Swallows & Amazons
In a total contrast to the last post, we spent a week over the summer in a beach hut in Mudeford, Dorset. These huts are generally the size of a large garden shed, tend to be painted in pastel blues and creams, and evoke a kind of fantasy lost childhood feeling. Two rows of huts, back to back, stretch out along a narrow peninsular for about half a mile. One side looks out onto Christchurch Harbour, the other onto the beach and faces the Channel and the Isle of Wight. There’s no traffic allowed; to reach the huts you have to travel by passenger ferry from Mudeford Quay, and carry all your belongings with you. It’s only a 5 minute trip, and the distance from the Quay to the nearest point of the peninsular is no more than 100 metres or so, but it all adds the the sense of adventure, and the sensation of being cut off from the rest of the mainland (despite the fact that actually you’re not). It’s like stepping back in time. Though I’m too young to know, what comes to mind is an impression of post-war communal optimism. A help-each-other-out spirit that may not have existed anywhere other than my recollections of old films, but despite, or probably because of, the rough and ready feel to the place (with or without the solar panels on most of the roofs), it’s an enormously comforting place to spend time. Children can run around free of the worry that they’ll be knocked down by a white van at any moment. Because there’s very little electricity there’s no television. No reality shows, no soaps and most important to me, no Disney Channel with it’s endless cycle of Hannah Montana and Zack & Cody. I think this is one of the things I like the most – the children just play the way they should – with their imaginations and their friends, and maybe this is why it evokes such nostalgia. Anyway – I know we’ll be back again next year.
Not a telly for miles
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