‘What I did on my holidays’ always seemed to be the title of the English essay we were asked to write on our return to school after the long summer break. Were our teachers imaginative, or what? Anyway, that was what popped into my head after reading ‘Let the children play’ on Demob Happy Teacher’s blog last night. It seems that some idiot has paid another idiot great wads of the folding stuff to come up with the idea that it’s actually quite a good idea to let children play freely instead of organising all their time down to the last second and filling it up with worthy activities. Well, well. Quelle surprise!
Anyway, I was taken right back to those happy days when school had finished for the summer and us kids were just told to ‘go and play’ and ‘get out from under my feet’ or ’stop bickering and go outside’ and other such affectionate motherly things. And go out we did, and no-one watched us, and we had no mobile phones, and if we hurt ourselves we ran home. Or crawled home. Or perhaps were carried home. Whatever. And we survived and Learned Things.
So what did I do on my holidays?
Before the age of nine, nothing much. We lived in the middle of London, and as the youngest child, I was not allowed out by myself - not even down to the grounds of the flats, unless I had one of my brothers with me, and they were usually too busy with their own stuff. So I did jigsaws and drew pictures, and read voraciously. And I played with Plasticine. Do you remember Plasticine, anyone? It was that modelling stuff that came in a flat pack of seven or eight different coloured corrugated stripes and it made your hands ache trying to get it warm enough to actually model with. After a few days of forcing it into misshapen horses, brightly clad people with one leg shorter than the other, and little garden scenes with blue ponds and tiny flowers, it all became that unique colour known as Plasticine Brown. No matter how hard you tried to keep the colours separate, it always happened, didn’t it?
After the age of nine, everything changed. My father was made redundant from his job at the Hackney Gazette and we moved right out into the countryside of Essex. My mother took a part-time job, and suddenly the summer holidays were a great, wide-open vista of opportunity with no-one to supervise little old me. And I took full advantage.
We’d moved onto a half-built housing estate, and nothing delighted me more than roaming through the half-built houses and piles of breeze blocks and scaffolding with my new friend from across the way - you see, there were no fences and stern warning notices in those days, so we figured it was OK. We climbed half-built staircases, we leaned out of unglazed upper windows, and we played jacks in the raw concrete dust out in the yards. We made dens in the piles of bricks and sat in our rickety and unsafe eyries waving to passers by. And I’m ashamed to say, we half-inched planks and nails and random bits of (extremely sharp) metal and nameless objects to make into go-karts to career down the local hills with and crash into hedges. But it was fun, though, huh?
Obviously we could only do this once the workmen had gone home for the day, so we also used to walk for miles, either through farmland (where we’d help ourselves to apples, plums or raspberries in season) or along the dusty roads. Sometimes we’d hang out in the local playing fields, making daisy chains or playing on the swings and roundabouts. Incidentally, that playing field was where I got injured. Not on the building sites, or walking along the roads, or climbing trees after stolen fruit, but in the totally legitimate, and very local playing field. I had a crashing fall from a trapeze bar, biting my tongue so badly that it bled all the way home and was still bleeding when I got there (whereupon my mother lied to me and said I had a ’small blister’), and on another occasion, I misjudged a jump from the roundabout and landed badly with one foot trapped under the still spinning edge. That was a nasty sprain, I can tell you. But you know what? I learned from the experience, and I didn’t drop dead or anything. AND I didn’t sue anyone, and nor did my parents.
I can also remember doing things like rounding up the stray dogs and taking them home. They were never really strays. In those days, some people used to turf their dogs out when they went to work in the morning and open the door for them when they got home, leaving the dog to roam the village at will during the day, but even so young I knew that was wrong. Sometimes I’d take a puppy home with me, where it would promptly pee on a rug and get thrown out. Once I found a hedgehog sitting terrified in the middle of a road and took that home wrapped in my hat only to have both hedgehog AND hat thrown out.
Occasionally, we’d go around someone’s house and play exciting things like darts, outside in the garden! I guess I could have written about that in the essay, but it would have sounded a bit lame alongside the more fortunate kids’ tales of the Costa Brava, or being travel sick on the way to Devon. But in the end, that’s the sort of thing I did write about, because, well, that’s what I did. Oh, I don’t say I admitted to the scrumping of apples and filching of wood from building sites - I wasn’t daft - but apart from that, my essays on ‘What I did on my holidays’ tended to be a pretty good model for the ‘new’ thinking about letting children play.
They’d all have heart attacks about the harm I could have come to, though. And as for the trespass and petty theft, I suppose I’m lucky I grew up when I did, or I might have ended up with an ASBO. And see? Despite all that, the solid guidance of my parents won out in the end and I grew up honest and moral and law-abiding.
Funny old world, innit?
