Recently I have been revisiting my childhood. There is a new approach to stress and anxiety of giving adults Mindfulness Colouring Books. My husband bought me some for Christmas and a super set of colouring pens. I enjoy using them and, yes, they do relax me. I began to wonder why, then one evening as I was sprawled on the carpet in front of the TV news I had a flashback to doing exactly the same thing as a child - colouring in while my parents watched the early evening news, I think that is what relaxes us. It takes us back to our childhood when we were happy, had no worries and knew we would always be looked after.
We mostly have happy memories of childhood. I remember playing outside with my friends from dawn to dusk - hide and seek, tying skipping ropes to lampposts if you were a few short, football in winter, cricket in summer, roller skating - our skates had a piece of leather that tied over your toes and a strap that fastened round your ankles when your feet grew you undid a screw and lengthened them. I remember playing in the garden making mud pies (do children still do that? My son says no) The summers seemed to last forever - at least that's how it felt. I remember very few rainy days. My husband says that's because I was stuck inside, bored.
I don't actually remember ever being bored. I do remember playing indoors but I don't recall the rain. Memory is a weird thing. I would play with my dolls house, my brother's old train set, I'd build things with Meccano or Betta Builda. I would spend hours with paper dolls, changing their paper clothes, I could colour in for ages. In those days we didn't have the Disney Store, dressing up outfits were your Mum's old castoffs but, with childhood imagination, they were just as much princess dresses as Sleeping Beauty had.
Then there was reading - oh I could read and read. I read in bed every night and every morning, My Mum would often come in to find me asleep with a book on my nose. I had some new books and lots of old ones inherited from relatives - all were magical and took me to imaginary lands in my head. I lived with the storybook characters - apart from the ones in Alice in Wonderland - they terrified me - as did Rumplestiltskin in the Ladybird books. I can remember being curled up in a comfy chair reading. It must have been raining for me to be indoors but I don't recall. I just remember being very happy.
My memories of Primary school are equally as happy. I can remember the excitement of learning new things there. In fact I can associate a lot of the nature and linguistic facts I know with which classroom and teacher I learned them with. Primary schools were fun places then, not at all an environment where teachers and children were stressed and anxious but we learned so much in those happy places. Playtimes were fun too. In the summer we played on the Infants field, making daisy chains, We'd play 'ollies' for keeps in juniors, or skip, or knot dozens of elastic bands together for a jumping game. We'd play two balls - juggling against the wall underarm, overarm, under your legs - we were skilful - and we were champions at handstands against the school wall.
Apart from one lightning storm one afternoon in Infants school I only remember the sun shining at school but I guess it was probably similar weather to now. I do know one thing though. We sure were happy!
