The summer of ’76 was hot - hot and dry. Shorts and t-shirt were all we needed to wear each day when we headed out to play. We played from breakfast well into the afternoon with our parents telling us to be back for tea. We clambered over the fence at the back of our friend’s garden, crossed a school playing field then into a hayfield so that we could finally play in the haystacks there. Someone stayed on look-out for the farmer because he didn’t like us moving his haystacks into our castles and if the sentry spotted him we ran as fast as we could across his field ignoring the sharp straw getting into our flip flop straps, returning to the safe haven of the school playing field.
All of this took place in suburban Croydon whose centre had been turned into a concrete jungle during the previous decade. However, places to play were plentiful throughout this London borough and they gave us the opportunity to explore our surroundings, both urban and semi-rural. As a child I had the opportunity to create my own awareness of geographical space, expand the boundaries of my world beyond my home and gain appreciation of how natural environments changed. My development as a geographer therefore started as I played outdoors. Little did I know then but the seeds of a good story were sown over the landscape I explored so that they could be fully developed by the time I returned there in my imagination.
Compare the scene described in the opening paragraph to that of a ten year old today. Computer savvy most likely –experiencing the four corners of the world in her own home through the internet, communicating with his school friends through instant social networks; their experiences, while information rich, are deficit of the immersion that my generation had as we explored our neighbourhood through play. Nothing beats a geographer’s spatial awareness and environmental appreciation than being in and feeling the outdoors. Nothing will foster the development of a writer’s imagination more than laying down memories of places, sights and sounds.
Play and places to play in are an essential part of childhood. The seed of my first novel started to grow from my memories of playing in local parks, playing fields and woods. I began to wonder what it would be like for a child who never experienced school fields and had never seen a green park in a city. As I wondered, three teenagers from the future, Martha, Rudi and Trojan, began to speak to me and together we wrote their story. Children are born storytellers, they love to spin a good yarn. For us as teachers however, in order to nurture this natural ability, we need to take them to places to play in and we need to tick all the boxes on risk assessments to lead field trips that progressively take our class away from the local area. We must give children the experiences upon which they can build their own elements of a story and enable them to be writers. If they turn into geographers too –what a bonus!
