The Secret Adventures of Childhood
From planting memory boxes and digging for pottery, to how kids can be kids even in the rain
As a child, my street friends and I spent the majority of our time outside. I don’t remember it ever raining in these times, but we were in the North of England, so I do contemplate whether I just forgot to register this part of my childhood memories in my brain due to the rose-tinted glasses of youth I was seeing through. And by street friends, all I mean is that they were the friends who lived on my street, not my school friends. Friendship groups were a very specific thing back in my younger years and it was important to differentiate them. I still don’t know why.
Memory or no memory of the weather, what is remembered most by all of us are the adventures we took it upon ourselves to go on, the games we created, and the entertainment we created for ourselves, all in the space of 4 pm to 7:30 pm, in between school ending and bedtime. It felt like we adventured far and wide, but we actually never ventured more than two minutes away from our homes. It was all the art of the imagination and getting lost in the fun-ness of it all. And in hindsight, the fact it was most likely raining seemed to be the most insignificant part of the story.
One of our endeavours involved a pottery hunt. And it wasn’t just the act or art of finding pieces of pottery accidentally. No. We were given permission (I think? I hope) to dig up one of our neighbours’ garden. It wasn’t one of our own gardens, just an older couple with children who had already grown up and moved away. We found a few shovels and, quite literally, dug up a garden for a good seven years.
In our defence, this garden was already in shambles, and digging for pottery (which seemed like gold at the time) was not our sole reason for the disintegration of the garden. The garden was on a slant, a hill if you will, and so getting down to the bottom of the garden proved difficult, which initiated the brainwave to create steps. This made us proud children, thinking we were helping the elderly couple do things they were too old to do. But in reality, we really just wanted easy access to where the best pottery was.
Another one of our projects of this unauthorised garden was the creation of a tree swing, where we would go to relax and unwind after a long hard day of pottery digging. When we were not looking for pottery, we were digging up my back garden, to plant our memory box of the glory days — which mainly held the best, most honourable pottery we found.
For some context, I am reminiscing about this youthful time of my life because of the rainy weather I can see out of the window. With the bank holiday edging closer, I instantly thought about how the dreary weather could affect my plans and then about how cruel life is. I discussed with my colleagues how we could appreciate the rain and why as adults, it is so difficult. We are all too easy to back out of plans because of a little bit of rain, whilst children can carry on with their activities despite the rain, all the while it making zero difference to their day, their happiness and their memory of the fun time they had. To conclude, I think it’s time we let our inner child out.
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