1969 was a momentous year.   It was my senior year in primary school and I was doing well at school.  My brain had been awakened and was like blotting paper to this fascinating world.  My interests rampaged across the sciences of aeronautics, electronics, chemistry, physics, astronomy and quite naturally space travel.  I stalked the main public library for interesting books.  I discovered the separate Reference section and photostated pages from the various Janes[1]  so that Dean and I could discuss the latest weapon systems at home.   They were carefully selected because of economic strictures.

Christmas is probably one of the most exciting times for a kid.  In South Africa we were doubly blessed by it coming in the middle of the long summer holidays.  Just when you were getting bored of doing nothing, there came Christmas, slap bang in the middle.  It couldn’t have been planned better.

Vignettes on Youth Series

We had a big valve radio.  At some stage it sat in the dining room on a side table.  We must have listened to it many times as a family as Dad and radios were a single organism.  However, I only remember one occasion.

Picture idyllic the scene:  It’s a cold winter’s night with Dad and Mom sitting in chairs on either side of the table and a single bar heater in the front.  Dean and Cheryl are on the carpet reading and drawing and I am also drawing – copying a picture from a Noddy book.  It’s the one on the inside cover that shows Noddy and Big Ears in his car with Toyland in the background.  I consider myself to be an excellent artist and this is my best work yet, in fact it’s a perfect facsimile.  I rush over to my parents to show them and it slips out of my hand and onto the element.  Spoof.  My masterpiece is bursts into flames without the world, as least my parents, having seen what I’m capable of.

Boys love forts.  Give them a few planks and a barrel and, voila, they make a fort and proceed to declare war on the world.  Bush must have been big on forts but this story is about a hedge and not a bush.

I think our kids have missed out on a great deal of fun

Guy Fawkes was as eagerly anticipated as Christmas.  The presents were better at Christmas but nothing could touch the excitement or the sheer irresponsibility of it.  Boys were designed with this in mind –  launching rockets from your back garden, Catherine wheels spinning, Roman candles spewing and daring each other to hold lady crackers in your hand.  I think I managed to progress to a big bang resting on an open palm.  In short I was a woes.

Main picture: Typical Balsa wood model aircraft construction