Richard Jefferies, Bevis and bombsites: a letter from 1951

Embed from Getty Images

I have come across a letter published in the South London Observer of 6 September 1951 that reminds me of posts I have written about how children who played on bombsites were seen in films and newspapers:

Camberwell councillors are reported to be anxiously asking why children prefer to play on bomb-sites than on playgrounds especially provided for them. The answer is that children are not civilised but primitive beings and that bomb-sites answer to the primitive in them more nearly than manufactured playgrounds.

At the same time, paradoxically, even in their bombed state the sites are part of the adult world about which children are intensely curious and with which they like to have links. Manufactured playgrounds are no such thing at all. It is the same thing which would make children swarm over a battered old motor-car or lorry rather than play with a new toy one, even if the former wouldn't go and the latter would.

The playgrounds would have been a success if the children had been the ones to find and discuss sites, though not necessarily to make the final decision, and under proper supervision to prepare them, and to find, solicit, collect and transport the junk, and arrange it on the sites. They would then have been really and truly their playgrounds.

Anyone who wishes to understand how to provide for children's recreation would do well to read Richard Jefferies' book "Bevis: The story of a boy."

Jacob J. Berlin, Gordon-rd., Peckham 

Good on Mr Berlin, who looks forward to the adventure playground movement of the Sixties, though his is very much the male view of children and bombsites. Here's an exchange from Passport to Pimlico:

The local bobby visits the home of Stanley Holloway, the future prime minister of this urban village that declares its independence from austerity London, and sees a model of a lido he has built.

"It's an idea for that dump out there," Holloway’s wife (played by Barbara Murray) explains, meaning a bombsite. "Give those kids somewhere decent to play."

The constable looks out at the small boys scuffling in the dirt: "They seem to be doing pretty well as it is."

Murray replies: "I'd have something to say if I was their mother."

And the idea that children are 'primitive' has rarely led to kind treatment.

I found this letter because of the reference to Richard Jefferies. Bevis is a powerful statement of the case for free play in childhood, though I doubt even Mr Berlin would approve of the way the boys made their own gun.

But he has reminded me of two things.

The first is a quote from Hara Estroff Marano that I used in my 2006 essay The problem with children today:

Kids are having a hard time even playing neighbourhood pick-up games because they’ve never done it, observes Barbara Carlson, president and cofounder of Putting Families First. “They’ve been told by their coaches where on the field to stand, told by their parents what colour socks to wear, told by the referees who’s won and what’s fair. Kids are losing leadership skills.”

And the second is that there was an old car on the playing field of my infants school in the Sixties.