Whither

childhood?

We're robbing children of the chance to be children says John Perryman

was watching the television the other day with my mind on something else, like you do, when my attention was drawn by an authoritarian voice that said, "A good

launch and recovery is very important". My subconscious thought: rockets — outer space, but no, the voice was address­ing a group of small children.

They were all dressed in identical wet suits and watching the voice make marks on a white board whilst in the back­ground was a fleet of

identical sail-powered sin­gle-hand units. I hesitate to call them boats as it offends my sensibilities. However, it became clear that these small bright-eyed and flush-faced children were being taught to sail.

They were regimented in dress and their sailing units were all of the most rudi­mentary type with only a main sheet and a clew hook. I believe they were 'Flappers' or some such.

However, once the voice had warmed to his task he was instructing these little children on how to race. How to beat their chums and not as a team but sin­gle-handed. How to win, win, win! They go to school and are barked at, indoctri­nated and forced to win and grow up too soon and when they discover the water it starts all over again.

When do they ever get a chance to be just children, a chance to simply mess about in an old boat and play? A chance to go afloat in something that requires constant bailing and with another chum or two or three act out Ransome-like fantasies, explore the mud, name bits of river after the Spanish Main, rig up a bit of old iron as an anchor and play at being a big ship? "Bring her to anchor Mr Mate."

"Oh l am the Captain,

My bruvver is the Mate,

'Cos 'e is only seven

An' I am nearly eight

When do they learn to tar the bottom or stick on a GRP patch and get covered in it for a week? When do they fit up a little locker to keep their 'secret' stuff in, or discover that if the wind is behind you can steer with an oar and stand up with your coat out and sail? When do they just sit in their old boat and dream of faraway places or look at the biggest yacht in the reach and think "Someday I'll 'ave one like her". When are they befriended by an old fisherman who shows them how to bait a hook, splice rope or tie a bowline? When do they scrounge the bits and rig their ship for sail and learn about stability the hard way? Or chuck mud at each other and just laugh and laugh 'til they fall over? When can they be children to whom the future is tomorrow and a good recovery is find­ing half a bottle of pop that someone else had left behind?

The programme moved on and I was left angry at the

worst injustice of all for I

 4      was witnessing the rape of
the childhood of children. Those innocent bright faces were being deprived of the one thing that they can never recapture, the free­dom to just be a child.

I think that it is all part of a plot, a cynical ploy with unintended consequences perpetrated by the industry.

Catch 'em very young with the most rudimentary sailing units, teach 'em to win — that's the thing and then they are hooked on the endless quest for bigger and faster and better and more expen­sive and round and round they go.

The fact that it is sailing is irrelevant; it is just a means to an end, a product of a self-expanding market.

"Lost childhood? That is nothing to do with us, we have shareholders to feed and anyway they can please them­selves." No they can't, because the man with the voice, who is also part of the^- conspiracy, is coercing them to win and get on that consumer treadmill.

What are these children going to become when they grow up, if they have never played, acted out fantasies, larked about and learned about everything just as they found it? Aggressive repressed adults with hang-ups, that's what — and 'in the name of a name' we have enough of them already.

this comes from classic boat december 2009 .

I think the author praps blames "the industry" wrongly ,as the lack of throughput in any great numbers from youngsters to fully rounded Sailors , is letting everyone down , something not foreseen by this author in 2009 . 

tis just food for thought