It was on smart paper complete with an embossed watermark. I was impressed by its style and politeness, and the way Second Lieutenant James Whitehurst of the Royal Artillery addressed me as an adult. Surprisingly, it was complete with all of its contents, including the bus pass, and with it came a short letter from the man who’d found it. Luckily for me, though, the wallet turned up in the post a week after I lost it. Either way, it was extremely annoying at the time and a severe blow to my finances, especially since my bus pass was in there and it would mean paying the full fare on the number seven to Cheadle. Had it fallen out? Perhaps it had been stolen. Karma got me back though when, an hour later, having enjoyed being hurled around on the Corkscrew roller coaster, I wobbled off, only to discover, much to my horror, that my wallet was gone. Now we were at liberty to go on the rides and have a fun afternoon in the park without spending all of our pocket money on the entry ticket.

We all made it, and found ourselves dusting off twigs inside the castle grounds before lunch. There was a little hole in the fence where we could climb in and from there it was a simple case of avoiding the security guards with their big dogs and emerging out of the rhododendron bushes without any of the staff noticing. We’d planned it for a while the attractions of Alton Towers were too strong to resist and one day a few of us from school cycled the 14 miles through the Moorlands to try and sneak into the theme park. It was a pretty normal Saturday afternoon for a teenage boy from Staffordshire. Little was I to know when I lost my wallet at the age of 16, that it would have such a great influence on the rest of my life. It’s funny how small things can change your life in such big ways. Second Lieutenant James Whitehurst of the Royal Artillery has a lot to answer for. Those words, written in a letter, have resounded in my imagination ever since I first read them.

Eastern horizons by levison wood