This morning at my Mum's house I found - finally! - my photo album from my first visit to Tasmania 11 years ago. I went there with a friend I'll call The Photographer. We spent ages seeking out perfect locations and framing our shots and the album is a stunner, even if I say so myself. Postcard photos!
Mixed in with the postcard shots of heavenly scenery are the pics of us having fun.
In one photo, I am balancing a chamber pot on my head. You'll be pleased to know it's empty. (Unfortunately my computer can't read the CD it's stored on, which is a bit of a worry and something I'll have to sort, otherwise you'd see it here in all its glory.)
I have always found chamber pots to be a wonderful source of amusement. I have a very advanced sense of toilet humour, which was the bane of my grandmother's existence when I was a girl. She wanted me to be A Lady. I wanted to be a tomboy.
My grandparents didn't have an indoor toilet until some time in the early 1970s, so my early childhood memories of staying there for holidays involved chamber pots. There was always one under the bed, as nobody wanted to head down to the back yard and the unlit outdoor dunny in the pitch black of night. If you needed a pee in the middle of the night, you squatted carefully over the pot. Even more carefully the next morning you took it through the house and down the back yard and tipped it into the loo. Or Mum did. Hilarious as I thought chamber pots were, the sight and smell of a semi-full one was a bit too much for me.
As for the outdoor dunny, it was a gem. The walls were of fibro, the roof of corrugated iron. The door had a gap top and bottom so the light could get in. The bog roll was on a hook that was always a little rusty. My grandparents lived by the sea.
My cousins and I used to delight in peeking under the door and teasing whoever was sat on the seat (which was made of utilitarian black plastic).
Best of all, it had a chain flush. A proper old-fashioned chain with a black bakelite handle which released a thunderous fall of water from the cistern near the roof. Pulling the chain was very satisfying - you'd give it a damned good tug, release it and watch it fly roofwards - and one of the things I missed when the indoor toilet was installed, as its cistern was conventionally behind the seat and it flushed quietly with a discreet little button.
You don't see chain flush toilets much anymore. My other grandmother had one too in her old house in Clovelly. It was an inside toilet next to the scullery, on the covered in back porch.
At the primary school I went to chain flush toilets were still in place in the 60s and 70s. The newest school building, built in the 1960s, featured chain flushes. In the girls' loo there were two rows of toilets from memory, and it was a good game to have a race to see who could dash into each cubicle and pull the chain down the row of loos. Even better, you'd wait until someone was sat down, climb silently into the cubicle next door, reach over and pull as quickly as you could, trusting you wouldn't be seen by the unlucky girl who just got a wet bum.
This year's Tassie photos don't feature any chamber pots - but I did spy one in an antique shop and, looking at the price, wish we'd kept my grandparents'! I didn't encounter a chain flush toilet either, although I'm sure many still exist, hidden on farms and in older houses. If the chain flush toilet still exists in any number, it will exist in Tassie, my heart tells me.
Showing posts with label childhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label childhood. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
It's hard being a girl - at least it used to be
Earlier this week I was watching The Agony of Life on ABC1, a show where well-known and (to me) not well-known people talk about life, the universe and not quite everything. No, not this blog. I wish they did. More readers would be good.
But I digress. Back to the show. This week it was all about the teen years, with guests revealing, to a man and woman, they were NOT cool kids. I can relate to that!
One of the questions presenter Adam Zwar posed was "How did your parents tell you the facts of life?" Ah, The Talk! The answers were varied and often hilarious.
Unlike laconic comedian Judith Lucy, who was a late bloomer ("I didn't have breasts until I was nineteen. I woke up one morning and THEY'D ARRIVED!") I was an early starter.
I was ten when Mum sat me down with a book on Menstruation (aka The Talk). It looked very dated - 1950s or early 1960s. It was supposed to be written in a friendly style but friendly styles in those days were very stilted. People were embarrassed to talk about the fact that once a month girls start bleeding like stuck pigs. It was full of diagrams, and dry paragraphs. I read it and decided I didn't want to get my periods; sadly I didn't have much choice in the matter and a few months later found blood in my knickers one morning.
