Of Lifelines and Young Lives

I was reminded today of the importance of lifelines. I was knitting a shawl (for the interested, the Love Potion 1 KAL on Ravelry) and half watching a programme on Scottish history.  I was on the final row of a section, knitting happily along, and failing to notice that one of my circular needle tips had come detached from the cord. OK, I should have made sure it was properly tightened. I came to the end of the section, pushed the knitting along, and stood up to clear up for the night. The rest was predictable. The designer sensibly had suggested inserting a lifeline at the end of the previous section, and fortunately I had taken the advice. Tomorrow is another day and my evening is free.

Many things involve taking precautions and we take many for our children, far more now than before. This may be safe, but is at the expense of freedom and the learning of odd, and occasionally useful, skill, such as how to gut and pluck a turkey.

I was brought up in a small English village on the south coast. When I lived there we had 4 proper streets, a parade of 5 shops and 3 rows of beach houses that were mostly only lived in in the summer. Now it is part of the South Coast Sprawl, 50% holiday resort, 50% retirement home.

My father owned the butchers shop, giving us a degree of local prestige and a very odd assortment of meals as we had what was left at the end of the day. One day might be steak and the next tripe. I still hate the smell of tripe  cooking and turkey is an anathema. Christmas meant dozens of turkeys hanging in all their glory on display. When bought they had to be plucked - and it was all hands (including mine) on deck. Feathers everywhere.

We lived above the shop. There was a balcony behind the flats and I could hang over the edge and watch for my father coming home from the pub next to the shops on Sunday lunchtimes, only one beer, to improve the appetite, and rush inside and help get the food out. If he was late I would be sent down to extract him. I would also be sent to buy cigarettes "One packet of  Players, please". No laws then about age and buying, or, at least if there were, they didn't apply in our village.

Our shop is the second from the left. 2 The Parade (1 was the post office and newsagent, 3 the hairdressers, 4 the ironmongers, 5 the greengrocers and 6 the grocers)

 This was one of the few times that I have lived next to other children my age. There was a family next door with, if I remember rightly two children. We had pretend tea parties on a rug on the balcony and explored the wild lands across the road. The beach was mostly pebbles and places had a strong undertow, but behind that was the dunes. A maze of sand in hill and hollows, threaded with paths, some dead ending in a gorse patch, but others leading onward. The sand was mixed with marram grass, sharp, would cut your legs, gorse, prickly and sweet smelling in spring and windswept bushes. There was yellow broom, windswept tamarisk and a huge number of low plants with tiny leaves, greyish green in colour. If I ever knew their names I have long forgotten them. Further inland was an endless thicket of blackberries which produced bucket loads of fruit in late summer, together with scratched faces and arms, ripped clothing and purple stained mouths. Hours were spent in the dunes. Hide and seek, sand castling, digging out rabbit warrens (but never seeing the rabbits) and burying each other up to our noses. There was no adult supervision and certainly no thoughts of danger. 

The Beach - well really The Shingle