Many of us look back on our childhood and believe that they were the best days of our lives. I am definitely one of those people. I had an amazing childhood, growing up in a small village situated on the Solway coast. My days were filled with riding my horses, makings dens on the beach and cycling around the countryside with my friends. Even at a young age I was aware that I was lucky to be growing up in such beautiful surroundings. I loved every day of Primary School as we spent a lot of time outside instead of being cooped up in a classroom for hours. However, recently I went back to couple of areas of my past and my memories changed dramatically.
It was a beautiful autumn morning so I decided to go for a ride on my horse. I don’t usually ride past my old primary school as it leads to a busy road but I thought I would go and see what the school play grounds now looked like. As I approached the school I was horrified to see some ghastly green gates blocking the access to what we use to call the ‘sandy’ (a wooded area filled with hills, bushes, trees and mud). I then went around to the side of the school too see the famous ‘octopus’ tree (named by the school children due to its huge limbs appearing from the trunk). We use to spend all of our lunch times climbing the tree, trying to climb as high as we dared. We usually ended up in trouble as we could never get back down which would result in us missing the start of our next class. Once again I was horrified to see that this iconic tree was no longer there.
When I returned home I asked my dad if he knew why there were gates to prevent the children from playing in the sandy and why the octopus tree had been, dare I say it, chopped down. He told me the gates had been put up as a safety measure and the tree was apparently rotten and could pose a danger to the school children. Health and safety spoiling the fun again I thought to myself.
I know that in this day and age we have to be more careful when it comes to security but when is it all going to stop? This prompted me to file a Freedom of Information request to my local council. I basically asked how many accidents had happened at my primary school over the last 12 years that required the attention of the doctor or hospital. The answer was zero. As suspected. So, despite these schoolchildren attending a school surrounded by beautiful countryside, they are now subjected to playing on a mass area of tarmac and concrete. Nice.
After my trip to my old school, I wish I had stayed put. The fantastic memories I had of my days at primary had been replaced by ones of red tape and safety this and safety that.
A few weeks ago I decided to go and visit my old house. Now, why would I do that? Well out of sheer curiosity I suppose. I wanted to see what had changed from the look of the house, what the garden was like etc. Well just about everything had changed. The shed my papa had built to use as a workshop had been torn down and replaced by a brick building. From what I could see it looked like it was being used as an office. The small pond we kept fish in had been replaced by paving stones. The exterior of the house had also significantly changed. There was an ugly extension to the kitchen and what looked like another bathroom on the ground floor. I had seen enough. I once again returned to my house wishing I had never left as my memories were somewhat tarnished.
In both occasions, I regretted trying to feed my curiosity. Both experiences left me feeling disappointed and a little mad. So my advice to you would be; If you have some really precious memories from your childhood, leave them as they are. Don’t return to that special place and expect everything to be the same as it was in the 90’s. Things will most definitely have changed, and perhaps not for the better.