Well, if that wasn't bad enough, sanitary napkins in those days were a far cry from today's. We're talking early 70s. These things were the size of surfboards. And stick-on pads were just about to come onto the market. However, that was a year in the future and the only option was to wear Modess panties, bloody huge underwear with a plastic gusset in the crotch, and elastic strips at each end of the gusset. The sanitary napkins - oh bugger that, call them pads - were stuck under the elastic to hold it in place. I swear these knickers creaked and squeaked when you moved. They didn't hold the pads in place very well either, I was always conscious of the stupid things moving up my back or creeping forward. I was embarrassed beyond belief. I cried every month.
The other option was the sanitary belt. The pads in those days had foldout strips at each end which you could shove into the little rings on the sanitary belt. The belt was adjustable/elastic. The idea was it would hold the pad in place. I tried it. And tried it. And tried it. It didn't.
Worst of all about wearing surfboards in your underwear was that if you wore jeans or trousers - and I was a tomboy, I LIVED in jeans! - the stupid things were just a bit visible. From behind it looked like you'd crapped your pants. From the front...well, you looked a bit like a boy. I had to be paid to wear a dress in those days. The idea of having to wear a dress or skirt for at least five days a month was abominable so I stayed in jeans and rocked the got-a-willy/crapped-my-pants look.
Then stick-on pads became available. I begged Mum to buy me some. Anything but those creaky, sweaty plastic knickers. These days stick-on pads are pretty good. They have 'wings' to stop leakage. The adhesive is great. They are much thinner than they used be; bless technology. The 1970s stick on pads were shockers. They were still surfboard sized, they still were visible in trousers, but the adhesive was hopeless. One little strip down the middle that didn't stay stuck for very long, so the pad started creeping around your underwear. This meant - oh yes - they leaked.
Sick of having bloodstains on my jeans I regretfully started sticking the would-be stick-ons to the plastic knickers as the adhesive stuck to the plastic quite well. I was one of those unlucky girls who had heavy periods, and heavy period pain to go with them. I envied girls who only bled lightly for three days. I had one week a month of misery.
Then there was the whole palaver of taking spare pads to school to change at lunchtime; they looked pretty obvious and I used to hide them in my brown paper bag with my sandwich and apple.
I wonder if pad technology would have been a lot better a lot earlier if more women had been involved in the development process. I'm guessing that in the 60s and 70s most of the scientists working on sanitary products were men. Being men they were probably embarrassed about the whole job, and certainly didn't talk about their work down at the local pub. They probably said they were working on kitty litter or something instead. Seriously, consider wings on modern pads. A woman had to think that one up, surely. And probably borne of leakage experience. A bloke wouldn't consider something so logical. If they could make pads in the 70s with long strips at either end, they could have made them with strips at the side. But they didn't.
I was so glad the day I discovered tampons. But girls these days, with a wealth of ultra-thin, ultra-absorbent, wing-bearing pads to choose from - they don't know how lucky they are!
But I digress. Back to the show. This week it was all about the teen years, with guests revealing, to a man and woman, they were NOT cool kids. I can relate to that!
One of the questions presenter Adam Zwar posed was "How did your parents tell you the facts of life?" Ah, The Talk! The answers were varied and often hilarious.
Unlike laconic comedian Judith Lucy, who was a late bloomer ("I didn't have breasts until I was nineteen. I woke up one morning and THEY'D ARRIVED!") I was an early starter.
I was ten when Mum sat me down with a book on Menstruation (aka The Talk). It looked very dated - 1950s or early 1960s. It was supposed to be written in a friendly style but friendly styles in those days were very stilted. People were embarrassed to talk about the fact that once a month girls start bleeding like stuck pigs. It was full of diagrams, and dry paragraphs. I read it and decided I didn't want to get my periods; sadly I didn't have much choice in the matter and a few months later found blood in my knickers one morning.
 |
| Couldn't find an English language ad but this brings back bad memories. |
 |
| I can't tell you how unspeakable these were. |
Worst of all about wearing surfboards in your underwear was that if you wore jeans or trousers - and I was a tomboy, I LIVED in jeans! - the stupid things were just a bit visible. From behind it looked like you'd crapped your pants. From the front...well, you looked a bit like a boy. I had to be paid to wear a dress in those days. The idea of having to wear a dress or skirt for at least five days a month was abominable so I stayed in jeans and rocked the got-a-willy/crapped-my-pants look.
