The Wood - 37 Years Later
I went to back Leyland at the weekend. It felt like ages since I had been back which wasn’t entirely true. I have visited Worden Park and the Eagle and Child in the past years but I can’t remember the last time I was in the town centre, and as far being in the woods at Woodlands goes, well that must be at least 30 years.
I used to play in the woods all the time, as did all the kids from the area, it even had territories. Macky, Sid, Jason Kitchen and myself used to hang in the east side whilst Lee & Paul Melia, butch Sharon and some others used to have the west side. None of wanted to go to their side anyway, it was all a bit weird. Lee & Paul used to get called in by their dad at 6:30p.m every day for a glass of milk and a cookie and Sharon’s brother used to wave his nob out of the window shouting ‘Ecilop’, ‘Police’ backwards.
Most times we would mix together but occasionally a very mild gang war would break out. We would have stone throwing fights usually ending when some kid got cracked on the head with a stone and ran off crying to get their dad. Subsequently that meant the non-crying side won! Or we would build dens, and we in the east side built the best dens. One particular den involved us digging a hole about 5’ deep, 4’ wide and 5’ long. We pinched some scaffolding planks from a nearby construction site to use as the roof and covered it in soil and wood debris so no-one knew where it was. Inside we had carpet and candles. It remained a secret for a long time but eventually it got wrecked by the west side kids.
There wasn’t a tree in that wood that I didn’t climb. Some involved a rope to climb successfully but I knew all the trees quite intimately.
As I made my way around the wood more than 30 years later I was interested in finding something I could recognise but there was very little. I don’t think kids play out nowadays. There were hardly any paths in the wood, no rope swings, no carvings in trees. The areas around the wood were completely grassed, no signs of kids playing football. There is a bungalow attached to the wood where a fella used to live affectionately called ‘Spaz Bob’ (We would have called him ‘Spaz Bob Sponge Pants’ if I was a kid now, and he was still alive, and we lived in the less PC times that were the 80’s!). I think he had cerebral palsy and he used to drive one of those blue 3 wheeler cars that we used to call a ‘spaz chariot’. We used to play football against the wall of his house and he used to go mental. Luckily he couldn’t run very fast (if at all) and we had a very good den to hide in if required. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way condoning my actions, it was atrocious, but that’s the kind of thing we all used to do.
The trees were covered in ivy and quite a few trees were missing. It was slightly sad to see really. The one thing that was there which is our legacy, was the ditch that remains where our den once was.
I used to play in the woods all the time, as did all the kids from the area, it even had territories. Macky, Sid, Jason Kitchen and myself used to hang in the east side whilst Lee & Paul Melia, butch Sharon and some others used to have the west side. None of wanted to go to their side anyway, it was all a bit weird. Lee & Paul used to get called in by their dad at 6:30p.m every day for a glass of milk and a cookie and Sharon’s brother used to wave his nob out of the window shouting ‘Ecilop’, ‘Police’ backwards.
Most times we would mix together but occasionally a very mild gang war would break out. We would have stone throwing fights usually ending when some kid got cracked on the head with a stone and ran off crying to get their dad. Subsequently that meant the non-crying side won! Or we would build dens, and we in the east side built the best dens. One particular den involved us digging a hole about 5’ deep, 4’ wide and 5’ long. We pinched some scaffolding planks from a nearby construction site to use as the roof and covered it in soil and wood debris so no-one knew where it was. Inside we had carpet and candles. It remained a secret for a long time but eventually it got wrecked by the west side kids.
There wasn’t a tree in that wood that I didn’t climb. Some involved a rope to climb successfully but I knew all the trees quite intimately.
As I made my way around the wood more than 30 years later I was interested in finding something I could recognise but there was very little. I don’t think kids play out nowadays. There were hardly any paths in the wood, no rope swings, no carvings in trees. The areas around the wood were completely grassed, no signs of kids playing football. There is a bungalow attached to the wood where a fella used to live affectionately called ‘Spaz Bob’ (We would have called him ‘Spaz Bob Sponge Pants’ if I was a kid now, and he was still alive, and we lived in the less PC times that were the 80’s!). I think he had cerebral palsy and he used to drive one of those blue 3 wheeler cars that we used to call a ‘spaz chariot’. We used to play football against the wall of his house and he used to go mental. Luckily he couldn’t run very fast (if at all) and we had a very good den to hide in if required. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way condoning my actions, it was atrocious, but that’s the kind of thing we all used to do.
The trees were covered in ivy and quite a few trees were missing. It was slightly sad to see really. The one thing that was there which is our legacy, was the ditch that remains where our den once was.
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| "The root that smashed my arm into 16 places" |
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| "Once the biggest tree in the wood" |
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| "The over grown ditch with Macky's house in the background" |
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