In praise of playing out

Yorkshire childhoods in "Kes country"

Blimey. I just read that the Isle of Wight, the “jewel of the South”, is the worst place in England and Wales for teenage tearaways.

True, there’s not a lot for youngsters to do around here in terms of free, structured activities. And there are definitely pockets of poverty, so it kind of adds up. But I’m wondering whether the high number of retirees here are perhaps more likely to report kids if they step out of line. And whether the police follow up calls more quickly in this relatively sleepy area. So maybe it’s a skewed statistic.

I mention it, because sometimes we talk about children, outdoors, as if they don’t belong there. God forbid we end up like the town of Vulgaria in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, where they are hidden away by law, vulnerable to being lured out by dodgy sweet-sellers brandishing a net. (Is there any more terrifying image than that of the Childcatcher.)

TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp was astonished to find she’d been reported to social services this summer for allowing her 15-year old son to go interrailing round Europe with a 16-year old friend for three weeks.

“Confidence comes from trust and independence and from doing things by yourself,” she said. It hadn’t occurred to her to refuse his request.

I’m sympathetic to Kirstie’s viewpoint. How can children learn autonomy if they don’t have a trial run? I’m reminded of my friend Fiona, who, when she was 15 – and encouraged by her parents – navigated her way across England and France to stay with her French penfriend.

Or my brother, who cycled across the Pennines from Barnsley to Manchester to stay with a friend, aged 11. No-one thought it off-limits.

In an East London park recently, a young girl of about five snatched my one-year old granddaughter’s favourite doll from her toy buggy and told my astonished daughter, “Excuse me, I need this,” before haring off with the doll to destination unknown.

I was concerned for my granddaughter and how she’d miss her “bebe”. But I found myself wondering about the doll thief? Did she have any toys at all?

I felt gnawing concern: where were her people? But I also felt a kind of awe that she was playing out at that age without an obvious adult in sight.

I was accompanied to school by my mum precisely once, on my first day at infants, aged four, and after that, expected to make my own way there on foot.

My triplet daughters walked to school by themselves once they were nine. I was studying for an Environmental Science degree at the time, and wrote my dissertation on The Journey To School, because I was interested in how children’s independence had been impacted over the decades as roads became busier.

In response to a questionnaire I issued, some parents cited stranger danger as a reason for continuing to accompany children to school, but it’s mainly traffic that poses the risk.

My grandchildren are used to being supervised, though it’s good to watch from the window as they explore the garden. The two-year old is a tiny Attenborough, a champion mover of rocks and seeker of minibeasts.

One of my most thumbed books is Christina Hardyment’s history of childcare advice, Dream Babies (Oxford University Press, 1984). So much has been written over the centuries about how to bring up children. Most of it seems bonkers when we look back on it.

In the chapter Growing Superior Children 1920–1946, Hardyment quotes psychologist and exponent of behaviourism John B Watson (1878–1958):

“Put the child out in the backyard a large part of the time. Build a fence round the yard, so that it can come to no harm. Do this from the time that it is born. When the child can crawl, give it a sandpile, and be sure to dig some holes in the yard, so it has to crawl in and out of them. Let it learn to overcome difficulties almost from the moment of birth… away from your watchful eye. If your heart is too tender, and you must watch the child, make yourself a peephole, so that you can see without being seen, or use a periscope.”

My mum didn’t dig us holes to live in, but she was an advocate of putting the baby in the pram in the garden in all weathers. She boasted that my older brother had been warm as toast as several inches of snow fell on his pram cover in the harsh February of 1958.

Summer holidays were for playing outside until teatime with the kids from the neighbouring streets.

Housing estates sprang up where wheat fields had been, and we’d play hide-and-seek on construction sites, sliding down wooden roof apexes which were left stacked, ready to be craned into place.

Sure, there were casualties: my sister broke her arm jumping off a wall. Knees were permanently scabbed and picked at. I was about ten when I looked down at my knees and noticed they’d finally healed. I was growing up.

I lived in “Kes country” near Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Ken Loach’s 1969 film Kes is based on the novel by Barry Hines, who also grew up there. David Bradley gives a raw and heart-rending performance as “good for nothing” Casper, a scrawny, beleaguered adolescent who finds solace in the outdoors and in taming a kestrel.

It was a thrill to have the film made on our doorstep, with people we knew appearing as extras.

Here’s the original movie trailer for Kes:

There’s a harrowing scene in the film, where a boy is sent to the head’s office with a message and gets caned by mistake.

The headteacher in Kes, Mr Grice, was based on my dad’s long-serving headteacher, Ben Robey, a legendarily strict disciplinarian. Barry Hines’s older brother went to the same school (Kirk Balk) and told Barry wild stories about him. Later, Barry Hines taught PE and English there.

