James King mentioned to me at the 1992 reunion that he was thinking of assembling a collection of written pieces from ex-Caldecott children on what they had thought of life when at Caldecott and I agreed to write something. Possibly I might have written a bit differently in 2022.
Random Thoughts on the Caldecott Community
2. The Good Life
Part of the magic of Caldecott was the setting. Few working class children had the opportunity to live in or even visit a mansion house designed by Robert Adam, built in the days of history, containing proper paintings and a library (with a hidden door), surrounded by extensive grounds, a deer park, woods and farmland. The views included fields, a lake and the North Downs, which I thought was more inspiring than the terraced houses all around my family’s home.
Mersham-le-Hatch was in what might then be regarded as the countryside, at least by a boy that had rarely been out of the urban jungle of London. There was more greenery in Kent. I had seen parks in London but to me their most notable features had been the swings. I had also passed by the mown lawns, the serried ranks of cultivated flowers, the benches for the sleeping tramps and the rough patches for doggie toilets. The relatively rural nature of the land near Hatch was a new experience. The setting of the Community gave scope for fun and adventures that could only have been make-believe in the big city. There were extensive areas of trees and shrubs, fields and woods, ponds and streams, hills and valleys, bracken and brambles, wild berries and expanses of stinging nettles, all to be explored and experienced for play and simple recreation.
I do not remember having previously seen actual sheep or cows until I came to Caldecott. Doubtless I had seen pictures of them in books as a toddler. I had also seen pictures and films showing Martians and monsters. Seeing animals nearby in the flesh (or whatever) was a different matter. I was familiar with elephants as I had been for a ride on one at the zoo, also on a small Shetland pony. For some reason, cows and sheep were not on view in inner London.
At night time it was dark. You could then see stars rather than street lamps. Snow would lie on the ground and not be instantly transformed into black sludge. Time seemed almost eternal – sometimes uneventful but still an escape from the desperate pace of smartness and despair in the metropolis. The countryside was not crammed with people. You could almost hear the quietness. You could actually hear birds (not pigeons). Of course, there was a certain amount of agricultural noise and you could hear distant traffic and trains, but that was better than the constant rumble and roar of vehicles in urban London, the sirens and bells of emergency vehicles, the nightly noises of drunks, fighting cats and all the rest. Perhaps it is curious to talk of children appreciating tranquillity, but there is something awesome about serenity which everyone can value.
Above all, the setting gave us space. Space to live and breathe. Space to walk and run. Space to yell. Space to think and feel. This was a universe away from life in tenement rooms and the streets of London with its torrents of people, hiding behind newspapers in the tube or on a bus, wrapped in anonymity and superficiality. Space gave you freedom to consider yourself and others as individuals, not cogs in a machine.
GTM