The other interesting form of play was visiting playgrounds. The standard types that had slides and other play equipment were seldom bothered with on my visits to London. I preferred adventure playgrounds. These could spring up on various undeveloped building sites for short periods and were the most interesting to me. Often there was some adult involvement in the running of the playgrounds. This was mainly to stop total anarchy but, within reason, we were given a free hand to what we did and constructed in a playground. To many adults these playgrounds were nothing more than glorified rubbish dumps. Wood and sheets of corrugated iron were used to construct things that seemed to have little merit on design. For most of us, that we were allowed to construct play equipment and items totally to our own designs was the main object. Students and adults in the holidays often did help us over some of the major items. A rope swing on a pulley might be twenty feet in the air and travel for thirty yards. This needed some expert help if it was to remain safe for any length of time, but in the main we were left alone, and anyone misbehaving was told to go away.

There were a few minor injuries; these were mostly splinters and minor cuts owing to the salvaged materials we were using for our construction, but no serious injuries were really sustained. To the adults this form of play possibly was slightly safer than allowing us free rein over the local redevelopment sites. Our material that we used in the adventure sites often came from buildings that were soon to be demolished. Some of it was scrounged by us and other items were brought into the playground in more controlled amounts. The adventure playground in St. Johns Wood was slightly fortunate as an additional source of unusual material; a small film studio almost directly opposite did seem to give us on occasions all manner of odd items to make use of.

London was a smokeless zone; it was hoped to control the numbers of bonfires that were in use. On most days, a small bonfire was kept going with all the offcuts of wood and cardboard that we did not have a use for, and as long as we did not allow the fires to be out of control or to make large amounts of smoke, the adults used to allow this form of play. If only the Home could have allowed these freedoms for us to make an adventure playground, life would not have been so boring.

My ability to become injured whilst at play in London was equal to that at the Home. Often on my eventual return, there would be the odd grazes and cuts to be cleaned up. Injuries in London though seemed less painful as the injury had long since passed when I eventually arrived indoors.

The most serious happened when I had been playing on a few abandoned cars with some local boys in an area that was ready for redevelopment. We were aware of the broken glass and did try to avoid cutting ourselves. It was at the front of an intact car that I injured myself. At some point I slipped and my hand went into one of the headlights on a car. I must have done it with quite some force as the lamp shattered. Until this point, we had always found it a difficult challenge to lob stones at headlights until they smashed, but this time it broke quite easily. The pain was not that bad. It was the lump of glass that was sticking out of my hand when I removed it from the lamp that was the more revolting sight. Without any real pain I pulled the splinter of glass out; the spurt of blood that followed the glass was possibly my best effort yet. The boys I was with suggested that I ought to go home. During my walk home, I took a closer look at my cut; if I pushed the triangular flap of skin back into position the blood did stop, but it then hurt. I walked the mile home, leaving a small trail of blood on the ground. Once home I was soon cleaned and bandaged up.

If I wanted to explore, the Underground gave me the most freedom. With this form of railway transport, there were only two points where adults might inspect your ticket. This was at the very start of your journey and at the very end when you left the station. Unlike an ordinary railway, all the lines interconnect, so it was not only possible to get from one end of the line to another but to swap over onto different lines and travel in various directions. In reality, you were only permitted to travel the distance of the train ride that you had paid for. If I was bending the rules slightly in that I was actually travelling to the destination I had paid for, it was just that I took a rather indirect route. A day could be spent travelling wide across London and into the more remote country areas.

I soon learnt that it was best to stick to the more populated areas for this type of travel. Some of the more remote stations only got occasional trains. If you got off at one of these stations, it was often a long wait between trains. A double platform, and it was quite easy to return in the opposite direction. If it was a station with two separate platforms, it was necessary to go through a ticket inspection. All I was able to do was to wait for a train to take me a little further up the line, making sure I never arrived at the final station where ticket inspection was inevitable. At certain days of my exploration, I did buy a Rover ticket; this allowed me unlimited travel on buses and the Underground. I could stop and start my journeys at any point.

As I was always on my own when I went on these longer journeys, adults never questioned me over what my intentions were; it was when I was with friends that we seemed to be watched carefully by the adults. I tried to travel to as many parts of the network as possible. It was quite an easy feat for the more built-up areas, but in the almost country areas the delay in the returning trains and buses wasted too much of the time that the ticket was valid for.

MANY HAPPY RETURNS

There was a new event for me at the age ten: a birthday party. Until now, constant relocations really prevented any gatherings of friends. The Houseparent had decided that I could have a birthday party in the flat, and invite a friend from school who was not at the Home. There had not before been the possibility of a birthday party at the Home, as my visits to London had coincided with my birthdays. This year I was going to have a party, but it would be a few days after my birthday, when I returned from my holidays in London.

It was an easy choice of who would come as my guest. If my friend was a little apprehensive of accepting the invitation, it was due to the odd tales that he had been told about the Home, though most of these were exaggerated. Reassurance that he would be free to leave at the end of the party gained the acceptance.  After all, we all left the Home to go to local schools, and he would have been able to gain his freedom the following morning.

Many friends from school would have liked to enter the grounds to see what the Home was really like, but apart from an open day when everything was made to look attractive, they never saw the boring everyday routine.

The day came, and as normal I was quite excited. As a special treat my mother had been allowed to attend. This was possible as my party was on the same day that I returned from London. The Houseparent seemed to find an extra pair of hands very useful as the helper’s day off and my party coincided.

Birthday parties were generally more relaxed times, and with a wide range of ages in the flat, activities and games had to be organised so that no one group seemed to be left out. I was always at a difficult age, neither one of the older ones, nor one of the younger ones.

The Houseparent had worked out how the party was to run, at what point food would come out, when games were played, and at what time the party was to end. It was a full and hectic event, and with the need to keep an eye on the younger members of the group and see that they went to bed at a regular time, perhaps the party finished earlier than had it been designed for my age group or older. All had fun; even my school friend seemed to find the rather well–organised style of life interesting.

A memorable souvenir of the event was to receive from my guest a quality fountain pen as a present, far better than the ballpoint pens provided by the school or the fountain pens that could be afforded with ordinary pocket money. Any hope from the adults that my writing would improve with the use of a better pen was short lived; my style of writing remained the slightly shaky scrawl that was to be found in most of my workbooks.

Continued

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