a childhood thing
May. 26th, 2009 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wytchcroft[Error: unknown template qotd]
In which our narrator looks waxy and autobiographical
I suppose it’s not all that unusual for childhood memories to be richer when they involve specialness of some sort. That is to say, if I’m asked about the homes of my childhood then – ok, I can talk about them, I have a very clear memory and could tell anyone just where they were and what I did and hardly any of it will be interesting or evocative…
BUT if I think of places that I visited, things like holiday homes, well then it’s a different story entirely, there’s something closer to magic in my mind’s eye.
One such place was (still is) a large and very old manor house that was converted into a guest house for coach parties. Surrey or Sussex, I forget which – but fans of neil gaiman can find it in the Sandman comics under a very slightly altered name that begins with a W.
What was so great about the place then?
Pretty much everything; There were secret passages – SECRET passages!!! In the early 70s these were about the coolest thing a building could have. I used to love racing around between the hard wooden walls and popping out on people unexpectedly. There were ‘priest holes’ I believe, certainly there were alcoves where you wouldn’t expect them – games of hide and seek could last hours.
There was a dumb waiter. Also cool – in fact I didn’t see another for many years. You could send down to the kitchen for food or hot towels and they would come up the creaky shaft into your eager hands.
I have a younger brother. I used to be very mean to my younger brother.
Yep – even now I’m still cackling fiendishly. He used to fit perfectly in the dumb waiter and if you snuck into the kitchen or the laundry area you could send him more or less anywhere. Lot of people got surprise deliveries while we were there, heh heh heh!
It was always summer so when I look back I see tall golden grass, and I hear insects droning and I feel once again the sensation of my hand on the warm rusting metal of an old tractor stuck out near the woods. I used to run wild around the lanes and coppices and, unlike my usual home experience; I had a license to be as feral as I actually was. I could climb trees, whoop and holler and rip my clothes off to get burnt on my arse, like some sort of English Tom Sawyer or Huck-fin.
And there were Crows and Ravens, which we didn’t see much of in the city and there was strange food, the exotic taste of my first grapefruit, so refreshing and sharp.
“Oh you won’t like that,” one kindly old dear at an opposite breakfast table would say, “too sour for a child.”
Maybe she meant me – because the grapefruit wasn’t sour at all.
And there was toast cut into triangles and held in a little rack. I remember being told off for laughing – but I had never imagined such a thing. Wow, I thought, this is the high-life!
And so it was.
In which our narrator looks waxy and autobiographical
I suppose it’s not all that unusual for childhood memories to be richer when they involve specialness of some sort. That is to say, if I’m asked about the homes of my childhood then – ok, I can talk about them, I have a very clear memory and could tell anyone just where they were and what I did and hardly any of it will be interesting or evocative…
BUT if I think of places that I visited, things like holiday homes, well then it’s a different story entirely, there’s something closer to magic in my mind’s eye.
One such place was (still is) a large and very old manor house that was converted into a guest house for coach parties. Surrey or Sussex, I forget which – but fans of neil gaiman can find it in the Sandman comics under a very slightly altered name that begins with a W.
What was so great about the place then?
Pretty much everything; There were secret passages – SECRET passages!!! In the early 70s these were about the coolest thing a building could have. I used to love racing around between the hard wooden walls and popping out on people unexpectedly. There were ‘priest holes’ I believe, certainly there were alcoves where you wouldn’t expect them – games of hide and seek could last hours.
There was a dumb waiter. Also cool – in fact I didn’t see another for many years. You could send down to the kitchen for food or hot towels and they would come up the creaky shaft into your eager hands.
I have a younger brother. I used to be very mean to my younger brother.
Yep – even now I’m still cackling fiendishly. He used to fit perfectly in the dumb waiter and if you snuck into the kitchen or the laundry area you could send him more or less anywhere. Lot of people got surprise deliveries while we were there, heh heh heh!
It was always summer so when I look back I see tall golden grass, and I hear insects droning and I feel once again the sensation of my hand on the warm rusting metal of an old tractor stuck out near the woods. I used to run wild around the lanes and coppices and, unlike my usual home experience; I had a license to be as feral as I actually was. I could climb trees, whoop and holler and rip my clothes off to get burnt on my arse, like some sort of English Tom Sawyer or Huck-fin.
And there were Crows and Ravens, which we didn’t see much of in the city and there was strange food, the exotic taste of my first grapefruit, so refreshing and sharp.
“Oh you won’t like that,” one kindly old dear at an opposite breakfast table would say, “too sour for a child.”
Maybe she meant me – because the grapefruit wasn’t sour at all.
And there was toast cut into triangles and held in a little rack. I remember being told off for laughing – but I had never imagined such a thing. Wow, I thought, this is the high-life!
And so it was.
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-27 04:14 pm (UTC)We didn't have much in the way of guest houses growing up, but we made our own fun in an old barn that sat at the back of our property. We'd create all kinds of mysteries for ourselves...;)
Somehow, I can just see you as a young fella running through all those secret passageways...
;)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-27 04:33 pm (UTC)mostly my childhood was back-alleys and what not. we were poor.
barns were something mysterious and strange and rarely glimpsed...
(i wonder what fun you had?
it's amazing the games a child's imagination can create - and again, i see that now when i'm working in that area)
in fact i still have strange emotions when i find myself near a farm or a barn - which these days is quite often!!:))
no subject
Date: 2009-05-27 05:14 pm (UTC)That barn is still there- falling quite to pieces lately... it was an old tobacco barn, where my grandpa would dry the tobacco...! It holds a lot of nice memories for me- I'll be sad when ti completely crumbles...
no subject
Date: 2009-05-27 05:42 pm (UTC)and yes, i know nancy drew well, and the hardy boys.
the books my sister would pass on to me and we'd watch it on tv too - pamela sue martin, back in the day... :))