New Year, 1985. As you will remember, it was an eventful time for the Rebellion. The Death Star had been destroyed, Imperial troops had driven Rebel forces from their hidden base, and the previous year Michael Jackson’s hair had caught fire while he was filming a Pepsi commercial.
And in the galaxy, far, far away that was rural Northumberland, this 10-year-old boy was very excited about one thing. The Empire Strikes Back had recently been released on the technological marvel that was VHS cassette.
When the film received its theatrical release, I was six, and considered too young, but now I was 10! Being able to watch this story of adventure and betrayal and attempted fratricide was at once the only thing I had on my mind. The tape in question belonged to our neighbour Matty, who was from Canada, and therefore had all the cool modern things first, such as a VCR, a SodaStream, and – naturally – a replica Millennium Falcon with action figures and moving parts. He also had the biggest TV I had ever seen, hair like Michael J Fox, and his mum always served cookies with milk.
So when she called up and invited my brother and me over to watch the Empire Strikes Back with Matty the next day, it did not take long to emotionally blackmail my mother into letting us go.
It had been a good Christmas. King’s carols on the radio, The Box of Delights on the TV. Father Christmas had somehow obtained my grandfather’s old regimental stockings and stuffed them with toys from the local shops, including a tangerine from Safeway in Hexham. My grandmother stood on a table full of Kodak prints and amusing ceramic animals to take a photo of us after Christmas lunch and brought the whole thing down, including the new vase my dad had given my mum – all the way from a shop in far, far-away London, too. My brother and I had aped around the sitting room bellowing Do They Know It’s Christmas? to the rest of the family while they tried to doze under their paper hats. Then, finally, just as the sodium winter light outside was starting to fade to blue, we were roused for a grumbling walk in the cold.
My father put out his damp, pink palm. “It’s started to snow,” he said.
It had. And it didn’t stop for several days.
On the day of our screening, we tore the curtains open with excitement and were greeted by a changed landscape.
Our familiar backyard, the garden my mother had built from scratch, the pond where we had watched tadpoles bloom into frogs during the summer, and the field where the local farmer sometimes kept a few mangy-looking sheep, had all been erased overnight. Deep, compacted snow lay in thick, crusted planes that swallowed up everything cosy and safe. A cruel winter sun rose over the icy horizon, casting an orange, alien hue over the newly minted valleys and dales of blankness. I touched the window with my finger. It was freezing.
I pushed my frost-crusted snow goggles back over my head, lowered my macrobinoculars, and turned to my co-pilot from the Red Squadron – also, as so often in the Star Wars universe, a blood relation, in this case my younger brother. “There is no doubt about it: we are on the ice planet Hoth.”
The target destination, Echo Base (aka Matty’s), was the old schoolhouse at the crossroads, at the top of the hill. We were at the bottom. Twenty minutes by foot in normal conditions, or five in a car. But the cars were sunk up to their wheel rims in snow, their windscreens glazed over, asleep to the world.
There was nothing else for it. My co-pilot and I mounted our loyal tauntauns, or at least put the dogs on leads, and began to wade out across the drifts. Our Squadron Commander made sure we were suitably equipped for the dangerous journey ahead, with salopettes and beanies. Her husband lent us some sunglasses for the snow dazzle that were too big for our faces.
“Are you sure you don’t want to langlauf?” he also asked, stumbling about with very long and thin skis strapped to his boots.
We shook our heads. This mission was too urgent and dangerous to muddle with my father’s latest doomed experiment with winter sports. If a bloodthirsty Wampa came for us, we might need to make a fast getaway on foot.
As we set off for the Echo Base, our Squadron Commander’s final words rang in our ears. “Please don’t be late for tea, boys. It’s nearly the last day of the holidays.”
We shook such concerns from our shoulders as brusquely as we shook off the snowflakes flecking our hair and marched on. The winds began to swirl around us, driving icy crystals into our eyes and mouths, but still we strove against the storm.
“Morning, lads,” said Farmer Redburn through his scarf, as his tractor ploughed happily past, churning the thick white as if if was icing in a mixer. “Happy New Year.”
“He could be an enemy decoy,” muttered my brother. “Ignore him.”
I put my hand on my lightsaber, but the hostile force was already gone, swallowed up by the elements. Slowly, as we mounted the hill, through the strands of blizzard, the smoke-blue silhouette of Echo Base drew nearer and nearer. At last we could make out the distinctive cobalt blue Suzuki four-wheel drive parked outside.
I focused my macrobinoculars. There were no lights on inside. A trap? A hostage situation? As it turned out, a power cut, because of the storm. Disaster! No video!
Matty came out to greet us with the swinging arc of a torch, and apologetically ushered us inside. Echo Base was as freezing as it looked. But we huddled on his lounge floor, a sheet draped over us, a plate of cookies at our feet, and swooped his Millennium Falcon in and out of the torchlight, and thus we made our own Empire strike back, in a very special galaxy, far, far away.
A galaxy that feels light years away now.
• Piers Torday’s latest book, There May Be A Castle (Quercus Children’s), is out now in paperback.
