Playing in the street

March 1, 2024

I spent my preschool years playing on the street in the quiet Sydney suburb of Rodd Point, where there were lots of women and children and only a few men, it being 1940’s wartime. The following is from a self-published book “Remembering Rodd Point”:

‘Our common playground was the road. There were no cars; all the fuel was needed for the war effort. Our road was covered in river stones and the only vehicles that trundled along it were the milk and bread carts.

A favourite game we preschoolers played, always with an unwelcome interruption, was Throwing Stones. On the one side of the street would stand children who lived opposite, and on the other would be our lot. We would pick up river stones and throw them at one another. For a few minutes all would be well, then the grandmother from over the road would appear and shout, “Stop throwing stones! You could hit someone in the eye and blind them.” We resented her, but she was right, of course.’

So we learned to socialise and to master gross motor skills with no adult instruction, our safety ensured by means of the watchful eyes of mothers and grandmothers.