Little things are important

We can look back and recall the significant landmarks of our youth. For instance, leaving school or passing our driving test are considered to be important milestones.

What about the less remarked upon achievements and rites of passage, though? Riding a bike for the first time without stabilisers and going on to pass the cycling proficiency test are two accomplishments that stand out for me.

Taking final exams and your 18th birthday party are looked upon as major events but there are several other, sometimes forgotten but no less noteworthy, occasions.

Getting the hang of tying shoelaces, learning to whistle. The initial series of vaccines - do you recall the sugar lump infused with that pink stuff - was that for polio?

Swimming a length of the school pool, scraped knees and iodine, first game of conkers, chicken pox, earliest memory of riding a horse.

Growing older now, night fishing with mates, first illicit puff of a ciggie, reading George Orwell.

First bone fracture, listening in stunned silence to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon for the first time.

Mum teaching me knitting, Dad showing me how to change the head gasket on a land rover.

Some of the aforementioned examples are exclusive to one's own experience while others are more generalised.

The point I am trying to put across is that the

Less momentous events grant just as much wisdom

seemingly less momentous occasions in life are able to grant as much wisdom and insight as do the more celebrated events.

*The little atoms, it is said,

Compose the solid earth; Such truths will show, if rightly read,

What little things are worth.

*Poet S W Irvin, A little sonnet about little things.

Anthony Fenlon Bursledon Road Waterlooville