About the boy

I lived in the country as a boy. Not in a village but in a group of three houses about a half mile from the nearest village. Until I was  8 or 9 I was a great friend with the boy next door. He was about 18 months younger so I was the natural leader in our play although I think that despite occasional squabbles we had a fairly equal and amicable relationship.

It was a sadness for me when he left to go to a small farm in a nearby village. After this there were no other children in my immediate vicinity. I was going to school in the nearby village but I rarely went there at weekends. I was, looking back, a fairly quiet, bookish sort of child. I was a fluent reader and I read a lot.

I was valued by village children by having access to fields by my house where we could play. I remember particularly cricket. We would set up a pitch avoiding the cowpats with a wicket at one end only. Play would be with an old tennis ball most probably and with all sorts of home made bats. Although the village children had access just as much as I did to potential playing areas it was acknowledged that the suitable fields near my house were vaguely under my jurisdiction. I got to choose and was invited to play.

On other occasions particularly school organised games it was a case of two captains chosen by the teacher then each captain picking in turn from the remaining players. I wasn’t very good and was usually among the last to be chosen. I avoided this humiliation if we played near my house. It was “my turf, my rules”. I chose myself as one captain. All very unjust but that was the way it was. I wasn’t very good but I definitely fancied myself. Sadly my natural ability (?) never seemed to appear. I had the final insult at secondary school when our pitch disappeared in my second year for building or some such.

There was no referee for our childhood matches so appeals were many and vociferous. As I recall while catches were fairly definite, things like run out were often disputed. I don’t have such strong memories of playing football although we did. I was quite disgusted when rugby was the winter season game at secondary school. I wasn’t much good at football but I was rubbish at rugby. As I remember the game I liked best was crab football played in the gym when the weather was particularly bad.

Another village boys activity was bow and arrows. My bows were rather feeble but some had splendid bows. I remember one boy just shooting up the air and his arrow seemed to fly on forever.

In frosty weather we took the opportunity to make a slide. I sort of enjoyed this although I was no good at the duck slide. This consisted of immediately on the slide bending the knees and crouching. Rather difficult to not to end on your backside feeling foolish. I remember being quite impressed by one boy who fell over on the slide, cracked his head on the nearby kerb, vomited and then went round for another go.

My contact with small boys ( other than my grandchildren ) is nowadays giving reading support at the local village school. Obviously J K Rowling and Harry Potter features. Hence I was asked last week what to call a wizard with diarrhoea – I was told the answer is Harry Plopper.