Sick of having bloodstains on my jeans I regretfully started sticking the would-be stick-ons to the plastic knickers as the adhesive stuck to the plastic quite well. I was one of those unlucky girls who had heavy periods, and heavy period pain to go with them. I envied girls who only bled lightly for three days. I had one week a month of misery.
Then there was the whole palaver of taking spare pads to school to change at lunchtime; they looked pretty obvious and I used to hide them in my brown paper bag with my sandwich and apple.
I wonder if pad technology would have been a lot better a lot earlier if more women had been involved in the development process. I'm guessing that in the 60s and 70s most of the scientists working on sanitary products were men. Being men they were probably embarrassed about the whole job, and certainly didn't talk about their work down at the local pub. They probably said they were working on kitty litter or something instead. Seriously, consider wings on modern pads. A woman had to think that one up, surely. And probably borne of leakage experience. A bloke wouldn't consider something so logical. If they could make pads in the 70s with long strips at either end, they could have made them with strips at the side. But they didn't.
I was so glad the day I discovered tampons. But girls these days, with a wealth of ultra-thin, ultra-absorbent, wing-bearing pads to choose from - they don't know how lucky they are!
Thursday, December 6, 2012
And that was the me that was
I've been spending a fair bit of time at Mum's house lately - doing maintenance work and readying it for her return from hospital. She's home now, with a four-wheeled walker to give her some stability and confidence. Luckily her house has wide enough halls and doorways so getting around with the wheelie is pretty easy for her.
I'm back at my home now and feeling guilty at leaving her, although I'll be at hers again tomorrow for the night and will probably spend a night or two there each week over the coming weeks to assess how she's going and when - and it will be when rather than if - G and I have to move in permanently with her.
Hmmph, three paras in and I've already digressed. Back to Mum's house itself. And my old childhood stuff secreted therein.
Like Mum, I'm loathe to throw old memories away and I came across a stash of my old diaries in my first bedroom, high up in a cupboard near the ceiling. These were from my very horsy years: my teen years and early twenties.
The school-aged ones were covered in stickers and drawings, photos from old Hollywood photocopied from books, quotes, jokes, drawings copied from cool 1970s calendars. Meticulously I would decorate them during the summer holidays for the year to come, so there was bugger-all space to write in useful reminders about when assignments were due and boring old school stuff. They were works of art and I giggled as I flicked through them. What a little tragic I was! Anniversaries of when racehorses had been born or had died, with special attention paid to those put down on the racecourse. Jockeys' birthdays (namely those on whom I had a crush). The 'addresses' section was full of racecourses and - what a stalker! - jockeys' addresses (see that bit about crushes again). The only part of the diary that was regularly written in was when I went to the races, or went riding.
There's a sad entry on 30 September 1978 - simply "Nan died". My favourite person in the world, my grandmother, died unexpectedly in her sleep from an aneurism of the aorta, and my world fell apart. The diary was not completed often for the rest of that year until the last day of school when I'd scribbled "I'm FREE!!!" in big letters across the page. I remember bounding out of the school gates for the last time, undoing the top three buttons of my blouse (totally against the rules) and knowing I would never, ever, get a detention for it.
Even at 17 when I'd finished school and was at business college, and had my own horse, I'd kept doing the teen sticker thing. I'd written in when I'd bought horse feed, tack, had the farrier around and how much it all cost. I'd scrawled in when I had driving lessons. I used 'bloody' a lot (and still do). I made comments about the other horses sharing the paddock with mine, and their teenage owners. Ominously there are selfish comments about my grandfather who was then living with us. He was unable to live alone after Nan died; he had a blockage in a vein near his brain, which made him act like an Alzheimer's patient from time to time. He'd swear blind some days that you put your underpants on over your head. He'd leave the stove on and forget about it, letting saucepans boil dry and blacken. He'd put his gloves in the freezer. He'd eat food he shouldn't (he was diabetic). In short, he couldn't be left alone.
All teens are selfish. I cringe when I remember how I was back then. I was grieving for Nan, but how must Pop have felt, after living with that lovely lady for 55 years? Then having to leave his home - which we left intact and took him to visit - and his routine for our house and ours. But I was bitter. Pop had changed as the blockage affected him more and more. He wasn't the lovely man I'd studied the form guide with every Saturday and went with to place bets at the local TAB. His vocabulary had dwindled; he didn't have much to say anymore except repeating, "What do you know?" every time he saw me. Gone were the tales from his past which used to enthrall me, stories from when he was a baker or a kid in the country. Now it was just "What do you know?". Over and bloody over, as I'd noted.
