It's impossible to believe, as I watch my friends' daughter playing with a smart phone, to think of our amusements at that age. Our big Victorian house had a kitchen with scullery attached, I mean "scullery" what sort of word is that in the 21st century? Anyway in those days there were very few sorts of cleaning products, in fact I think that my mother had at her disposal a donkey-stone for doing the steps, a bar of red kitchen soap, a carton of Vim, and luxury of luxuries, a box of Lux soap flakes!
It was these soap flakes which formed the basis of one of my happiest summertime pastimes. My mother would put some warm water in the sink, sprinkle in a handful of flakes, and stand me on a chair so that I could swirl the water around and make huge frothing castles. I've no idea why this was so endlessly fascinating, but I never tired of it, and would only give up when the water had gone cold, and my fingers were wrinkly as prunes.
When I was a bit older my friend Clive and I would go out in the field at the back (the house had belonged to a tailor who had kept a couple of horses) and build small bonfires. These could be much enhanced by the addition of any old plastic macs that we could find. These would create huge billowing clouds of black smoke, delightful to small boys. PCBs and the like hadn't been invented then, though the smell of the oily roiling smoke did suggest that it was best not to breath it in too extensive quantities. Where the plastic macs came from is anyone's guess.
In one part of the garden was an orchard, and this had against one wall a large bank of blackberry brambles. One day Clive and I contrived to set fire to these (are all small boys pyromaniacs?) with terrifying results. We were used to little bonfires burning under control. Suddenly we were faced with flames snarling and crackling and twice our height. Should we run? The brambles were against an outbuilding, if we ran would the whole world burn down?. Fortunately we did exactly the right thing. Spotting an old door we managed, with super-boy strength, to fling it onto the flames and crush the fire out of existence.
It was in the orchard that I came to grief. We had some chickens which ranged freely and their droppings resulted in copious quantities of apples each year. On this particular day Clive and I were emulating the throwing of hand-grenades by picking up windfall apples and hurling them against the wall. We might have got away with this, but when we shook down the entire crop of eating apples from one of the trees and destroyed those too we were in big trouble. My father quickly found out, and for the only time in my life I got smacked. Even Clive got his pants dusted a couple of times, because in those days all parents stood "in loco parentis" for other children they could catch. Clive probably thought himself lucky, because if his dad had delivered the smacks I'm sure they would have been more extensive and harder.
It was these soap flakes which formed the basis of one of my happiest summertime pastimes. My mother would put some warm water in the sink, sprinkle in a handful of flakes, and stand me on a chair so that I could swirl the water around and make huge frothing castles. I've no idea why this was so endlessly fascinating, but I never tired of it, and would only give up when the water had gone cold, and my fingers were wrinkly as prunes.
When I was a bit older my friend Clive and I would go out in the field at the back (the house had belonged to a tailor who had kept a couple of horses) and build small bonfires. These could be much enhanced by the addition of any old plastic macs that we could find. These would create huge billowing clouds of black smoke, delightful to small boys. PCBs and the like hadn't been invented then, though the smell of the oily roiling smoke did suggest that it was best not to breath it in too extensive quantities. Where the plastic macs came from is anyone's guess.
In one part of the garden was an orchard, and this had against one wall a large bank of blackberry brambles. One day Clive and I contrived to set fire to these (are all small boys pyromaniacs?) with terrifying results. We were used to little bonfires burning under control. Suddenly we were faced with flames snarling and crackling and twice our height. Should we run? The brambles were against an outbuilding, if we ran would the whole world burn down?. Fortunately we did exactly the right thing. Spotting an old door we managed, with super-boy strength, to fling it onto the flames and crush the fire out of existence.
It was in the orchard that I came to grief. We had some chickens which ranged freely and their droppings resulted in copious quantities of apples each year. On this particular day Clive and I were emulating the throwing of hand-grenades by picking up windfall apples and hurling them against the wall. We might have got away with this, but when we shook down the entire crop of eating apples from one of the trees and destroyed those too we were in big trouble. My father quickly found out, and for the only time in my life I got smacked. Even Clive got his pants dusted a couple of times, because in those days all parents stood "in loco parentis" for other children they could catch. Clive probably thought himself lucky, because if his dad had delivered the smacks I'm sure they would have been more extensive and harder.
