Children Who Never Grow Up

“We’ve got loads of daisies in the front garden,” Mum said. “We can use those.”

“What do you mean?” said my Dad, “How will they help.”
Mum was right, but then she always was, there were hundreds of Michaelmas daisies in the front garden. No idea why they had suddenly appeared, because I’d never noticed them before, but at ten years of age do you notice something like daisies? I knew there was some of Mum’s apple pie in the fridge, and that I was running short of cigarette cards, all because that John, the boy down the road had cheated, I was never going to play ‘flicksie’ with him again. I didn’t notice that there was homework to do, or that there was dirt behind my ears. All that was for others, Mum in particular.

“Well, we could use those. Make a framework, there’s some netting in the shed, that’ll do it. You make a start on that and I’ll do some signs.”

Dad looked at me, and laughed, “Come on son, we’d better do as she says, or there’ll never be any peace.”

Out in the shed Dad sorted out suitable lengths of timber, and we measured and sawed, banged in nails and spread out netting. Soon the wooden frame was covered with netting and I was sent to the front garden, pushing our biggest wheelbarrow and a pair of scissors, to start cutting the daisies.

Do you remember what it was like as a child? It was all very exciting to start with, as I cut and plundered my way through the huge patch of daisies that had spread themselves along the front drive of our house. That was exciting, and it stayed that way as I took the first barrow load back to Dad, who had by then fixed the frame in place, and all was well as we weaved the stalks of the daisies into the netting so that it was all covered. Not a strand of netting could be seen, but the front garden looked very bare.

This was a big frame, and can you even imagine how many daisies I cut, carried and wove? There were hundreds, thousands perhaps, even millions in boy-speak, and while we worked it was getting hotter, and we were running out of time, and I kept remembering the homemade lemonade, and that slice of apple pie in the fridge.

Eventually all was finished, and Mum appeared with two huge signs, which Dad nailed on to each side of the frame. On top of it all she mounted a big cut-out of Peter Pan.

The signs read, ‘For the Children Who Will Never Grow Up’, my Dad was Chairman of the Local Society for Mentally Handicapped Children, and that’s the way I still feel today, knowing that I’ll never truly grow up, remembering how Dad and me crept under the netting and into the car and set off in our float for the local carnival.