But where do you GET this stuff from?

[lizwilliams]

A discussion elsewhere on suitable outings for children has made me start remembering some of the things I did as a child. I was brought up in a very ordinary household in Gloucester in the 70s: we didn't really have theme parks then and I don't think my parents would have gone near Disneyland. I first went abroad on a school trip when I was 10, to Lisieux, but we didn't have foreign holidays because we couldn't afford them, like many people in the UK at that point. We went to Wales a lot and it rained, a lot. We went to a great many castles and I was encouraged to run about on the battlements as long as I was careful.

My parents took me to see, among other things:

- a dead whale pickled in formaldehyde on the back of a low loader (some bloke had found this on a beach in Norfolk and with great enterprise, decided to take it round the country). I thought for years that I might have made this up, but it seems it was real.

- on board a minesweeper. I don't know where this was or why we went, but it was fascinating. I think my mother wanted me to see what kind of experiences my grandfather, a ship's engineer, might have had. It was oily and humming and slippery and grey.

I was regularly taken into pubs from an early age. Our local was a huge square building that used to belong to Baroness Orczy, of all people, and once the landlord let me into the cellars. That was fascinating, too, although it left me with a very odd memory of the actual size of the pub - I still can't quite reconcile the average-sized bar with the huge, cathedral-sized place it was to a child.

And I was allowed to read what I wanted, including my dad's large collection of Lobsang Rampa (remember him?), Hermetic magic and general occult fiction.

I don't know whether this has made me a hopeless lunatic or a fundamentally well adjusted person - those of you who know me will have to make your own minds up! I am not a parent, so can't possibly comment with any authority, but I think there are a lot of things from which children should be protected, and a lot from which they shouldn't. I suppose it depends on the child. I was a cautious, reserved kid and I'm still pretty cautious, especially when it comes to physical risk.

I still like Wales, and rain.

Comments

[carl-allery.livejournal.com]

Wales in the rain. Scotland in the rain. Cornwall in the rain. Do you start to see a theme, developing? :) Also no dead whales or minesweepers, but sailing, canoeing, fishing, winkling, walking coastal paths, climbing mountains, exploring abandoned mining villages and riding the Talyllyn railway. Oh yes, and castles to go with the ubiquitous pillboxes.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I never went sailing (though my mother did), but a beach isn't a beach unless it has rock pools. I once spent a day on a tropical beach in Cuba and got very bored after Hour 3. Then we found some things that looked like trilobites under a rock and all was well.

God knows how I'd fare in, say, Cannes. Better not go.

[sawyl.livejournal.com]

Rock pooling is definitely better than sailing. I used to do both, the former more enthusiastically than the latter, and while I struggle to remember a single nasty rock pool related moment, the three near-death sailing experiences remain shockingly vivid...