I grew to dread that "What do you know?". I hate people repeating themselves at the best of times and I think this is why!
I also grew to hate mealtimes as Pop was a ravenous eater and would hoover up the food on his plate and then stare at my plate or Mum's, unblinking, like a cat. We were slower eaters, although I soon learned to hoover too so I didn't have his eyes fixed on the food left on my plate. On days where I really couldn't stand it I'd take my plate into another room. (I recall standing in the laundry once, bitterly eating from my plate which was perched on the washing machine.) He wouldn't talk; just stare. I can't stand people staring at my food while I'm trying to eat it, either.
I grew to hate being in the same room as him. I couldn't talk on the phone to any friends I might have as Pop would come into the kitchen and listen; it was entertainment for him I guess. Purgatory for me.
In short I was a selfish teenager who could only see my tantrum-filled side of the story, and called him The Old Bastard in my diaries for 1979, 1980 and 1981. I was a little shit. I hated Pop at the time for tying Mum and I both down. Oh universe, oh Pop, I do apologise. I've felt bad over the years about being such a little bitch to you at that time, Pop. I put Mum under pressure too, complaining about Pop; Herbert only knows she was under enough pressure of her own, and having to play nursemaid to an ageing and sometimes non-comprehending parent aged her ten years I think in the three he lived with us before he died.
Staccato scribbles tell me that Pop went to stay with my aunt in the country a few times; he'd be away a month or two and come back with his diabetes in a total mess, which gave Mum and the doctor extra work to get him back on track. It gave Mum and I a break while he was away - we even had a road trip ourselves to Queensland and back in 1981 where I stalked a jockey I fancied. (We drove to his house and looked at it and drove away again.) A paragraph, cramped into the little space allocated for that day, states that jockey-boy GK and I talked over the fence at the races. We were supposed to go for a drink after the last but he disappeared. That didn't stop my lurve for him; my initials and his were childishly encased in love-hearts all through the diary (and preceding ones and even anteceding ones). I had his phone number; I rang him a few times and noted whether the call was a good chatty one or whether he simply wasn't interested in talking. Poor bloke, he mustn't have known what to do; a teenage girl very clearly wet behind the ears and still on V-plates chasing after him. Most guys would have taken advantage I guess even if they didn't find me attractive. GK, I discovered later, preferred blondes who were good time girls; I thought he was being a gentleman but frankly I wasn't his type.
So that was my late teens: a girlish crush on a jockey, and a grandfather whose marbles hadn't been handed in at the Police station. I was a child still in many ways; a kidult, vastly immature compared to my peers. I'd been brought up in a strict household and frankly didn't know how to rebel aside from stomping around the house with the shits. I didn't have a proper boyfriend but a fantasy relationship with a jockey whom I plucked up the courage to phone a few times. In fact my life was a fantasy existence to get away from my sulky teenage reality of a life revolving around keeping my grandfather out of trouble.
My grandfather died in 1981, and a simple "Pop died" is on the day, 4 October. I have noted that it's also the anniversary of Phar Lap's birth, as if the grand horse and the man who loved horseracing were somehow intertwined. On the day of the funeral I report my mother and her sister having a row at our place afterwards, and that I drove down to feed my horse Mikki illegally on my own. I was still on L-plates but there was nobody to drive with me.
It's struck me, reading these diaries, that I'm the age now that Mum was when Pop came to live with us. I hope, when we have to move back with her, I'm a nicer person now than I was then. I hope I can bite my tongue when she annoys me, because she is sure to; I still feel like a child when I stay at her house, and my inner rebel wants to scream. I hope I can have patience, and tolerance, and love. Mum's not like Pop; her marbles are thoroughly intact and she has a mind like a steel trap, but the generation gap is pretty much a chasm. When the time comes, I don't want to be a me I regret later.
I'm back at my home now and feeling guilty at leaving her, although I'll be at hers again tomorrow for the night and will probably spend a night or two there each week over the coming weeks to assess how she's going and when - and it will be when rather than if - G and I have to move in permanently with her.
Hmmph, three paras in and I've already digressed. Back to Mum's house itself. And my old childhood stuff secreted therein.
