I do like this thread and hearing about other peoples childhoods.
Here's a tale about one of the times when us kids in the village had what we termed 'the muhst a fun' ie far better by a wide margin than mere fun! Oh yes, a day to stand out in the memory of happy carefree childhood days.
I grew up in the middle of rural East Anglia and we a had, by todays standards, a wide area to play in. The rules were; keep all gates as you found them, don't go into a field with bulls, don't stand on the crops, don't cross the main road, don't accept sweets off strangers and if you find a tramp asleep don't disturb him.
As the season had been wet we were all wearing rubber boots so when we discovered that one of the copses we only occasionally played in had turned into the Amazonian Rain Forest swamp we were well equipped to explore although the water was deep in parts and sloshed over the top of our boots we didn't mind wet feet!
Oh boy that was fun! Logs had become crocodiles, ivy had become exotic creepers, there were loads of strange looking fish floating around. We felt like real explorers even the common birds took on a specialness. It felt like a 'location' slip such is the power of childrens imaginations. We were at it all morning going off in smaller groups and trying to scare each other. We arranged to all meet after dinner (ie the midday meal). and so we would have done as we weren't tried of the game at all.
However when our mothers got whiff of it they all flew 'hooley riled'* and put a stop to it! We were all 'inta wrong' (ie shouting trouble not smacking trouble) Quite out of proportion compared to the usual grumbling if we'd got a bit muddy and wet!! Oh dear why do parents always have to spoil the best fun??? What had we done wrong? Hey we were fearless explorers we'd discoverd something magical
right in our very village we felt admiration was due not all this crossness!
*This was the expression I used at the time. In retrospect 'went ape shit' would have been more appropriate. You see what we'd actually been playing in all morning was the overflowing cesspit from the recently build council houses!!!!
Oooops!
Solliywos x