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In the early 1950's we were living at Grange Road, New Haw, Surrey, said Pete Patton, and I had a gang of friends - I would have been about 10 or 11. Barry, Max, Dave, Bob and Ricky all lived in Grange Road, Neil lived in Warren Road, Woody came from King George's Drive and Mickey came from Holly Avenue.
A lot of our time was spent swimming in the River Bourne, playing in the woods between the 'flat' bridge and the 'hump' bridge along the Bourne and up at Coombelands sand pit, which was disused. At the sand pit there was a large round stone that seemed enormous to us. It must have been 4' across and a foot thick.
We would go up there bird nesting and would take a picnic of sandwiches and sneak a crafty cigarette. If you sat on the stone and then walked away, you would always fall over after a short time. No one ever knew why. We would see how far we could get without toppling over.
On one particular summer's day we went there blackberrying. There was me and my Mum, and Ricky with his Mum pushing a pram with his younger sister Josephine in it. It was a steaming hot day so we had a rest. We told the grown-ups not to sit on the stone, but they did.
We were sensible and sat on the ground. When it was time to wander back, we set off but had only gone a few yards when Ricky's Mum fell over, the pram tipped up and Josephine shot out screaming.
'We told you,' we said, but we were told that it was 'just one of those things', until my Mum fell over a few seconds later!
I went back there with my wife a couple of years ago, found the area fenced off, but still managed to get in. We searched the place but couldn't find the stone anywhere.
That's the curious story of the Falling Stone.
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