Like Mum, I'm loathe to throw old memories away and I came across a stash of my old diaries in my first bedroom, high up in a cupboard near the ceiling. These were from my very horsy years: my teen years and early twenties.
The school-aged ones were covered in stickers and drawings, photos from old Hollywood photocopied from books, quotes, jokes, drawings copied from cool 1970s calendars. Meticulously I would decorate them during the summer holidays for the year to come, so there was bugger-all space to write in useful reminders about when assignments were due and boring old school stuff. They were works of art and I giggled as I flicked through them. What a little tragic I was! Anniversaries of when racehorses had been born or had died, with special attention paid to those put down on the racecourse. Jockeys' birthdays (namely those on whom I had a crush). The 'addresses' section was full of racecourses and - what a stalker! - jockeys' addresses (see that bit about crushes again). The only part of the diary that was regularly written in was when I went to the races, or went riding.
There's a sad entry on 30 September 1978 - simply "Nan died". My favourite person in the world, my grandmother, died unexpectedly in her sleep from an aneurism of the aorta, and my world fell apart. The diary was not completed often for the rest of that year until the last day of school when I'd scribbled "I'm FREE!!!" in big letters across the page. I remember bounding out of the school gates for the last time, undoing the top three buttons of my blouse (totally against the rules) and knowing I would never, ever, get a detention for it.
All teens are selfish. I cringe when I remember how I was back then. I was grieving for Nan, but how must Pop have felt, after living with that lovely lady for 55 years? Then having to leave his home - which we left intact and took him to visit - and his routine for our house and ours. But I was bitter. Pop had changed as the blockage affected him more and more. He wasn't the lovely man I'd studied the form guide with every Saturday and went with to place bets at the local TAB. His vocabulary had dwindled; he didn't have much to say anymore except repeating, "What do you know?" every time he saw me. Gone were the tales from his past which used to enthrall me, stories from when he was a baker or a kid in the country. Now it was just "What do you know?". Over and bloody over, as I'd noted.
I grew to dread that "What do you know?". I hate people repeating themselves at the best of times and I think this is why!
I also grew to hate mealtimes as Pop was a ravenous eater and would hoover up the food on his plate and then stare at my plate or Mum's, unblinking, like a cat. We were slower eaters, although I soon learned to hoover too so I didn't have his eyes fixed on the food left on my plate. On days where I really couldn't stand it I'd take my plate into another room. (I recall standing in the laundry once, bitterly eating from my plate which was perched on the washing machine.) He wouldn't talk; just stare. I can't stand people staring at my food while I'm trying to eat it, either.
I grew to hate being in the same room as him. I couldn't talk on the phone to any friends I might have as Pop would come into the kitchen and listen; it was entertainment for him I guess. Purgatory for me.
In short I was a selfish teenager who could only see my tantrum-filled side of the story, and called him The Old Bastard in my diaries for 1979, 1980 and 1981. I was a little shit. I hated Pop at the time for tying Mum and I both down. Oh universe, oh Pop, I do apologise. I've felt bad over the years about being such a little bitch to you at that time, Pop. I put Mum under pressure too, complaining about Pop; Herbert only knows she was under enough pressure of her own, and having to play nursemaid to an ageing and sometimes non-comprehending parent aged her ten years I think in the three he lived with us before he died.
So that was my late teens: a girlish crush on a jockey, and a grandfather whose marbles hadn't been handed in at the Police station. I was a child still in many ways; a kidult, vastly immature compared to my peers. I'd been brought up in a strict household and frankly didn't know how to rebel aside from stomping around the house with the shits. I didn't have a proper boyfriend but a fantasy relationship with a jockey whom I plucked up the courage to phone a few times. In fact my life was a fantasy existence to get away from my sulky teenage reality of a life revolving around keeping my grandfather out of trouble.
My grandfather died in 1981, and a simple "Pop died" is on the day, 4 October. I have noted that it's also the anniversary of Phar Lap's birth, as if the grand horse and the man who loved horseracing were somehow intertwined. On the day of the funeral I report my mother and her sister having a row at our place afterwards, and that I drove down to feed my horse Mikki illegally on my own. I was still on L-plates but there was nobody to drive with me.