Photograph courtesy of Annika of www.morguefile.com
That so sums up my childhood too. Though I beat you by some years I imagine. I go back to playing on bomb sites. Did you play shops, whereby you made everything from what you could find in the garden, even down to weighing scales? Oh I could speak on this subject for ages. I’ve posted a few stories :O)
Babs - beetles last blog post..This made my day!
Oooooh - the smell of plasticine. One of the most vivid smells of my childhood.
Don’t Bug Me!s last blog post..Have you ever been run over by a horse-drawn caravan?
Babs - There were still bomb sites in London when I lived there. My brothers played on them, I wasn’t allowed! Well, they weren’t exactly allowed, either! Oh yeah, we played shops, and fed our dolls/teddies ‘dinners’ made from what we could find in the garden!
DBM - Ah, yes, the smell. Unforgettable. And it made your hands smell for hours, didn’t it?
First off - fabulous picture! I love motion pictures for one, and that just takes the cake.
I remember living with my mom and being able to roam as I would, both when I was little and then when I was older. When I lived with one aunt, roaming was riding my bike around the block, and the other aunt had a large enough spread that you could stay happy for hours there. And I bashed my head into things, fell off of things, climbed the forbidden and stepped onto a rusty nail that required a trip to the ER for a tetanus shot (oh horror!). No one ever thought of suing anyone, it was all about “Now, you stay out of trouble young lady!”
I really wish I could move my kids into the country so they would have a better grasp of what it could be like.
JTs last blog post..TRAUMA!!!
Here in the States we didn’t have Plasticine; we had Play Doh. Pretty much the same, I expect. Ours also smelled and got hopelessly blended.
My brother and I used to walk to a park three blocks away and play unsupervised on a river bank. I doubt if most parents would allow that now. And when I was ten, I would ride my bike alone cross town three miles to see my grandmother.
Ruth Hull Chatliens last blog post..PRAYER ALERT
This was such a sweet post.:) You have really made me nostalgic. *Sniff Sniff* I don’t think if I’d have ever been able to find such an excellent picture. I have also bought puppy from the street many a times. The only two reasons were either I found it too cute or it was wounded. Every time I used to be optimistic that this time may be mom would let it stay but as you said ‘I took it only to be thrown out’ lol
Scratch Bagss last blog post..Procrastinated Doodle Pet
JT - Sounds like you got passed around the relatives just as my Mum did when she was young! And picked up minor injuries just as we all did.
We did actually move out into a country village when our boys were young, partly for the school, and partly for the more relaxed environment. Our younger one took full advantage and did much as I had done - including taking a shovel and digging up part of the playing field here for BMX jumps, which he and a friend built. But here’s the interesting thing: the council kind of adopted them and provided sand to help shape them and make them safer, and they’re still there today, nearly ten years later!
Oh, also, JT & Scratch - I didn’t take the picture, it comes from Morgue File (link at the bottom of the post) which provides totally free photos for use in web pages and blog posts etc. If I don’t have a suitable picture, that’s the first place I go.
Scratch - Thank you! And so you’re another one who took puppies home? Well done! I expect you’re still soft-hearted about animals, too, aren’t you?
Ruth - Plasticine was different from Play-Doh, that arrived later over here, and was much, much softer - it did also smell kind of rubbery though, didn’t it? Plasticine was more like real clay, only dry and rather hard. You could scratch patterns in it with a fingernail and they’d stay, crisp and sharp. We used to make faces for Plasticine people that way!
Isn’t it sad that the only kids these days who have this kind of freedom in their childhood also often have neglectful parents who don’t instil right from wrong in them? I know there still are parents such as we had, but mostly the responsible parents these days keep their kids so closely guarded!
Children are supposed to play? I thought they were to be used as unpaid slave labor . . . ?
Seriously, this was a beautifully written reminiscence—and it makes a very good point, too. I remember running wild as a child, getting some bumps and bruises, but always ending up OK and having a blast.
I love the image of a child bringing home a hedgehog in a hat. And the parents promptly tossing both out!
JD at I Do Thingss last blog post..I Wordle so you don’t have to
Nowadays the only hedgehog a kid would take notice of is Sonic The Hedgehog.
Yeah, we were ruffians as kids. We played in the woods, in the fields, in empty houses…..everywhere.
My kids live in a crime riddled city and I have to supervise them every moment. My older girls (12&13) can’t even practice their Kung-Fu moves in the front yard without getting lawn guys and other passerbys whistling and cat calling to them. Perverts!
elasticwaistbandladys last blog post..My Neighbors Are Dirty Swingers
Do you remember Plasticine, anyone? Sounds like play-doh to me. I’ll have to look that one up. I don’t remember what I did during the Summer, I’m sure I just stayed home and went out to play. If it weren’t hot right now, my kid might be outside playing..instead she’s in the AC hunched over my laptop. She’s done plenty of activities so far, much more than me. Next week, we’ll go to MSG for a show called Walk With Dinosaurs. She writes in a journal as well, but doesn’t have too many entries right now. Hmmmm
Naturals last blog post..Paper or Plastic?
gorgeous dogs I forget who’s who - Simple things make big memories
sandy ks last blog post..Awesome Combover !!
