The Day that Pac-Man Cried

In the summer of 1984, a five-year old me and my sister were taken by our Mum and Dad on a trip to Studland Beach, a sandy beach notable for its beautiful sand dunes.

We placed our purple tartan rug (still in use today) on the beach to sit on and, as a hyperactive child, I soon became restless. My ever inventive Dad concocted a game to occupy me: 'Live Action Pac-Man'. I say 'game', but it was more a way to get me to run around a bit. Dad would shout things like "Forward, 3!" and "Left, 9!" and I would dutifully follow each instruction in turn and walk the required number of paces while pretending to be Pac-Man (arms clapped vertically in front of me as the mouth, and making "Om-om-om" noises as I devoured imaginary pac-dots). To make the game more fun, I was told not to turn around, instead trusting that Dad's instructions would eventually get me back to the purple tartan rug.

The game went on for a few minutes until, after clearly hearing the previous instruction ("Forward, 500!" perhaps) and marching on my merry way, I awaited the next one. But, after what felt like minutes, it never came.

Panicked, I broke perhaps the only real rule of the game and turned around in an attempt to see where my Mum, sister and Pac-Dad had got to. But, I looked in every direction as far as the eye could see and, thanks to having been marched all over the shop, couldn't for the life of me figure out where they had got to.

I started wandering along the beach in an attempt to find them, but I'm fairly sure I continued to walk in the direction of the last instruction I had heard, thus putting an even greater distance between me and my family. It wasn't long before I was straining to hold back lolloping tears from tumbling down my rosy cheeks. A man and a woman who were with two children who I hope were their own, spotted me and gestured me over. Through my tears, they managed to work out that I was lost and, in an attempt to comfort me, offered me a sweet. Something primal kicked in and I became alert, remembering one of the two main lessons that had been drilled into me at primary school: 'Don't take sweets from strangers'. I politely turned down their offer.

Despite turning down their hospitality, the couple continued to try and help me work out where my family might be. The only detail I could really remember was how the car park had looked just next to where they had been sat, so they offered to drive me around until I recognised it, leading me back to the purple tartan rug. This seemed a great idea to me, and it was only once we were all in the car and the engine had started that I remembered the other main lesson from school, about not getting into cars with strangers.

Fortunately, this is not a scary 1980s Public Information Film, and it wasn't long before I had spotted the car park and right by it, my family. But the purple tartan rug had long been removed from our idyllic spot on the sand, as it turned out my parents had called the coastguard and the police, assuming I had drowned. "Gulp", as Pac-Man might have said.

Interestingly, it did mean that I'd managed to walk so far along the beach in one direction that I'd reappeared at the other end of it, so I think Pac-Man would be proud.