Image courtesy of Katrina Crook
When I was very little, I decided to run away. I remember feeling very cranky with my Mum. The specifics of why have long since been forgotten, although I’m fairly certain it had something to do with being made to change out of my beautiful, sparkly party dress and back into dull play clothes. I do recall very clearly, packing a bag. It contained; one pair of knickers, a pair of click-clacks, a packet of whiz fizz, my toy bunny, a towel, a packet of matches and of course, my beautiful, sparkly party dress.
I asked my sister if she would like to come with me but she was quite content to stay inside playing with her Holly Hobby doll. She was never one for grand adventure.
As I stepped out the door, with, I might add, a fairly determined swagger, I scanned our back garden looking for the perfect place to escape. It had to be somewhere I was certain never to be found. And bang! There it was. My mother had not long before hung a week’s worth of washing, including all the bed linen on our Hills Hoist. The sheets were a whisper away from touching the ground, creating a perfect series of tunnels in which to set up my hideout. It took me about an hour to arrange my new home, during which time I had to reassure my toy bunny that we would be “just fine” and also to change back into my beautiful sparkly party dress. It took only a further 30 minutes for Mum to discover me as she came to collect the now perfectly dried washing off the line. No matter. It was beginning to get dark, my party dress was starting to itch, my tummy was rumbling and I’d forgotten food (Whiz fizz, despite its deliciousness is not a food).
Trees make great hideouts…
In the 5 years I’ve been writing about the importance of connecting kids to nature and outdoors, I’ve asked everyone I come across (upwards of 500 people) to name a time in their life when they were filled with an unbridled sense of wonder or joy. Around 98% have responded with stories and memories of being outside in some form. Generally they were by themselves or felt they were by themselves. Mum may well have been keeping watch from a distance, (as I suspect mine was when I made my escape to the Hills Hoist), but importantly the respondents didn’t have a sense of this. They all recounted feeling as if they were exploring and discovering at their leisure, in a deliciously secret kind of way. Some took a trusted friend or sibling. Most stated that they felt they were discovering something for the first time and the intense pleasure it gave them. They felt empowered, thrilled and immensely content.
Our Hills Hoist circa 1950, still going strong.
Many Australian adults also recounted stories of the role the iconic Hills Hoist played in their childhoods and now plays in their own children’s lives. From swinging on it (and getting into terrible trouble with Mum); helping her hang out the washing as punishment for the swinging, counting the pegs as you went; running through the drying clothes; using it to make a tent, whooping around it making wild Cowboy and Indian noises, or, like me, naively believing it was the perfect permanent bolt hole.
Did you have a favourite place to explore, play or hide when you were a child? What is your favourite outdoor memory? Do you have a Hills Hoist?
Are you still tempted to swing on it every now and then like I am?
Until next time.
Image courtesy of Katrina Crook
Have left my tale here for you as well as on the hills backyard blog!
I have many memories of a childhood outdoors and lots of special hideouts. We didn’t have a hills hoist as I grew up in England. We had a very long washing line strung between two trees in a paddock, a distance that seemed miles from the farmhouse, the reason being to avoid the washing getting covered in dust or mud (depending on the season) from tractor wheels rolling through the farmyard.
A vivid memory of a hideaway I hung out in for a week when I was 11 was actually in a tent on the front lawn in February. I was quarantined from school for a week as a result of contracting a rare skin infection (via a cut in my hand) from a pet lamb. It was called orf (affects sheep on the mouth) .Since the local GP was only aware of a handful of cases of human transmission he (and the vet) decided it best I stay away from the other kids. Perfect! A whole week off school to play at home with my pets and sleep in a tent (self imposed quarantine!) on the lawn with the cat in my sleeping bag. In FEBRUARY! brrrr.
My first dog (a kelpie labrador cross), I got her when I was 4 years old used to use my mum’s hills hoist like a merry go round. When there was washing on it, she would grab an item of clothing by her teeth, lift herself into the air and swing. The washing line survived but the clothes would end up as laundry rags. Midnight died of cancer at 2 years of age but I have kept this memory of her all my life!
When I was a child, I lived in a semi in Randwick. We had a Hills Hoist in the middle of the backyard. We spent a lot of time underneath and around it. My parents kept ducks in a cage up the back, then released them into the ponds in Centennial Park when they didn’t want to look after them anymore.
We had a large wooden crate which would fit several children. We’d lay it on its side to have tea parties or turn it upside down to hide under. That big box entertained us for hours.
This was the 70s, so you can imagine cotton rugs and blankets in pinks and oranges draped around the box. I remember one with soft pale pink blanket with raised stripes.
We had guinea pigs. I think we started off with Rufus and Mary but they multiplied and all together I think we had 32 which we tried to give away at the Randwick Public School fete. If they escaped from their cage, Rufus and Mary and their many children would run around the sides of the backyard and we’d race after them.
The smell of Coppertone, that’s the 70s to me, with the crimson Valiant parked out the front to take us to Bronte beach or Duffy Bros to buy fruit and vegetables in boxes.
My father would walk up to Franklins to buy Cascade blackcurrant syrup in his navy vinyl bag.
Once I was allowed to buy musk sticks from Franklins, can you imagine. I took them to school and gave them out in class. One boy said he’d invite me to his birthday party if I gave him a musk stick, which I did!
We used to have a tee pee. My father was famous in the area for growing bamboo in pots, he’d give them away to friends, so we always had bamboo. We’d put bamboo stakes in the ground then wrap a blanket around them, to play under our tee pee.
Some close friends were refugees from the war in Vietnam. They came to our house on Christmas day when their cat died. I have many loving memories of that house and our community, at a generous time in Australia’s history.
Such a beautiful story Frangipani! You should enter the competition! Thank you for sharing such special memories. xx