A Midday Memory

We have some light rain today with the possibility of sunny times later in the afternoon so the lane at the back of our house should be full of kids playing. You never see them playing outside their front doors mainly because the road is busy as hell. If it was not for the lane, I do not think you see them out playing.

My playground growing up was our streets, park and around the river but we were always on the lookout for more fun things to do. The streets were empty of cars I was in my old street a while ago and cars were bumper to bumper. We would head across the other side of the river to seek out more adventures that was always fun or over Cardiff Docks to a place called by us ‘The Burning Ground’ an old coal slag heap. It was burning somewhere underneath the tons and tons of coal slag but was overgrown was grass and trees or we would go over the foreshore and just hung out if you could dodge the police.

This was in the late 60s and early 70s the older we got the more adventurous we became. Once we got bike’s we were on the receiving end of more freedoms.

I remember we descended on an adventure playground opened for our friends over the river. The volunteers were happy to see us anyway, the local youth maybe not and later the point was proven when we went home for something to eat we came back to find our den we built earlier was burnt to the ground.

Even with adult volunteers present, we still made the rules, and there was no shadowy organization called “Health and Safety” dedicated to ruining children’s fun like these days. We could jump, climb, and play with hammers and no safety gear in sight.

We would cycle up to Blackweir and beyond before the Taff trail or over to Cosmeston lake before what it has developed into today. I never remember telling mum were I was going she would say something like “Don’t go too far”, as I would. Out of sight out of mind was my goal. We would local most of the time there was so much for us to do.