Page 55 - br-aug-2020

August 2020 August 2020
We cut swords, bows and arrows,
lances, staves and catapults from
the hazel underwood and I never
remember any serious problems
resulting. We knew and understood
the countryside and respected it.
Everyone was physically fit and we
didn’t need tracksuits, trainers, or
replica premier league football
shirts. We simply wore old school
clothes or if we had older male
relatives, “hand me downs”. We all
had our jobs to do at home but the
majority of our time was spent out and about in fields, woodland and
occasionally in ponds or even in the “rec” or as the grown ups called it, the
recreation ground, where a cricket bat and ball or a football depending on the
season, were much appreciated

Life was simple, the calendar was worked out by the wild flowers that were
picked (it wasn’t an offence in those days.) Every boy in the village wanted to be
the first to bring home a bunch of primroses for his mother, followed in sequence
by violets, bluebells, cowslips, columbines and campions etc. We were always on
the lookout for any orchid species but were extremely aware of their value
environmentally. Later in the year we would celebrate our natural harvests of wild
strawberries, blackberries, crab apples, elder berries, sloes, hazelnuts, mushrooms
and firewood. We didn’t realise it then but we were conservationists, botanists,
zoologists, ecologists all practising a sustainable lifestyle.
We appreciated the natural world and were

taught to understand it. We spent less time
indoors because we were in the way of our
mothers and once we had finished our daily
chore, out we went. Today children are so
busy on their mobile phones or laptops, that
going outside is a chore. How lucky we were
to have lived then, an earlier life, when we
knew about seasonality of life, when parsnips
were in season, when new potatoes were
ready for digging and scraping and when
apples were ready for picking. Recently I
asked a young boy whether he knew any wild
birds, He replied, “yes albatrosses and eagles.
I then asked if he knew any of the trees within
sight there were in fact the sycamore we were
standing under and limes, beech, wild cherry,
yew, holly, buckthorn and elder and he came
up with oak tree and there wasn’t one in sight.

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