It's struck me, reading these diaries, that I'm the age now that Mum was when Pop came to live with us. I hope, when we have to move back with her, I'm a nicer person now than I was then. I hope I can bite my tongue when she annoys me, because she is sure to; I still feel like a child when I stay at her house, and my inner rebel wants to scream. I hope I can have patience, and tolerance, and love. Mum's not like Pop; her marbles are thoroughly intact and she has a mind like a steel trap, but the generation gap is pretty much a chasm. When the time comes, I don't want to be a me I regret later.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
When imagination runs wild - the unfettered state of childhood
When I was a pre-schooler, about three years old or thereabouts, I had an idea for a tv show for kids. It was called Toilet Time. The premise was this:
I would sit on the toilet having a crap and would be reading aloud an interesting story to a group of kids sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of me. They would be sitting a couple of metres away so they wouldn't cop the smell.
Yes, I was a bizarre child. At three I already had the reading skills of a seven year old, but the Toilet Time idea was the bizarre bit.
I used to like sitting on the loo reading a book as a kid; it was a good way to pass half an hour and whatever I'd eaten 24 hours before. (These days I barely get the opportunity to finish a page before life calls me out of the loo.) In my imagination, however, I was not alone.
I used to envisage my audience, this rapt collection of small strangers hanging on my every word. Boys and girls, neatly dressed, the boys in shorts and long socks, the girls with ribbons in their hair. They were happy listening to me; I was happy reading. Win/win!
This was, of course, one daydream that I had while I was on the loo. When I wasn't reading while sitting there, I'd make up stories.
In one, I played a character called Bronwyn who was, I think, some kind of drum majorette. Whatever she was, she proudly led the marching band down the main street of a town, quite which town I'm not sure. She wore some of her hair in a ponytail above her forehead so it swung onto her face. She had white boots and a miniskirt and was about eight or ten I think. She certainly wasn't three. What she did when she wasn't prancing down the street I'm not sure!
I spent a lot of my childhood pretending to be someone else, actually. My imaginary friends far outnumbered real ones. Sometimes I'd tell my family who I 'was' and demand they call me by that name for as long as the pretence held. Hours, days, weeks, in one case months (I was Dora from Follyfoot in that case, when I was 11). Other times I'd be in character but kept it solely to myself.
Being a tomboy from about age five my characters were often boys. Boys had more fun in my book. They could get dirty and play in mud - heck, they were probably expected to! They could climb trees without someone down below telling them their knickers were visible. It wasn't unusual for me to play multiple characters: Jess and the Four Boys comes to mind. I created them. Jess was a man in charge of the four boys; uncle, father, I can't remember what, but I was mainly Jess. I can't remember the names of the four boys but I just liked the sound of it. Jess and the Four Boys. I was about six or seven at the time. J and T F B liked getting into trouble and mischief... multiple boys saw to that!
I was characters from books or tv shows, I was characters I had created, I was occasionally older or younger than my age; at one stage I was a cat.
I had imaginary conversations with my imaginary characters and their imaginary friends; often I'd write them down and turn them into a story. (No, not for Toilet Time. I had grown out of that idea by then.)
I probably should have considered acting as a career, but I was too shy. My characters usually only had one audience: me.
At an age where I should have grown out of pretending to be other people I withdrew even more into my imaginary worlds: high school. I hated the place. I didn't fit in. I got through my years there pretending to be an apprentice jockey - or several, whichever one I wanted to be that day - and pretended that school was actually the Apprentice Jockeys' School (yes, they exist).
As a kid my imagination knew no bounds. I used to write stories almost compulsively, based on the adventures my characters had while I was playing them. I envy that young me as these days I am hard pressed to come up with a decent, detailed fiction plot.
At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, if I wanted entertainment as a kid I did one of these things:
In short, I entertained myself. Yeah, I played with the neighbours' kids too and we'd ALL act out scenes from tv shows.
I do wonder about modern kids though. Do they do this sort of thing? Do they 'pretend' as I did and many of my friends did? Or do they just sit around and play with bloody computers, phones and electronic toys? My friends' children, who I have watched grow from babies, have never pretended to be anyone else. None of them had imaginary friends. I hate to say it but they are a little bit boring; they lack imagination. Easily bored, they HAVE to be entertained by something, preferably with batteries in it (just wait until the girls discover dildos!). I feel sorry for them, as if they have missed out on something fun and important by not letting their imagination run wild as a child.
