memories of childhood inocence

[soalbundy]

On a rare occasion where i could tear my young son from the computer i watched him play with his friends outside and collapsed in laughter as i had a flashback from one of my own childhood experiences which i would like to share with you.

 

About 11 years after the war, i was 8 then, we lived on a council estate in Essex, money was in short supply then,no iphones or computers,in fact nobody even had a television set. Those were the days of radio sets,marbles and conkers and no health and safety regulations. Our part of the estate had the houses shaped like a straight sided U and in the middle of this U was a grass lawn which we boys used as a place to play marbles,there were 8 of us ranging in ages from 7 to 9 with the exception of our captain hero who was 10.

 

Not far away was a large wood, it was a very beautiful wood whose floor was covered in a carpet of bluebell flowers which moved like waves when we walked through them but we boys had no eye for the splendors of nature around us, our interest centered on two earth mounds about 3 meters high and 20 meters apart,we chose the larger of the two to build a fort out of mud bricks which we made from a nearby stream and broken branches. We were armed with long sticks on the top of which we attached mud balls and so with a flick of the arm could send the balls hurling 25 meters in order to defend our fort.

 

One day we discovered to our horror that 5 older boys, 11 or so years old had occupied our fort, Captain hero confronted them and told them it was our fort , they in turn replied we should clear off or we would get a good kicking. We retreated to the second mound and hurled insults and mud balls at them until captain hero decided enough was enough,we would drive the occupiers out. He lined us up shoulder to shoulder,walked two meters in font of us and declared ''On the count of three we charge''. He counted to three and we gave a resounding cheer but cowardly to a man we remained rooted to the spot and watched as he hurled himself at the enemy down the slope crossing the distance between the two mounds in a matter of seconds,waving his stick and shouting brave threats, as he ran up the slope to our fort he looked back briefly, our glances met,his one of disbelief and terror, ours one of sympathetic expectation.

 

He was dragged to the ground immediately and disappeared in a flurry of beating fists and kicking feet, we,his brave troopers turned and ran in panic,throwing our sticks and mud balls behind us. We ran as fast as our little legs could carry us and stopped only when we reached the safety of our lawn where we collapsed in hysterical laughter, empathy was also in short supply in those days.

 

We hid in the front garden behind the hedge of one of the houses of our brave troopers and awaited captain hero's return with baited breath,we held him in awe and fear due to his courage,age and wisdom and because he would kick the living daylights out of us if we disobeyed him.

 

George saw him first, ''There he is, he's limping''. So he was, one shoe was missing,his long socks pulled down to his ankles,his white shirt filthy from dirt and grass stains,all the buttons had been torn off and one sleeve was was bloody where he continually wiped his cut lips, one eye was swollen and closed, it was apparent that he had been crying, in short he was a landslide of human misery. We couldn't laugh out loud or he would have heard us so we lay sniggering silently as we beat the grass on which we were lying with glee.

"You bunch of cowards'' he shouted in our general direction and disappeared into his house,we waited in expectation and his mother didn't disappoint us, her angry shouting could be heard all down the street, ''Look at the state of you, and your shoes, WHERE IS YOUR SHOE !!!'' Leather shoes were expensive in those days and were paid for in installments. The sound of him getting a good thrashing made us laugh until we cried.

 

We returned to the fort a few hours later which had been wrecked in the melee and recovered his shoe. We were too scared to return the shoe to his mother personally so we stuck the toe cap through the letter box and knocked on the door before running for dear life. A few days later an embarrassed captain hero demanded we pay him one marble each as compensation. He had lost all dignity as a leader and we never ever went back to our fort.