An ode to childhood freedom
To The Guardian
Your article took me back to my 1950s childhood in inner-city Leeds. We hardly saw a blade of grass, but had a wonderful time scrambling among the general dereliction of postwar slum-clearance and building sites. We were like mountain goats running over tipper-truck mounds of cobblestones, dumped as streets were cleared, en route to school. The cobbles were edged with gas-tar, so we had modelling material (it came off hands with a rub of margarine paper). Access to the waterworks depot was by shinning up a drainpipe and over the wall; huge concrete pipes were great to run through. A very smooth bit of road surface alongside our Sweet Street flats was ideal for roller-skating – and there was so little traffic so no danger.
But the highlight of the year was Bonfire Night and its preparations. In those days, every street had its own fire, and as we were a community in a block of flats with lots of spare ground (foundations of other blocks that were never built), we had the most gigantic bonfire. “Chumping” (collecting all manner of combustibles) started towards the end of the summer holidays, with a lull when term started, then urgency as November approached. Abandoned back-to-backs, ready for demolition, provided vast amounts of furniture, cupboards and floorboards for the taking. So kids of all ages would haul armchairs, mattresses, planks, even a piano one year, through the streets to the “diggings” – rough ground where we piled everything. Dens were built, and obstacle courses, with different age groups having their time slots. One year, the whole lot went up in flames ahead of 5 November – no doubt from the teenagers smoking in a den.
So there were no custom-made playgrounds (only on Holbeck Moor – concrete surface under swings and high slide etc.) but we lacked nothing when it came to entertaining ourselves. We lived close enough to the city centre to be able to walk to the museum and art gallery – a frequent Sunday afternoon outing, minus parents. I don’t recall any disasters through all these activities. It is lamentable that today’s children are unable to exercise the freedoms of yesteryear to learn independence, initiative, leadership skills, and gain enormously in personal development through unsupervised play.
Janet Lail, Nottingham