Games
Some childhood games changed because of the war, others were merely dependent on the one common denominator available to children at any time: they all involved “imagination”.
Wartime
Tank
Although I
loved to run and jump and skip I had another superior game piece - I had my
doll’s pram! I no longer primly pushed this miniature
version of a Silver Cross beauty, that was a leftover from my “only child” more
affluent times. It now served a more
timely purpose. Let me explain.
The hood
moved up and over. So what! You might say.
Well, this made it a perfectly ideal tank. Once the hood was raised just a little, I
would sit inside facing forward (a bit of a squeeze). Then, a boy as the driver pushed the
carriage , I would be the forward gunner peering and poking my toy gun through
the slit of a raised hood.
This all
happened at breakneck speeds along the streets surrounding our house. What fun!
This pram
became a hand-me-down, but it never again saw the kind of play that it had
during the war.
The Secret Tunnel
This was a game that I was not really involved with, as their
babysitter I took very little interest in what my younger siblings were
doing. Obviously, it was an event that
must have occurred right under my nose, but I was not even aware of its
existence until many years later.
To understand this game you need to imagine the layout of
the lower floor of the small row house that we lived in. You entered by the front door, and to your
right was a room that at one time served as a living room but with a growing
family was then being used as a bedroom by LS and me. Further onto your right was the bedroom
proper which overlooked the back yard.
This was where Mum, Dad and my brothers LB and LLB slept. Down three short steps and you reached the
kitchen and scullery, and an exit door to the back yard.
THIS MAY HELP DESCRIBE THE LAYOUT |
As you can imagine the main bedroom was a crowded affair,
but there was a small narrow cupboard at the end of one bed.
The whole point of “Secret Tunnel” was that LS, aged six
years, convinced LB, aged four years that a tunnel ran from this cupboard to
the back yard. To prove her point she
would put LLB who was about two years old at the time, into the cupboard and
tell LB to leave the room, run down the stairs to the back yard where he would find
LLB waiting for him.
It never failed!
While LB was busy running, LS would grab LLB from the
cupboard and lower him out the window to the back yard! The natural follow up to this was that LB
wanted to travel through the secret tunnel.
She would oblige by putting him in the cupboard with the instructions to
look for the secret entrance. I
understand he would be in there for hours.
What makes this story so poignant is that LB was never told
about the true secret of the tunnel until he was a grown man!
Best to Keep Moving
As you can gather from the previous story, LS had, and still
has, wonderful organizational skills coupled with a great imagination. During my time as official babysitter these
skills came in really useful. I could
just escape somewhere to read my book with the secure knowledge that all three
charges were well cared for and playing happily.
Whether such was the case in the following story I leave you
to decide.
For this you need a little background information about the
streets of London. You’ve no doubt heard
the tales of London being paved in gold.
The confusion with this arises because here in North America, the
“pavement” is the part of the roadway meant for vehicles. In England the pavement is the part that
people use, known in North America as the “sidewalk”. In some parts of London the paving stones used
for the “pavement” were often flecked with little gold coloured pieces of
something or other. Hence; “paved with
gold”.
The roadway on the other hand was often paved with blocks of
wood. Yes wood. Not just any wood, but wood soaked in
creosote or tar.
London is a very big city and a very old city. The wooden blocks used for the roads dated
back to when horses were the main means of transportation. Naturally, over time these roads were all
replaced with asphalt, but in many incidences the wooden roads were merely
paved over leaving the blocks underneath.
So now we come to the time of these stories. The authorities had no immediate need to
update the roadways; Hitler was doing it for them! And the bonus for the good
citizens of London was “free firewood”!
Dad collected these abandon blocks whenever he could. I’m sure that the burning tar did wonders for
any of us that had lung congestion and it certainly added to the outside
atmosphere that contributed to the smog and London’s nickname “The Big Smoke”.
But let me get back to this story. Let’s presume that there were some of those
discarded BRICKS lying around, and let’s further presume that LS was imagining
what one could possibly do with them?
Simple really; Invent a game called “Keep Moving”.
LB aged four and LS aged six have climbed on top of the bomb
shelter. LLB at age two can’t quite make
the climb but nevertheless LS will find a way for him to be involved. He is told to run through the shelter from
one opening to the other and there would be a surprise for him when he reached
the backyard. In the meantime, LB armed
with a spare ROAD BRICK is lying down leaning over the edge and is being
directed by LS to drop the brick behind LLB when he emerges from the doorway
below. The timing was supposed to be
that as it fell behind him it would scare him. I bet!
It was a difficult manoeuvre to accomplish, so required that
LLB make the run through a number of times.
Without the promised reward, LLB was getting very tired of following
directions, and there was likelihood that LB was not being cooperative. Suffice to say the brick eventually dropped
and hit LLB square on the top of his head!
As I said “It’s Best to Keep Moving!
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