"Although I had been a boy scout for a year and knew the theory of woodcraft and how to tie knots and signal by semaphore, this was a side to nature that I had never seen before. They taught me to bowl curled-up hedgehogs over fallen leaves so the hedgehogs acquired a coat of leaves; where there was a good orchard for "scrumping"; the names of the birds; where to climb the wall of the pub to collect the empties from the yard and deliver them to the front of the pub and claim the twopence per bottle; and best of all, I was able to indulge my suppressed Tarzan instincts by having as many trees to climb as I wanted. In the two years that we lived in Broughton Astley I feel that I must have climbed almost every tree, no matter how tall or frail. In retrospect, I am surprised that I broke my arm only once by falling from a tree."
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Copyright - John Peirson 2000