play | Gloria McBreen

Day 55 #100DaysOfOldDays

Did you have a babby house when you were a child? Do you know what I mean when I say babby house? It’s what we called our outdoor playhouse. The boys played in a fort and the girls played in a babby house. (Is this only in Ireland?) Occasionally the girls were allowed into the fort and very occasionally the boys were allowed into the babby house—and only certain boys at that!

Here’s the babby house I remember.

It’s built from planks of woods around the bottom of a big chestnut tree in the corner of a field. The roof is a sheet of rusty galvanise. There is one window, made from a panel of tough transparent plastic. The door is a sturdy rectangular flap, also made from hard plastic, hardly big enough for an adult to pass through.

There is a little shuck between the field and the big chestnut tree. A plank of wood forms a bridge for access to the babby house.

The hollows in the tree are shelves, to store old food tins and jars filled with shiny red and green haws. A broken clock hangs on the stub of a branch, and two rusty enamel mugs sit on their stove which is made of four red bricks stacked into a square.

The babby house is well-equipped with chipped plates, warped saucepans with no handles, bent spoons, and empty bottles.

Moldy dolls sleep on a layer of withered rushes that line the bottom of a wooden crate. Dinner is cooked in one of the bent saucepans; cabbage, peas, and potatoes (dandelion leaves, green haws, all sprinkled with white clover petals). Stones are used for potatoes and eggs.

Spiders dangling from cobwebs and creepy crawlies inhabit the babby house and get brushed out regularly only to return in the middle of the night. It’s cold in the wintertime and smells of damp soil. It’s balmy in the summertime and smells of fresh moss and chestnuts.

The babby house was our foxhole, a place for self-expression, a place to unleash our imaginations.

Tell me, did you play in a babby house? If you had, what was it called?

Day 11 #100DaysOfOldDays

We all talk about the freedom we had as children of the 70’s & 80s. When I think about the places we played as children, I wonder how we came safe. I got stuck up trees, got lost in the woods, my brother fell into a slurry pit. That same brother threw another brother across his shoulder playing kung fu, he landed on his head and nearly died from blood poisoning.

All five of us fell into a river (at different times) and lived to tell the tale. None of this was unusual for the times we lived in. Children swam in the lakes, roamed fields and forests. Stayed outside until darkness fell and cycled for miles on their bikes. We hadn’t much fear I suppose, and we all looked out for each other.

My brothers and I spent a lot of time in the countryside where my father’s workplace was located. We played in the meadow and picnicked by a narrow river. When the dam (further up) was closed, the river was so shallow that we could play under the bridge; either barefoot or in wellies.

(Lucy’s big sister, Gemma age 27, is visiting and she wanted to draw a picture for us. They got very competitive!)

Gemma’s Drawing of a Bridge Across a River

There were rules and we followed them. There was a particular point in the river that we weren’t allowed to pass, and we never did, and we never got in while the dam was open.

Across the field where the dam was, there was a thicket of hazel trees. We used to cross the dam bridge, which was only a couple of meters long, to get to the hazel trees. With the dam closed, one part of the river was four or five feet deep. We would swing from a hazel branch across the river while our bums skimmed off the water. We got a great adrenaline buzz from it. As far as I remember, none of us fell in whilst swinging from those branches.

I got my dip with a simple loss of footing. It was in a very shallow part and I remember it as clear as day. My cousin was standing beside me at the time and for years I blamed him for pushing me in…although he has always strongly denied this! Mmm…