No Ball Games!

                                      Dear Friends, many years ago when I lived in London, I was invited to a party in the Borough of Peckham. It transpired it took place in a block of council flats. As is often the case I was greeted and shown to a bedroom where coats were being dropped. On the way in ‘mine host’ asked me if my coat was made of real leather. I said that it was. He shook his head and dissuaded me from leaving it there. The inference was that if I did then it would be stolen. I will never forgot leaving that block of flats late at night and walking across the concrete plaza that I suppose was the equivalent of a courtyard.  A council sign stated bluntly:- No Ball Games. It was a sign I had seen before on more depressing council estates and not only in London. I was a fresh faced young teacher back then and had discovered that the welfare of children was my business. Dear Reader, I was and continue to be disgusted and appalled by this sign. It seemed to me then that that was the wrong priority. It suggested that a gang fight, a stabbing, the taking of drugs, rape and murder were acceptable but that a pick up football game, a bit of shooting at a basketball hoop was not. How ridiculous, how stupid, how criminal.  Since then I have become a smidge more cynical about how bureaucracy takes things seriously which are anything but and then jokes about things which should be taken seriously.  There is a bridge over the River Yeo in Somerset where the sign states ‘No Jumping or diving off the bridge”. The water beneath is deep and barely moving as it lies on land that is almost flat, the bridge is only about 10 feet above it. There is, therefore, no deadly current, no delirious height.  Driving over it on a hot summer day, there are teenagers who are showing off by jumping, diving off the bridge, breaking its rule. Fair play to them.  Personally I would rather they were doing that than sat in a darkened room playing a mindless video game. That would be far more dangerous.

                      Recently we have seen the remarkable news pictures of our political leaders walking hand in hand to speak to the grieving population of Tumbler Ridge. Everybody comments on the fact that Poilievre, the leader of the opposition, has shared a podium with Prime Minister Carney. Like many of you, Dear Readers, I am uplifted by the way the shooting was handled by our politicians.  But is it jejune of me to take this type of gesture for granted? It is fine to differ politically and expound on an opponent’s policies but we should not be falling out over such tragic incidents, should we? I was impressed with Sunak who, as British Prime Minister having just been voted out of office, expressed the view that his successor, Keir Starmer, was a good man. The current President of the United States, however, is a toilet blockage. You know what it is like, friends. We all dread that dire moment when the effluent is bubbling up to the top, the plunger is not working and your friendly neighbourhood plumber is on a “Round-the-World’ cruise. Dear Reader, if Trump had had the freedom to play street basketball or jump off a bridge as a child, don’t you think he may have a better understanding of the real world of give and take? I failed to be impressed by the story of a friend of mine when on a business trip to Edmonton was shown around a large storage facility which contained supplies for the Ukrainian war effort. Amongst the contributions were a variety of motor vehicles. The young woman turned her nose up at one of the vehicles expressing the view that she would not be caught dead driving one of those.  “But these are to help in the war effort in Ukraine”, expressed my aghast friend.  History doesn’t relate whether or not Generation Zed caught the message and suffered some embarrassment at her faux pas. It sounds like she still didn’t get it.  I suppose, Dear Friends, that this whole blog is simply about not getting it. Taking the serious seriously is important, taking the frivolous seriously is not.

                  I am a pedant, Dear Reader. Some language usage irritates like fingernails scraping down a blackboard. But there is a time and a place for pedantry. When one is dealing with a tragedy (and there are plenty of them about,) it is petty and puerile to worry about comma usage and the placement of colons and such. The sign ‘No Ball Games’  is a tragedy to me. Why?  Because it smacks of nihilism, tells of pessimism, reflects badly on human nature. Local government should be employing youthful interns to be playing hoops or football with youngsters particularly those children who have been disadvantaged from the start of their lives. The sign should read something like:- “For Gawd’s sake, please, please play ball games every spare moment you have.” And if somebody tells you not to, then feel free to throw them off that bloody bridge over which you are forbidden to jump.

             Don’t get me wrong, Dear Reader, I want, like all of you, to keep our children safe. Hmmm, I have just had a flashback to an occasion at school when I was taking my class of 9 year olds for a walk in the woods. On this particular occasion I was accompanied by parent helpers. One child’s mother let out a yell and rushed forward because her son had just leapt onto a moss covered rock. It was damp and there was a danger of slipping. He didn’t slip. She then insisted on holding his hand for the rest of the hike. For some reason I was privy to the knowledge that this woman was pregnant by her British boyfriend, was planning to leave the family home and go back to England to live with her new partner.  The causes of the breakdown in the relationship with her husband were none of my business but all I saw was somebody who was going to leave her son, indeed desert him across an ocean. In my book, Dear Reader, that is a smidge more traumatic for him than falling off a wet rock. Strewth! Give me strength! Or the boy at camp who was a gung ho kind of fellow but somehow wasn’t interested in any of the activities which would normally enthuse him. Tearful one night he told me that just before he left for camp his parents told him they were separating.  Sometimes, of course, that is the best course of action but not if it is told to the child like it is no big deal the night before he heads off to Camp Summit, a place where normally a gung ho lad like this one has the chance to go gung holier than ever. In the words of Salman Rushdie,

“At such times my picture of the world hangs crooked on the wall.”

          I love seeing little children out with their parents in the rain I share the joy when they are allowed to jump in muddy puddles. Even better if mum and dad are jumping in puddles with them. Please, please allow your wee tads to jump in puddles. What am I saying? I know that if you are reading this blog you already allow your child or grandchild to dig in the mud and pull up worms. I once read or was taught or heard at a professional development seminar that no child ever really plays. Free play in particular encompasses a whole slew of valuable learning, involving creativity, imagination, invention, back and forth negotiation with peers, athleticism, assessment of consequences and so on.

“There is something to be said for leaving youth a good deal alone so that it may discover itself.” John Buchan

  Those children who go through their childhood where they are over structured, are rushed from  activity to activity hither and thither probably need more time to sit and stare, to wonder and dream.  I speak as one who probably had his own children in too many activities back in the day. It is healthy for children to be busy but sometimes I feel the balance is too much see, not enough saw if you will forgive the playground analogy. Sometimes, Dear Reader, I feel, in the words of Josephine Tey:-

“The shadow of unreason has reached out and taken the sunlight from them.”

Sometimes I want simply to see our children allowed to be children and that, Dear Reader, means kicking a ball and splashing in puddles.

Thanks for reading.