the den

I briefly mentioned the “Nazi” den in a previous post. I’m not being un-pc when I talk about this and no offence meant to anyone or race. As you can appreciate WW2 was not long behind us and boys’ comics and books were full of exciting war stories that we used as stimulus for our made-up games. It was always more exciting to be a “Jap” or “Nazi” soldier hiding out in an imaginary jungle or bunker somewhere than a British one.

One summer I noticed my older friend Barry seemed pre-occupied and rather secretive about something he was doing around the back of an old disused garage at the end of the street. Behind it was a small plot of land which was rough and overgrown with weeds and grass. I pestered him for a while and eventually he said he’d show me but I had to swear to absolute secrecy. He took me to the plot of land where his work was now evident. It was a small hideaway den made up of old window frames and cupboard fronts. It stood about three feet high and 10 feet long and emblazoned on the front and roof was a bright red swastika sign and “keep out”. My worry (fed by Barry’s warnings) was that our Royal Air Force spotter planes might see it and thinking it was a renegade German soldier still undiscovered and hiding away after the war, would either machine gun it or bomb it to smithereens with us in it. Parents must not know about it either or they would surely demand its demolition or report it to the authorities when it would then be attacked by a troop of British foot soldiers, maybe even send a tank in to smash through it.

We played games of soldiers in it, taking turns to be English or German with the attacker throwing lumps of hardened earth which we called “soil bombs” at it, pretending they were grenades. Well the secret probably lasted about a week when our sisters found out about it and wanted to join us. The whole thing suddenly became rather more domesticated and girlie than we would have liked. They insisted we put an old carpet down on the damp earth floor to deter the creepy crawlies that abounded and my sister bought some lilac coloured paint from “Woolie’s” to brighten the inside. We built a small annexe with a curtain across it that contained a bucket. That was supposed to be the bathroom. We dared one another to actually use it but nobody ever did. One end of the den had an old window for the roof giving us much needed light, a sort of primitive conservatory. When it rained we would place the loo bucket and any other old tins we could find under the many dribbles of water that seeped through the roof and just enjoy the comfort of crude shelter from the elements. We spent many hours in the hot, damp and stifling atmosphere of this summer retreat. A private world away from adults where we could make secret plans, have surreptitious feasts of biscuits, scones and fizzy pop we had seconded from home or when mum wasn’t feeling so generous with the goodies, just dry stale bread and lukewarm water from an empty pop bottle we had filled from the tap. I remember one time the girls collected long dry grass and spent hours in the den sewing them onto old bras and pants to make Hawaiian grass skirts. There was going to be a hula-hula dance, performed for us come bonfire night but I think the cold weather won out and we were denied that treat. Good times.