The Wood And The Trees

A Memory of Delamere.

Delamere ws certainly a formative experience for an eight year old in 1955, I witnessed no overt cruelty as reported in some posts here, but merely a babyish regimentation by a few well meaning spinsters which was often usurped. For example, those of us on sugar free diets would simply swap their ,healthy' after tea rewards with their friend's sweeties. Maybe I was more perceptive than most...noticing for example that the number of beds was less than the number of donor's plaques on the dormitory wall ( were some Ladies Committees conned ?)...or the nonsensical open window regime(...great for me as a hay fever sufferer.!) But then there were the forest walks and tobogganing down the valley which replaced 'lessons' at the drop of a hat....a great experience for urban kids.
My mother wisely withdrew me well before 11 plus which I ultimately 'passed', having returned to my 'real life' primary school with its confined playground and corporal punishment. The 'holiday' was over, but not without leaving me with a few inspirational fond memories which were later expressed poetically.

The Wood and the Trees

Walk with me this childhood path.
Where thoughts can bud like Spring's array
That fir, as sapling knew my breath
And bent to the grasp of random play.

Here was the stream where Summer's heat
Trickled to cool beneath the tree
And stark stones sharp beneath my feet
Stippled the flow of eternity.

That which was supple, time binds firm
And that which was wide, to stricture grows.
Each junction of life invites our turn
But closes behind mind's dark hedgerows.

Youth's smiles and tears may betoken nought
Until life's path has its values wrought.

David Sheldon.