

The little trailer was delighted to be going outside again, but he was also worried about the roads after everything the caravan had said.   “You’re ever so big and bright,” he said to the caravan, “and sometimes people don’t see you.  I’m only a little trailer, and I’m not very bright either.  What if another driver doesn’t see me?  Mr Towers doesn’t any of those clever signs you talked about.” 

One evening the barn door was opened up wide.  The man with the white beard came in, he was wearing a red suit which had white fur edging.   He patted the little trailer and said “now, we’re going to have some fun!”

The man with the white beard backed his car into the barn and hitched up the little trailer.  The little trailer was excited and worried.  He’d never been anywhere before except up and down the lane with Mr Towers. 

The man with the white beard got something out of a tube and the littler trailer was glad to see that he had some of the clever “TOWING” signs that the caravan had talked about.  He put them on the car doors, and they lit up as the light from the barn reflected on them – they were ever so bright.  The little trailer was very happy that the man with the white beard must be a careful driver.  The man with the White Beard came back and patted the little trailer again.  “Thank you my little friend,” he said and then he got into the car.

The man with the white beard drove out of the barn, down the pathway and down the little lane.   They got to the end of the lane and there was a bigger road that they had to turn into.  The little trailer was worried that he might not be seen, but as they turned into the road he could see the TOWING sign shining in the street lights and every time another car went past the signs shone, and that made him feel safe. 

The man with the white beard drove to another big barn.  The big barn was covered in bright coloured lights, and there was jingly jangly music coming out of it.    The man with the white beard, reversed the car and the little trailer up to the barn doors and then stopped and got out.  Some little people with beards, wearing brightly coloured outfits jumped out of the barn and skipped around the man the beard.   They were excited, giggly and very very bouncy little people.  They opened the barn doors and the barn was full of parcels wrapped in bright paper and tied with pretty ribbons.  The parcels went from the floor to the ceiling.  The little trailer had never seen so much of anything ever before, even when Mr Towers had had a bumper harvest.  The little trailer also wondered whether he was going to have to carry it all?  He was, after all, a very little trailer.

The next few weeks were a bit of a blur!  Every evening the little people got some shovels and shovelled parcels from out of the barn into the little trailer.  The barn was always just as full as it ever had been.  The little trailer worried that he would never be able to carry all those parcels, but every day it was as if the parcels weighed nothing at all.

Then the man with the white beard drove his car and the little trailer into a town.  The little trailer always worried about going on the roads, but as soon as the man with the white beard got out the special signs he felt safe again!  The other thing was that sometimes it was as if some of the cars couldn’t see the man with the white beard’s car, but they always saw the “TOWING” signs, and so they always made room for the little trailer.  The man with the White Beard said “It’s just as well I’m a careful driver and I use Safe T-Signs, some of those idiots would never spot my little trailer otherwise, especially the ones that don’t believe in me.”

Then, when they got into town, the man with the white beard would always find a big pine tree and sit underneath it, and children and their mummies and daddies would come and the man with the white beard would give them a parcel from the little trailer.  The parcels always held exactly what it was that the children wanted, and the children were always delighted!  And no matter how many children came along there were always enough parcels for them all!  And the man with the white beard always said to the children “now you must be good it’ll soon be Christmas, and you won’t see me, but you’ll have a lovely Christmas”, and he would laugh his deep melodic laugh and then it would be the turn on the next child.

Weeks went by and every evening they went to a different place and the same thing happened.  Then one night the man with the white beard said to the little trailer, “thank you little friend, you have been wonderful and I’m glad that I had some Safe T-Signs to take care of you and all those parcels – some of the drivers on the roads, even when they do believe in me, don’t look at what’s on the road.  Until next year, little friend!”

The man with the beard towed the little trailer back to the barn, and when he got there Mr Towers had the barn doors open, and the man with the white beard backed the little trailer into his place in the barn.

“He’s been a good little trailer,” said the man with the white beard, and he patted the little trailer again.

The barn doors were open wide and the little trailer saw an amazing sight.  Some reindeer, with a very ornate special trailer came down from the sky, all jingly with bells and glittery in the light of the barn.  The man with the white beard climbed into the special trailer, laughed his deep belly laugh, and flew off into the sky.

 
The caravan spoke first.  “That,” he said, was a very special and good man.  “I knew as soon as I saw he had special towing signs”.
 

© Safe Towing December 2013