This series of stories will be titled 'I'm surprised I turned out as well as I did, given my childhood ...' 21

When we moved from the rows, our environment changed for the better. Not only was I growing up, the area was more open and rural. The new house had nothing but fields stretching out behind us. I had always been an adventurous little beggar, when we moved, I progressed in leaps and bounds.

The field directly behind the house had been earmarked as a playing field for the whole estate – two football (soccer) pitches and a corner of the field was designated a playground area. Swings for both toddlers and bigger kids, two roundabouts, one for toddlers and the other for bigger kids and a slide. A large, high slide.

My house is just at the 'Cha' on the street name

The top left corner is the house where I lived. The bottom right corner is the M1 motorway (freeway) the major road running from London to Leeds. The first field behind the houses is the playing field, with the little piece of it (bottom left of that field) the designated playground.

I played in all those fields on the picture and still roamed further in every direction. My main boundary was the M1 road.

My favourite places to play were either forbidden, dangerous or both. If I wasn’t on the playground, I’d be exploring the surrounding area, for miles.

If there was little or no danger, then I had to make it more exciting.

The swings were there to be climbed on, or attempts made to swing high enough to go right over the top – not possible on an ordinary swing, I assure you.

Then when we got older and more daring, leaping from the swing at the apex, to see how high and/or far we could leap and land was the next challenge. Someone quickly learned that you simply cannot stand on the swing and leap, the laws of physics said ‘Nope!’

Winding the swing up as tight as we possibly could and hanging on for grim death as it un-wound, trying to throw us off or make us throw up, or smash ankles against the frame – that was a very real danger and the feeling when an ankle smacked against metal still makes me feel sick at the thought of it.

The slide, quite a high, metal slide was there to be jumped off, right from the top, over the barrier. Or we’d steal margarine to grease the slide to make it so fast we could shoot right off the end.

Didn’t half get in trouble for the mess it made of our clothes though…

Running up the slide the wrong way, running up the slide and jumping over the person coming down the slide, seeing how many we could get in tandem coming down the slide, clambering up the outside of the structure, over the top barriers and then running down the shiny metal chute…

You name it, we probably tried it.

I’m surprised none of us broke our legs, arms or necks.

Then there was the ‘sputnik’.

This was an exceptional piece of kit and I took the challenge to make is go as fast as humanly possible.

On the one we had, the seats were just frames, so you could stand on the seat, putting your feet through the back to rest on the bar on the outside of the seat.

Complicated, yes, but very necessary.

The centre was a frame rather than solid as in this picture.

Now, imagine a child (me) standing inside one of the seats, leaning across to the centre to propel the roundabout.

The other seats would all be filled, as would the frame in between each seat.

Once going, there was no stopping. If you clambered aboard the sputnik and I was propelling it, you knew what you were in for and you took your chances that you’d survive the ride.

I remember the looks on the faces of my passengers. Teeth gritted, arms straining to hold on and backs braced, trying to fight the centrifugal force exerted from the spinning roundabout.

I had it down to a fine art. I was young, small and a girl, but for all that, I was strong.

I remember some bigger lads muscling their way onto the roundabout after watching me spinning that thing faster than any of my friends could endure. They were strangers, not from our area and they made everyone else get off the roundabout because they wanted a go.

They couldn’t make it go as fast as I could and I suppose I must have mocked their efforts.

The three big lads challenged me that I couldn’t do better than they had.

I nodded.

If the phrase, ‘Challenge accepted’ had been widespread then, I would have used it.

Because they were all bigger than me, it took a while to spin it up to speed and I took the jeers that I wouldn’t be up to the task.

There was a technique to spinning. Your hand had to stay in the same position even as you went round and round. That way, you could get maximum leverage on the crossbars in the centre.

As I said, I had that technique down to a fine art and once the roundabout got going, there was little that could stop it, and nothing that could stop it quickly.

Those three lads’ jeers turned to whoops of delight and we went round and round, faster and faster.

What they didn’t realise was that because I had something solid to concentrate on – the central wheel I was levering against – it was easier for me to deal with the centrifuge and the spinning.

As they only had the opposite seat to look at, with the hedges and other scenery whizzing along behind the lad in the opposite seat, their motion-sickness would rise pretty quickly if they weren’t used to the ride.

I was used to it.

Shouts to stop didn’t take long, but did I stop? Not on your life!

Soon the shouts to stop turned to squeals and pleading and I still refused to let them off.

A challenge is a challenge, right?

The audience of my friends were baying for blood, or at least vomit and when the big lads finally managed to prise their fingers off the bar they clung to, to reach out and try to slow down the ride, I allowed it to take its course and slow down.

I had no fear of reprimand of course, I hopped off the sputnik and ran for home. They wouldn’t be seeing or walking straight for a few minutes yet.

Images from Google