uncomfortable questions. We stopped playing with Mr Atkins after that, even though he had in fact only been recruiting for a Christian youth group. (Oh that’s alright then!)
It’s almost as if everything of import that happened to me as a child did so down the field. We practically lived there during the school holidays, and spent every evening there or thereabouts in termtime. It was a good place, verdant and varied, where time stood still (I don’t remember any of us wearing watches – we just went home when it felt like we ought to, and usually got it spot on too). They talk of ‘dog years’, well these were ‘field hours’, amorphous units of time that stretched all summer long some years, whether I was playing French cricket with potential kiddy-fiddlers, smoking with Pete Thompson or catching sticklebacks in bandy nets. I remember learning the word ‘wanker’ down the field, and, savouring the way it felt in my mouth without having a clue what it meant, 2 I shouted it out at the top of my lungs all afternoon. They must have heard me right across the allotments and halfway up Milverton Crescent.
* * *
The field was a miniature socialist utopia, a place where all economic groups were welcome and the only social stigma was not wanting to join in. Unless I’m romanticising, as long as you joined in the ad hoc games of football or Stony or Tiggy Off Ground you were alright. A straightforward meritocracy held sway when we picked teams. The team captain was bound to favour anyone who by reputation could thwack a tennis ball – likewise, height and age were a consideration – but selection never hinged on whether or not your dad did something indistinct in an office. It simply wasn’t an issue.
All the dads in Winsford Way did something indistinct in an office – except Jack at the top of the street, who was something high up in the police (and as such probably spent as much time in an office as any of our dads). At least we knew what Jack up the road did. He was a policeman. We didn’t know or give much of a toss what other kids’ dads did. Apparently, Geoff Edwards from next door organised the refurbishment of pubs. (I only found that out retrospectively so it doesn’t count.) I doubt any of my mates knew or cared that our dad was in insurance. He had a company car: Vauxhall Viva most of the time and a Cavalier when his circumstances improved, and we parked in the Equity & Law. So? It didn’t have any bearing on our elaborate games of combat down the field. The field was a great leveller. The field was neutral. It was no-dads-land.
When I was at Chelsea School of Art many years later, I heard that St Martin’s, where all the good-looking, posh girls went, asked what your father did as part of the induction interview. Not being a good-looking, posh girl I was never St Martin’s material anyway, so it’s all hypothetical, but what a bloody liberty.
Life was so much simpler down the field.
Kids are truly classless little human beings anyway. The education system valiantly endeavours to smooth everyone out, socially and demographically, by dressing them in identical uniforms (I was used to that of course), but even that doesn’t quite work, because the shoes are a giveaway – just like large hands are on a male transvestite. And there’s a big difference between a brand new school blazer and a worn-in second-hand one. No wonder state communism was doomed.
When I started Abington Vale Middle School, my parents packed me off with my first briefcase – none of your Adidas bags for me. Talk about spot the kid with the white-collar dad! The irony is, it was second-hand; an ancient, falling-apart, hand-me-down, though such thrift did little to disguise those lofty parental aspirations.
When we first moved into Winsford Way it was still under construction and Dad used to take us on early evening building site raids for firewood. I don’t want you to think of me as one of those sad middle-class people
It’s almost as if everything of import that happened to me as a child did so down the field. We practically lived there during the school holidays, and spent every evening there or thereabouts in termtime. It was a good place, verdant and varied, where time stood still (I don’t remember any of us wearing watches – we just went home when it felt like we ought to, and usually got it spot on too). They talk of ‘dog years’, well these were ‘field hours’, amorphous units of time that stretched all summer long some years, whether I was playing French cricket with potential kiddy-fiddlers, smoking with Pete Thompson or catching sticklebacks in bandy nets. I remember learning the word ‘wanker’ down the field, and, savouring the way it felt in my mouth without having a clue what it meant, 2 I shouted it out at the top of my lungs all afternoon. They must have heard me right across the allotments and halfway up Milverton Crescent.
* * *
The field was a miniature socialist utopia, a place where all economic groups were welcome and the only social stigma was not wanting to join in. Unless I’m romanticising, as long as you joined in the ad hoc games of football or Stony or Tiggy Off Ground you were alright. A straightforward meritocracy held sway when we picked teams. The team captain was bound to favour anyone who by reputation could thwack a tennis ball – likewise, height and age were a consideration – but selection never hinged on whether or not your dad did something indistinct in an office. It simply wasn’t an issue.
All the dads in Winsford Way did something indistinct in an office – except Jack at the top of the street, who was something high up in the police (and as such probably spent as much time in an office as any of our dads). At least we knew what Jack up the road did. He was a policeman. We didn’t know or give much of a toss what other kids’ dads did. Apparently, Geoff Edwards from next door organised the refurbishment of pubs. (I only found that out retrospectively so it doesn’t count.) I doubt any of my mates knew or cared that our dad was in insurance. He had a company car: Vauxhall Viva most of the time and a Cavalier when his circumstances improved, and we parked in the Equity & Law. So? It didn’t have any bearing on our elaborate games of combat down the field. The field was a great leveller. The field was neutral. It was no-dads-land.
When I was at Chelsea School of Art many years later, I heard that St Martin’s, where all the good-looking, posh girls went, asked what your father did as part of the induction interview. Not being a good-looking, posh girl I was never St Martin’s material anyway, so it’s all hypothetical, but what a bloody liberty.
Life was so much simpler down the field.
Kids are truly classless little human beings anyway. The education system valiantly endeavours to smooth everyone out, socially and demographically, by dressing them in identical uniforms (I was used to that of course), but even that doesn’t quite work, because the shoes are a giveaway – just like large hands are on a male transvestite. And there’s a big difference between a brand new school blazer and a worn-in second-hand one. No wonder state communism was doomed.
When I started Abington Vale Middle School, my parents packed me off with my first briefcase – none of your Adidas bags for me. Talk about spot the kid with the white-collar dad! The irony is, it was second-hand; an ancient, falling-apart, hand-me-down, though such thrift did little to disguise those lofty parental aspirations.
When we first moved into Winsford Way it was still under construction and Dad used to take us on early evening building site raids for firewood. I don’t want you to think of me as one of those sad middle-class people
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