Childhood Then and Now.

It’s turned exceedingly warm in our little corner of north western Europe. Today was the warmest so far (note: I’m not using the term ‘hot’, as the media and weather forecasters are, because this blog gets read by people from places like Egypt and India where hot really means hot) and there were no cooling breezes to take the edge off it. When I went outside at lunchtime the breeze was startlingly warm. (In fact, it was almost startlingly hot.)

And it brought me to thinking of childhood holidays, mostly in Devon because we went there four years in succession when I was aged 10-13. According to my infallible memory, it was always warm and sunny in Devon at the end of June.

I remember snorkelling in the sea, fishing off the breakwater at Brixham, watching from cliff tops as ships passed in the Western Approaches, taking Devon cream teas of fresh scones, fresh strawberries, and lashings of clotted cream (with apologies to those who shudder at the very thought of Enid Blyton.) I remember settling on a favourite cold drink as a theme for that year’s holiday – Coca Cola one year, Cidrax the next, and something else the year after that. I remember exploring ancient ruins and marvelling at the grandeur of stately homes and Exeter Cathedral. I remember the trips around junk shops, and I remember us driving our car through fords in quaint villages where I swear the men still had string tied around their trouser legs and pieces of straw sticking out of their mouths. (And maybe they did; maybe they were that old fashioned, or maybe they were put there to attract the tourists. I wasn’t cynical enough to think of such a thing at that age.) I remember sitting at wooden tables outside characterful country pubs through balmy twilights – my stepfather with his pint of beer, my mother with her gin and tonic, and me with my glass of lemonade and packet of crisps. And then it was back to the digs for a last cup of tea and a chat with the landlady before bed. And that brings me to the following morning. That’s what I remember most about childhood holidays.

I woke up early with a joyful heart and an eagerness to start the day, whatever it might bring. I got dressed quickly and skipped off along the back lane to the newsagent’s shop to get my stepfather’s daily paper. And then it was up to the table for a full English breakfast. Could any day start better than that? There was a spring in my step and a bagful of promise in my breast.

Compare that with how I wake up these days – mostly depressed, physically weak, often dizzy, frequently anxious, and always dysfunctional. How times do change as a life turns.

And how sad it makes me feel when I hear of children being mistreated, or being in families too poor to take holidays in sunny Devon, and maybe being even too poor to have breakfast at all, let alone a full English one. (You see, times have changed in Britain. When I was a kid even the poor families took an annual holiday because being poor in those days wasn’t the same as being poor has become since we embraced the free market economy. In all ways that matter, today’s poor are poorer than they were then, and the rich are considerably richer. And the poor kids often live in areas approximating to ghettos, which we also didn’t have in Britain back then. I suppose it’s all for the best in the best of all possible post-Thatcher worlds.)

And how angry it makes me feel when I hear of children as young as 6 and 7 being exposed to needless pressures forced on them by an insensitive educational system devised by politicians with hopelessly misguided notions of need. How dare those who rule our lives, and the vicissitudes of life itself, steal childhood from the children? What sort of a crime is that?

Now I find myself wondering how a fond ramble on the joys of childhood became an acidic rant on social injustice. I’m not quite sure; it just happened. Maybe I’m suffering from heatstroke, but I still might be right.