I guess you never really know when your own will start but in hindsight I know his began on Friday February the 11th at 10.23pm.
86,400
Ronnie
was 19 and clever. He had worked hard to get to college and study a
subject he loved - chemistry. Now I know what some of you may be
thinking but that was what set Ronnie’s pulse racing. It was the
movement of electrons and the swish of the molecules that set his heart
on fire; none of us are the same, we just do what we do.
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The
university was one of the old Scottish traditional types situated on a
hill and established five hundred long years before. Going here had made
his family proud. Not only was their son going to a good university,
but he was going to be a chemist.
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Ronnie
was one of those lucky ones, always in the top percentile of a class,
happy, smiling and always popular. It’s a gift that not many of us
taste.
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It
was called Higher Ordinary, the class. It was second year for those
that had survived the trench warfare of the year before. In their first
year lectures were mobbed and seats were filled, five hundred in the
morning and another five hundred in the afternoon. This was a long time
ago when science was popular and before everyone wanted to be on
television. Now in the second year things were quieter and although
there were still several hundred students, everyone knew everyone else.
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The
week always finished with a Friday afternoon of laboratory work which
some found exciting and just as many thought of as a chore. Ronnie loved
this class, it meant he was either going home to the South West to see
his family, or he was staying at college to enjoy a weekend of work and
socialising.
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Although
Saint Valentine’s day was on the following Monday, the college were
holding a dance in the Men’s union on the night of Saturday the 12th. Ronnie was determined he was going to go to that, it was a party and half the chemistry class would be there.
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The
Chemistry mob had their own social club called the Alchemists. It was
fun in the later years, but for the new starts with their wide eyes and
innocence it was a club to be looked down upon and derided. A behaviour
that was perpetuated by those who been spurned in their initial year.
They took their revenge from the dizzy heights of second and third
years.
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Many
of the Alchemist Society were going to the dance and so it seemed
stupid for young Ronnie not to go. He wore the only real suit he had,
one he would hope to use for interviews when his course was over. He
really should have been studying that weekend but he was very clever and
fast in the take up and he would get by.He always did.
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Although
he was popular, he was always a boy that liked his own independence, so
he never arranged to meet anyone there – the chances are, he always
did. He would travel to the dances on his own and depending on his luck,
he would either walk home alone or with a friend.
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He
got ready for the dance early that Saturday night as he’d stayed in the
evening before to save money, meaning he could enjoy himself without
the usual guilt. It was still light when he headed over by the Cross and
into University Avenue and as was always the way of things, he met a
couple of the guys from class, me included.
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Eight
pm and we entered the bar at the Men’s union. In those days the
University had a ‘men only’ bar and a ‘men only’ union. The girls had
their own union but apart from certain rooms, theirs tended to be mixed.
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Nine
pm and we all headed upstairs to the dance hall (that’s what we called
it back then) and the place was beginning to get busy with the St.
Valentine’s crowd.
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Ten
pm and Ronnie decided he wanted to get back and do some work, we had a
large exam coming up the following Tuesday. We said goodbye and Ronnie
walked up over University Avenue.
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As he was crossing the road, he was bumped by a man coming the other way.
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The man had broken into a butcher’s shop a little way up the street and stolen a knife.
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He stabbed the first person he met, this happened to be Ronnie.
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No one noticed Ronnie lying on the street at first. He just looked like another drunk, in a city of drunks.
540
When
the passerby saw the amount of blood coming from under Ronnie’s arm, he
ran to the nearest telephone and called an ambulance.
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A woman came over and held his head. She noted that all he did was moan.
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Ronnie’s breathing became more erratic.
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The ambulance arrived and the paramedics checked for life signs. Ronnie’s pulse was weakening.
60
Ronnie stopped breathing.
0
There are 86,400 seconds in a day.
This is a true story.
bobby stevenson 2015
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