Just Playing

It was my cousin John who articulated the thought for me when we staying at John & Jeanette's back in April. At the time of the Moors Murders, before anyone had heard of Brady & Hindley, there was obviously a lot of concern about the poor missing kids around our area. Yet we were allowed to play out pretty much as usual. Which meant being out of the house with your mates at every possible opportunity, for as long as possible, getting up to as much mischief as possible.

I'd always thought this was the case because I can remember routinely passing Denton police station in a gang, a long way from home, and seeing the poster for John Kilbride, but I did wonder if memory had played tricks. Cousin John though is a couple of years my senior and he was very clear as to the freedom we were granted.

Isn't that wonderfully sane, almost unthinkable today when children are grotesquely over-protected? Our parents knew, in a deeper way than we ever could, having lived through, and fought in, a war, that the world in a dangerous place. But they also knew that dangers needed to be encountered if kids were really going to be allowed to be kids. I suppose nowadays someone would be planning to lock them up for neglect.