I’m grateful that a few years before my dad died in 2021, a lady at his church called Kay Smith (who has also now died) invited him to her house once a week and took down his anecdotes about his childhood, verbatim, for the parish magazine. Here are three of my favourites snippets.

(My dad had a deep, resonant voice and a strong Yorkshire accent which I can hear loud and clear when I read these.)

My dad, Frank Varley, as a boy in the 1930s

The Great Snowball Fight of 1941 by Frank Varley

I was at Kirk Balk School, aged 13 and living on Market Street. There was a really heavy snowfall in January 1941 – no schools closed because of snow in those days. There were pupils from Tankersley, Pilley, Hemingfield and Jump who managed to get there. At playtime, a challenge was issued by the Hoyland Commoners for a snowball fight between Them and The Rest. The challenge was taken up and battle was to commence at 4pm at the bottom of Kirk Balk.

There were around 400 boys at the school and at least 200 were involved in the fight. Both armies lined up (no girls were involved) at the War Memorial and battle commenced. Charges and counter-charges went on for a good 15 minutes, the focal point of the Battle being the War Memorial, which was soon plastered with snowballs.

Someone suddenly spotted Mr Robey, the headmaster, and the cry of “Ben!” (his first name) went up. Within a few seconds, both armies had fled the field!

What was going to happen next day at assembly? We were sure Mr Robey had seen the battle, but there was no response. Could we have got away with it?

Not so. Mr Robey had a cunning plan.

He went round every classroom, cane in hand and said, “Stand up all the boys who took part in that disgraceful scene using the War Memorial as a battleground.”

There were 40 or so boys in each class, and in ours, at least 30 had been involved. We all stood up thinking there might be safety in numbers, but no. There were two boys to each desk and Mr Robey told the boys on the right side of each desk to hold their right hand out, and those on the left, their left hand.

He went up and down the rows until everyone had had one across the hand. The 200 pupils who had taken part were all caned throughout the various classrooms and towards the end, his aim started failing; some boys were hit across the wrist, causing bruising. There were a couple of complaints from parents, but I didn’t hear a single complaint from any of the boys, as we were all ashamed of ourselves for using the War Memorial for the fight.

If this punishment had been entered in The Guinness Book of Records for the largest number of pupils caned at any one session, Mr Robey would be The Man and I’m sure the record would have stood forever.

The Black Boy by Frank Varley

I was walking along Market Street going back to school after dinner one day when I saw a boy walking towards me that looked to be totally black. As we got closer, I could see that he was covered from head to foot in tar and was quite upset with himself.

I asked him what had happened to him and he said he’d been captured by the Beech Gang and they’d made him walk the plank over the tar pond on Platts Common tips and poked him with a stick till he fell in.

Not wanting any trouble with the Beech Gang myself, I just said “Oh,” and carried on to school.

I found out later that he was from Jump and that his mother had spent a fortune at the Co-op buying pounds of lard to get the tar off him.

The Pied Piper – To the Airshow, by Frank Varley

I’d be about eight or nine when a poster appeared in Hoyland about an airshow at Broomhill. We were all mad about planes and some of the other kids, all younger than me, said, “Can we go, Frank?”

“’Course we can,” I said, and off we went.

I led my merry little band down Greenside Lane, feeling like the Pied Piper, through Jump and Hemingfield, then wondered where to go next.

I asked a man if he knew where the airshow was and he pointed across some fields and said if we went that way, we’d come out opposite where it was.

We set off again and, several fields later, there we were.

Of course, none of us had any money to go in, but we had a good view from the roadside, and sat and watched the planes flying around and doing aerobatics for ages, thrilled to bits.

Some of the younger ones started moaning about being hungry. We’d no money to buy anything, we’d a long walk ahead of us, so we set off home again – all uphill this time.

It seemed to take ages. The little ones, some only around five, were struggling. We were all starving hungry, but at long last we made it back up Greenside Lane to Hoyland.

Nobody had bothered telling anyone that we were disappearing for the day and several mothers had been wondering why no-one had been home for their dinners, but there we were at last, tired, mucky and starving and we’d had a great day.

We’d had an Adventure!

Here’s a two-minute film about The Air Circus, which toured the UK during the 1930s, introduced by aviation pioneer Sir Alan Cobham. No wonder my dad was excited!

© Wendy Varley 2024

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Still on the outdoor theme, I spent my first night in a tent for many years last weekend. Overspill accommodation while we hosted family.

My six-year old granddaughter was giddy as we got into our sleeping bags: “I love camping out, Wendy! Listen! I can hear the wind and the trees rustling!”

Half an hour later: “Wendy, I can’t sleep. I’m scared. I can hear the trees rustling. I want to go inside.”

We both braved it out and slept till 8am.

© Wendy Varley 2024

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What are your memories of playing out as a child? Were you always supervised?

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Till next time!