Where Have All the Children Gone?

By DAVID ROGERS

LEEDING good it is here.' Edward climbs to

the top of a tree in Peckham Park Road and swings down on a rope. 'What I like best is kick- ing people in the face as I come down.'

There were over a hundred assorted children in the Playcentre in Peckham Park Road. The roads around the park were empty. Years ago it would have been different. The children would have been chased out of the neat and tidy park and East Dulwich Road, Nunhead Lane and Holmstall Road would have echoed with their shrieks. Now the streets are empty. The children have all gone to the Playcentre.

What gave the development of playcentres a boost in London was the finding of the 1955 Citizens of Tomorrow Report that more child- ren's offences occurred in the street than any- where else. 'Get them off the streets' became a popular cry. Luckily, thought had already been devoted to this problem, elsewhere. The first Adventure Playground had been constructed at Emdrupuez, a new housing estate in the suburbs of Copenhagen. The idea was a simple one. Children learn through play. Therefore the more constructive and imaginative their play the better. They should have the opportunity to build and dig and climb and invent with the minimum of adult restrictions.

'Let's have the execution again.'

`No. I don't want to be killed.'

`You're well going to be killed.' In Honor Oak Park two boys grab the third and push his head into the sandpit. One holds a piece of wood, which he brings down hard on the victim's skull —holding it back from the final impact just in time. The boy, in tears, is then buried in the sand.

The pioneer of Adventure Playgrounds in this country was Lady Allen of Hurtwood, who achieved popularity for the idea after an article she wrote in Picture Post in November 1946. She recognised that children were just as happy and satisfied with a log, an old car shell, or a mud bank, as with elaborate toys. She saw the need for a place where children could dig and play with water without being told off. I ask a group of boys in Peckham Park, 'Is there anything you can't do?'

`Yeah. Smoke, swear, or pull the tent down.' 'He means we mustn't be found out.'

`An' we mustn't fight.'

`Only we often do.'

`Do you often come here?'

`Every day. Bleeding good it is. Get it all, you do. Birds an' all. 'Cept when the mods an' rockers bust it up.'

`Are you a mod or rocker?'

'No. But I'm going to join the scouts as soon as I'm old enough.'

I went to the Playcentre in Honor Park one morning at ten o'clock. The play area consists of a rectangle 100 yards by 50 yards. There are two swings, a built-up construction of logs about ten feet high, a sandpit with a large pipe, big enough to crawl through, and an uneven collection of tree stumps. There is also a waste- paper bin, disguised as a frog with a large open mouth to receive the waste paper.

At ten o'clock the area was deserted, apart from a girl doing research for the Psychological Research Centre. At ten to eleven a coloured girl of about fifteen brought a toddler and put him in the sandpit. We went across to talk to her. 'Yes, I always come here. Sometimes with my friend, but she's gone shopping, so I've brought John. That's her brother.' We bent down to talk to John, but he grimaced and threw sand in our faces.

By midday the Playcentre was in full swing. The logs had become a castle, holding a legion of nine-year-olds planning an attack on the Frog. A teenage girl jumps from the swings. Her boy- friend hesitates. 'My God, you're not going to chicken out, are you?' Two girls squat on the grass and play draughts. A game of tag is going on on the tree stumps. We watch a couple of boys learn to balance.

Suddenly the group attacking the logs breaks up. A boy leads a dash for the bikes. 'We're off.'

'Yeah. I'm not sticking around and getting thumped by that lot.'

Riding out of the afternoon sun that was beat- jag across the park came the big boys. The heavyweights had arrived. One of the teenage girls screamed with delight.

'You shouldn't have motor-bikes in here.'

off.'

A girl of about fourteen in striped sweater and louckhecked trousers sidles up to him, `Come on. You know you shouldn't be here. Let's go up to Brockley.' They roar away. Soon the others, realising that there is little left foit them. follow.

Quietness. Honor Oak has not the variety of

Peckham Park, where the kids often stay all day. At Honor Oak they go home for tea. So I go again to Peckham Park. Packed. Children everywhere. Building and climbing. Discovering and Developing. All over London children are playing in safety. Learning and finding out. Especially Edward, the boy swinging on the ropes.

He has just kicked a boy twice his size in the face, and is racing through the park and away from the Playcentre. Edward is going back to the streets.