Playing, Playing In The Street.
The days are so bright and springy. In London the last froth of blousy cherry blossom is flurrying, the sky is as blue as chicory flowers and the other night we saw stars, bright and sharp in the sky over the East End. We can smell the Bluebells and Ramsons and May trees as we soak in the sumptuous growing in the local cemetery park at the end of our street. ‘It’s a dead end’ we joked when we first moved into the road. We have never been more wrong. It is more alive than any other place I know.
There are few sounds of traffic from the arterial road close by. Cars using our street are rare, just amazon deliveries, and routine ambulances….
We surprised ourselves with our clapping in support of the NHS and Carers. We hear our enthusiasm bouncing off the tower blocks and adding to their beautiful noise. The birds are shocked from their roosts and fly in a swirling cloud up from the end of the road as the pots and pans and Harpo bike horns and car horns and whoops and guitars and drums burst out of the restraint of confinement. The children leap and shout and pop in bursts of exuberant, unconstrained, raucous play, validated and even celebrated for once, because they are done under a banner of righteousness, in support for a worthy cause, approved of, disguised, dignified and protected under that aegis.
During the Easter holidays, when no child was remotely expected to be working remotely, the children did not use the pavement and road for playing.
But then our Sundays started to become interesting.
Adults felt the need to party a little, to share doorstep space across and along our narrow road. There’s is dancing, dancing in the street. Playlists are compiled via our new WhatsApp group, which was started to organise bulk ordering of bread, eggs, flour, for the sharing of sewing machine needles and recycling bags.
And the families started to play, the children quickly taking the lead, parents hovering in the background, nattering with newly discovered neighbours, keeping one eye on their mental six foot measure and the other on the road, helping the children to remember distance, or stepping languidly into the path of an oncoming car as a signifier that’s it no longer takes priority over this space at this time.
Hoolahoops rolled down the middle of the street, balloons, chalks, a bubble machine…. the Playworker Mother said to the Playworker Daughter, “I have waited all my life for this! This is Sesame Street. This is Mr Rogers’ Neighburhood. This is your old east end…”
However Playworker Mother was perturbed. The children should be able to do this whenever the choose. But we know perfect well that a child who has never experienced free play (in the street in this instance) cannot advocate for what they do not know…. especially with an oncoming vehicle. (Advocate to the car!)
Children are after all, not in the scope of the windscreen, the average adult horizon. They are beneath The Gaze and out of our Grown Up view, an add-on, a rightless group.
We simply do not factor them in… except some times we do.
Our street has become fairly middle class. That’s ok. We are what we are. And children of the middle classes need play as fundamentally as any child in the world.
The roads a few yards away from us are in an enormous cluster of housing estates. I haven’t been to visit there since the lockdown, my geographical footprint has become very small. But I know with absolute certainty that those streets are fit for purpose as play streets, little shared gardens and grassy corners. Spaces where there is enough room to play alone and together in our new curious play-dance moves, that there are islands of green that have been claimed in their very consultative design, for play.
I know, I was there.
I also know, as surely as I know that Tanya is cooking for every one that needs it, that she, or another Genius of Humanity, has ‘strewn’ the pavements and places and spaces with things to find and use in play.
We looked up our preferred recipe for giant bubbles and made the magic potion and taught the children how to become zen bubble makers and fill the road with rainbows… seems that everybody loves bubbles.
We bought some chalk and doodled in front of our door… ‘May I do a drawing…. for the NHS of course.’ As he drew, he forgot that he had used the excuse of his play being for a ‘good cause’ and lost himself in his utterly self filled playing. A hopscotch grew along the street, highly decorated and multi coloured. We all took pictures and tried it out and behold, it was good.
Within moments another family was bobbling along it, giggling, enjoying the silly.
Who knows if the seeds sewn, strewn, during this bonkers time will thrive. But it seems to me that the more play we can squeeze into our days, the more resilient and better equipped our children will be to handle this Now, and stand up to whatever comes at them next. It’s like turning a cemetery into an environmental haven. It needs deliberate nurturing and support, but the work leads you to wild and wonderful, thriving places.
The tub of bubble mixture, the bubble blowing sticks, the priceless ( broken washing line) skipping rope and the chalk are ‘strewn’ outside our front door now, ready for whenever….
Penny Wilson
Best ever giant bubble recipe from a Happy Hooligans.. please note, the secret ingredient is so well worth it.
Thank you to Mel McCree for ‘strewn’ – Women’s Hour April 14th 2020
This piece was inspired by real life events. and by an article in The Developer by Dr Wendy Russell and Professor Alison Stenning . 20thApril 2020. https://www.thedeveloper.live/places/places/stop-the-traffic-and-make-uk-streets-into-public-spaces-during-lockdown