Maybe I could turn Toilet Time into an app ...
I would sit on the toilet having a crap and would be reading aloud an interesting story to a group of kids sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of me. They would be sitting a couple of metres away so they wouldn't cop the smell.
Yes, I was a bizarre child. At three I already had the reading skills of a seven year old, but the Toilet Time idea was the bizarre bit.
I used to like sitting on the loo reading a book as a kid; it was a good way to pass half an hour and whatever I'd eaten 24 hours before. (These days I barely get the opportunity to finish a page before life calls me out of the loo.) In my imagination, however, I was not alone.
I used to envisage my audience, this rapt collection of small strangers hanging on my every word. Boys and girls, neatly dressed, the boys in shorts and long socks, the girls with ribbons in their hair. They were happy listening to me; I was happy reading. Win/win!
This was, of course, one daydream that I had while I was on the loo. When I wasn't reading while sitting there, I'd make up stories.
In one, I played a character called Bronwyn who was, I think, some kind of drum majorette. Whatever she was, she proudly led the marching band down the main street of a town, quite which town I'm not sure. She wore some of her hair in a ponytail above her forehead so it swung onto her face. She had white boots and a miniskirt and was about eight or ten I think. She certainly wasn't three. What she did when she wasn't prancing down the street I'm not sure!
I spent a lot of my childhood pretending to be someone else, actually. My imaginary friends far outnumbered real ones. Sometimes I'd tell my family who I 'was' and demand they call me by that name for as long as the pretence held. Hours, days, weeks, in one case months (I was Dora from Follyfoot in that case, when I was 11). Other times I'd be in character but kept it solely to myself.
Being a tomboy from about age five my characters were often boys. Boys had more fun in my book. They could get dirty and play in mud - heck, they were probably expected to! They could climb trees without someone down below telling them their knickers were visible. It wasn't unusual for me to play multiple characters: Jess and the Four Boys comes to mind. I created them. Jess was a man in charge of the four boys; uncle, father, I can't remember what, but I was mainly Jess. I can't remember the names of the four boys but I just liked the sound of it. Jess and the Four Boys. I was about six or seven at the time. J and T F B liked getting into trouble and mischief... multiple boys saw to that!
I was characters from books or tv shows, I was characters I had created, I was occasionally older or younger than my age; at one stage I was a cat.
I had imaginary conversations with my imaginary characters and their imaginary friends; often I'd write them down and turn them into a story. (No, not for Toilet Time. I had grown out of that idea by then.)
I probably should have considered acting as a career, but I was too shy. My characters usually only had one audience: me.
At an age where I should have grown out of pretending to be other people I withdrew even more into my imaginary worlds: high school. I hated the place. I didn't fit in. I got through my years there pretending to be an apprentice jockey - or several, whichever one I wanted to be that day - and pretended that school was actually the Apprentice Jockeys' School (yes, they exist).
As a kid my imagination knew no bounds. I used to write stories almost compulsively, based on the adventures my characters had while I was playing them. I envy that young me as these days I am hard pressed to come up with a decent, detailed fiction plot.
At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, if I wanted entertainment as a kid I did one of these things:
- read a book (and often acted it out)
- went and played outside (being in one character or another)
- watched tv - I was allowed an hour a day after school and an hour after dinner, and shows such as McHale's Navy, Hogan's Heroes, Petticoat Junction and Green Acres gave me great ideas for playacting outside afterwards when I was 8 or 9
- did some kind of art or craft thing - writing, drawing, painting
- played with my toys - raced toy cars or made up stories for my dolls to act out
- walked the dog (who also assumed characters in my imaginary world)
In short, I entertained myself. Yeah, I played with the neighbours' kids too and we'd ALL act out scenes from tv shows.
I do wonder about modern kids though. Do they do this sort of thing? Do they 'pretend' as I did and many of my friends did? Or do they just sit around and play with bloody computers, phones and electronic toys? My friends' children, who I have watched grow from babies, have never pretended to be anyone else. None of them had imaginary friends. I hate to say it but they are a little bit boring; they lack imagination. Easily bored, they HAVE to be entertained by something, preferably with batteries in it (just wait until the girls discover dildos!). I feel sorry for them, as if they have missed out on something fun and important by not letting their imagination run wild as a child.
Maybe I could turn Toilet Time into an app ...
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