The Forest and Ravine, The Bunkers and The Mines
I don’t remember having a lot of toys, but I didn’t need them as there were wonderful radio programs full of stories for kids, ‘The Shadow’, ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’, ‘Dick Tracy’, to name a few.
One of my favourite pass-times was playing in the ravine in the forest beside the PMQ’s. There was a large fallow field lined with high bushes that you had to cross to get to the ravine. The old bunkers that dug into the hills were my palaces and I fantasized of a different life. For a while, I could be a princess, the bare walls lined with gold and the dirt floors covered with fine tiles and tapestries. Everyone would wait on me.
The stories I heard about the field mines left over from the war concerned me just a little. Even though it had been ten years since WWII ended, mines were still being found all over the country, some by children playing in fields. When they stepped on the mines, they would blow up and kill them. Even though I knew my parents were aware of this, I didn’t talk about it to them because I could’t bear the idea that my fantasy world would be forbidden to me.
So between the ages of seven and eleven, my happy worlds were the trips on the military bus to the base, Mac, and the magical forest and ravine.
