KIDS don't have bogies anymore. No, I don't mean up their noses. I mean they don't have little home-made wagons to ride around in. They're too busy on their Playstations with virtual reality Grand Prix racing.

When we were growing up in South Bank, Middlesbrough, we had a bogie my dad made out of a wooden box, a plank, four old pram wheels and a piece of washing line to steer with.

My brother and I called it Sea Of Tranquillity because that was the name given to the spot where Apollo 11 first landed on the moon, which wasn't dissimilar to South Bank's slag heaps, and we just thought it sounded good.

My mate's bogie was called Red Alligator after the latest Grand National winner, but Sea of Tranquillity was faster.

I'm not sure what happened to Sea of Tranquillity, although I have a hunch she ended up as part of a rabbit hutch in the back garden.

Now, three decades later, there's a new bogie in my life. Built to represent The Northern Echo in the inaugural Cockfield Soapbox Derby in Teesdale - what a beauty!

Lovingly created by John Pattison, of the Echo's building services department, she emerged from his workshop resplendent in blue, with a cushioned seat, pram wheels, hand-brake and an Echo 1 registration plate.

In the end, she was withdrawn from the race on account of the course being judged to be too dangerous and the competition way too tough.

Instead, she was brought home for the kids to have some fun with. They immediately left their Playstation games and fell in love with her.

Mum and daughter wanted to stay at home but us boys went off to a local hill to try her out: "Me first, Dad, me first." A familiar cry.

We tossed for it and Christopher, 13, went first. He was going nicely too until he lost control half-way down and veered off into a hedge. He was unhurt but a back wheel was buckled.

"I'm really sorry, Dad," he said.

"What were you doing?" I asked. "Just keep it straight with the strings - it's not difficult."

Lecture over, I managed to straighten the wheel and Jack, nine, enjoyed an incident-free ride down the hill.

"My turn, my turn," shouted six-year-old Max.

Too young to go on his own, I sat him between my legs and off we went. No problem. We cruised down the hill, with an expert touch on the strings keeping us straight as we picked up speed. Schumacher eat your heart out.

"Too fast, Daddy," shouted Max as the wind whistled through our hair.

"It's OK - don't worry," I reassured him, smiling confidently.

"Daddy, Daddy, we're going to crash," he squealed.

"No we're not," I laughed.

Actually, we were going a bit fast so I reached down to pull the brake.

Nothing happened. We hit a bump and went slightly off course. I tried to straighten up but over-compensated. Suddenly, we were zig-zagging madly out of control.

"DADDY!"

We careered off the path, hit the grass verge and the bogie flipped over, shooting me out of the side door.

I looked up to see Max face down under the bogie in a nettle patch. A pram wheel was still rolling, drunkenly, down the hill. It was one of those times when it takes a child a couple of seconds to cry because of the shock. They were a couple of very long seconds in which I had time to think of casualty departments and what his mother would say.

Suddenly, mercifully, he wailed.

There were no bones broken but Echo 1 was a write-off. Only one wheel left attached, spokes splayed in crazy directions, screws and nails exposed, and bits of splintered wood everywhere.

We'd left home half an hour earlier full of hope, with the world's best bogie. We arrived back dejectedly, a father pulling the mangled wreck, and his three sons carrying a wheel apiece. The youngest, covered in nettle stings and grass stains, ran straight to his beloved mother to tell her he'd been involved in "a high-speed crash".

"What on earth happened?" she asked.

"Dad showed us how to drive a bogie," said Christopher.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

THE Dad At Large Roadshow - travelling by car, not bogie -went across country to Whitby and took a right onto the Scarborough Road to find High Hawsker WI, where the competition was entitled "A Child's Memory".

More from the competition entries next time, but the winner came from Chris Hebron who told of a religious education teacher at a local school who had just finished explaining about the pleasures of heaven.

When she'd finished she said: "Hands up all those who would like to go there."

All the children's hands went up except Billy's.

"Why don't you want to go to heaven, Billy?" asked the teacher.

Tearfully, Billy replied: "I'd love to go, Miss, but me Dad said I 'ad to go straight home after school."

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