THOSE WERE THE DAYS

I remember when my children were at play, having four girls meant lots of playing house or even shop-keeping. Fairly quiet games until someone decided they were not being treated fairly. The grumbles and whining would start and gradually increase to bickering and then shouting. This was when I interfered, got them all into coats and hats and made them play outside for an hour or two.

It didn’t matter what season it was, if they had energy to burn off they could do it outside. Dave had built a jungle gym in our back yard, with swing and slide attached, this was always a good plaything but they also played many games using rocks, leaves, twigs and various things they found outside as pretend objects, the imagination was as large as their understanding of things.

Hours of play usually meant dirty hands and knees and much scrubbing of same was performed every night before bed. Once into bed sleep came quickly as the cold, fresh air had tired them out.

Fast forward to my grandchildren. The eldest three were close together and would play all sorts of noisy games until they were ushered out of the house to play outdoors. It was a while before my other daughters married and started producing children and for the first few years they were a noisy as the older ones, then something changed to quieten them down, computer games came along.

For the past fifteen years or so there is little noise when we go to visit any of our daughters, the kids are playing their various games. They come up for air, say a quick hello to us then it’s eyes down for the next move. They all love their different devices and it is a wonderful baby sitter but I feel that kids are missing a big part of their life by not playing outdoors.

When I was a kid, yes…way back then…, I spent hardly any time indoors.

I loved to read from a very early age and I also had a jigsaw and various other games, however, I soon learned never to say I had nothing to do. Grandma had a cure for boredom. Out would come the cleaning supplies and I would have to sit at the newspaper covered table and clean the brassware. What a soul destroying job that was. Rub on the polish, wipe it off again then rub like the wind until gran thought it was good enough. She had an old toothbrush for getting into tight corners and this had to be handled carefully or it would splatter the cream all over your face. Once the rubbing with a cloth was finished, I had to do a final polish with newpaper, this apparently added sparkle.

Once I was done and considerably filthy I would have to roll all the dirty newspapers into ‘faggots’. These were tightly rolled and would be used to start a new fire. Considerably cheaper than kindling, gran thought an hour of rolling faggots was suitable punishment for many a childhood misdeed.

Being seven years younger than my brother I never had anyone to play with indoors so it was out in the street to find friends. In our area a child was never asked into another home to play. It was a daily event to call on a friend and ask their mom if ‘so and so’ could come out to play. The door would then be closed and you would stand outside till your pal was appropriately dressed for outdoors and then the two of us would make the rounds until we had four or five people to play with.

A popular game was skipping rope and learning all the jingles that went with the various steps, playing with two or more balls that were juggled against a wall was another favourite, again with accompanying jingles. We would spend hours drawing coloured designs on our wooden tops which would then be sent spinning with a leather whip. Simple games but a great way to pass a few hours with friends.

In summer we would wander far and wide with a big bottle of water and some jam sandwiches. We would go to various swimming holes, tuck our dresses into our underpants and wade for hours. We would make daisy chains and pick bluebells, sometimes chase cows round a field. Hide and seek and many other games kept us busy all summer. We would wander home before the street lamps came on as this was the curfew for all of us. It was a carefree life and a wonderful way to grow up.

Winter weather didn’t halt our outdoor play. This was about eight years after the war and there were still air raid shelters located at the end of lots of streets. These were dark and stinky but had built in benches and it was our “secret” hide-out. The last thing my gran would say as I went out the door was ‘don’t go near the air raid shelter’, but as she never came to check, I just ignored the order.

Every house had candles available as all homes had an electric and gas meter which required coins to give you a certain amount of power. As you were often left in the dark for a few minutes putting in another coin, candles were kept in convenient places to be lit at times like this. This meant that we could take turns stealing a candle end from home to keep our little hideaway lit.

We really did nothing exciting sitting in our stinky abode but the flickering light and the fact that no adults were there made it seem thrilling. When I was about ten the shelter was sadly torn down however, we soon found new accommodation.

The field where the air raid shelter once stood was going to be developed into new housing. Soon, trucks of various lengths of wood were unloaded and the wood covered with big tarps. We would crawl under the tarps and sit inside the wooden stacks, safe from the rain and nosy parents. As the new homes were being built, they provided new territory for our exploration. Ropes would be swung over beams and we all took turns at being Tarzan, complete with blood curdling cry. Windows going in meant that workmen would leave cans of putty about, this was great stuff and could be formed into any shape you wanted.

We never thought to vandalize but took full advantage of the partly built rooms, I bet the workmen wondered what had happened when they arrived to find crudely built tables and chairs, all sorts of broken crockery that we had made into our plates on which sat food shaped out of putty. The dirt outdoors would have dandelions and other weeds planted into makeshift garden beds that we had made out of sawed off planks of wood.

Imagination was the name of the game and I think today’s children are missing out on a great way of play. I wonder what they do when they do not have games available, do they have the imagination to entertain themselves? I do hope so, childhood is preparation for the adult world and unfortunately, what they seem to be playing doesn’t seem to be preparing them for what lies ahead.