A Childhood Concreted Over!

I’m now at an age where I’m always too busy, and when I’m not too busy, I pretend to be!

If I’m not in my car or other mode of transport travelling to somewhere, I’m either writing or performing.

And when I’m not doing any of the above, I seem to be out shopping for things I neither want or need.

Today, I was buying some last-minute groceries that we didn’t really need from the local supermarket, when out of the blue I was transported back to my childhood.

You see, my local supermarket is built on all my childhood memories; the land on which it stands was my play area. Which was dug up and concreted over in the name of commercialism.

When I was a child, I lived on a council estate which was only a stone's throw from miles of countryside. 

Our summers were spent walking through farmers' fields, climbing trees and fishing and swimming in the river.

We were poor, but not Dickensian poor, we had a house and food, so what more did I need? All my friends were exactly the same as me. There were no fashions to follow, no games or electronics to buy and no money to pay for them if there had been.

Our parents had money and marital problems but they were their problems, not mine. They dealt with them and left us kids to get on with being kids.

There were the dangers, that still lurk today, but people were not as paranoid about them as they are now. We were told to go out to play and not to come back until my Dad had finished work, so we could all eat together.

Most of the time I didn’t even bother to come back for the meal, as I would nick stuff from allotments, etc.  to eat.

The summers then, unlike now, were peaceful, and because I didn’t have the worries of bills and work they were long.

I did lots of stupid things that kids do, but I luckily got away with only broken bones and stitches, nothing too serious.

We would camp by a local pond and spend most of the day fishing, and trying to catch poor unfortunate animals that we would kill and eat.

Our parents didn’t know where we were, and didn’t care. It wasn’t because they were bad parents it’s just the way it was - not just for me, but for every kid on the estate.

There were, of course, the local perverts, but we knew who they were, and we were wise enough to keep away from them.

If one was foolish enough to make a move on one of the kids in the neighbourhood, all the kids would descend on to the offender’s house, and shall we just say that he wouldn’t bother any of us again.

Today, while I was filling my car in the petrol station of the supermarket, the sun was shining; I noticed all the buds on the trees surrounding the station. The river that we used to spend so much time on when we were kids still flows down, the back of the petrol station. And the sound of the water flowing and the coolness of its breath as it bubbles and twists its way to the coast, momentarily snatched away the old bitter cynic and replaced him with a young fresh-faced raggy-arsed kid, who had no cares and no idea of the life that lay before him.

I smiled, as a warm blanket of memories flooded my mind; I could hear the voices of my friends shouting and cheering as one or more of us fell in the river.

I could see in my mind's eye the useless rafts that we built and thought that they would take us the seventy miles to the nearest coast. Most lasted seventy yards, and they were the better built ones.

Some of those friends are no longer with us, as life and illness has picked them off, but just for a few seconds today they were there, still young, still happy, and they brought a tear to the eyes of an old bitter cynic.