JD - Yeah, who knew? LOL! Thanks for the kind words!
The Pirate is the red fawn, and the Princess is brindle. That’s her in the front in that last post.
EWB Lady - That’s horrible. If I lived in a crime ridden city I wouldn’t be letting my kids roam, either. I think it’s a shame when peope do live somewhere safe and won’t let their kids off their apron strings though. I guess one has to choose the best way for oneself, but I’m glad I was able to do that.
Valerie - Another good point. Some places are just too darned hot to play outside. We seldom have cause to wish we had AC here!
Sandy - Thanks!
Plasticine - ugh! Horrible smell. It’s still around in primary schools though.
Jennytas last blog post..Blogging meme
Jenny - Really??? I would have thought they’d have found something better by now. I mean, I loved the stuff, but it’s all there was!
I don’t know if Plasticine and Play-Doh are the same thing, but Play-Doh is still one of my favorite toys.
And I never had anything interesting to write about my summer vacation. We went to see relatives in Georgia, every summer without fail, and we did little else other than - as you said - play outside and see how injured we could get without actually dying!
Peace - D
DP/Mommas last blog post..Crap
No, Momma, Plasticine was different. It was more like traditional clay, only rubbery and dry. Play-Doh is softer - you can make much more detailed models with Plasticine!
See? Most of us grew up playing outside and doing nothing much most of the time! I bet we learned a lot of life lessons, though.
I loved it back in the day when playing outside in the dirt ands using our imaginations until the street lights came on was all the glory.
(sigh)
Is the world really too dangerous to let our kids run wild like we used too?
meleah rebeccahs last blog post..Monday Monday
Me too! And sometimes I didn’t get back until after dark and then I got into trouble.
No, I don’t think the world is too dangerous - at least not everywhere. But the media has altered people’s perceptions, I think. Because we hear about attacks and accidents in all corners of the world, it seems more dangerous.
I wouldn’t advocate it in the cities, or in known danger spots, but in a quiet village? I don’t think things have changed all that much.
This was a terrific post Jay, brought back my own memories, some of which I had elaborated on a post back in April:
http://mrnighttime.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-am-killer-diller.html
But you know what? This was the most telling sentence:
“But you know what? I learned from the experience, and I didn’t drop dead or anything. AND I didn’t sue anyone, and nor did my parents.”
If I had a dime for all the things I did to myself that in today’s world would have resulted in a lawsuit, may parents would have been rich. Falling off of the monkey bars in the play park behind my my building when I was 6, and snapping my femur in half. My friend’s sister who tripped me while I was running, resulting in my needing 2 stitches in my upper lip. We won’t even discuss the bullying. Then again, it was a far different time, but kids today don’t really know about having real fun, I think.
Mr. Nighttimes last blog post..Gimme that ole’ time music…….
Thanks, Mr N - Oh, the people I could have sued! But wait … um … oh, the people who could have sued me .. oops!
How I hate the litigation-minded society we live in. All these accidents teach us things. You can’t grow up properly without learning what happens when you fall off a bike, out of a tree, stick your hand in fire - whatever. Nor can you learn how to deal with the spectrum of human behaviour without running smack into the nasty side. How have people forgotten that?
ASBO Jay! Now there’s a thought. LOL
Jay, I loved this piece; had me smiling and nodding all the way through. yes I remember plasticine very well and my Mum going on about how it got stuck in the shagpile carpet and how when mushed together it really was a colour only suitable for making fake dog poo out of.
Kids today still want to make camps and run free and explore their imagination in play and I don’t believe they don’t know how to, given half a chance; it’s instinctual. It’s just that when you allow, nay encourage your children to do so you get slapped across the wrists by those who think they know better. Let them run free as much as you can I say, because the ones that don’t get that freedom when they are small tend to go crazy later when they do. I really think it’s part of the reason for under-age binge drinking and petty crime and such. They just don’t know how to handle the freedom.
And they’re forced into more adult behaviour - such as drinking - because they’re not allowed to do the usual kid stuff. Vicious circle really, since their peers, who aren’t allowed to do it either, would probably give them a really hard time if they did. So sad. We now have kids not being allowed to be kids and (as you say) not mature enough to handle anything else.
Funny old “wold” indeed, and an absolutely marvelously wonderful post, my friend! Thanks for a most enjoyable read. My childhood was just as free and adventurous.
Thanks, Jenny! Ah .. the nostalgia, huh? The biggest problem with writing that was keeping it to a manageable length!