Each issue of In Retrospect featured lifestyle pieces by myself and my two fellow editors as lead articles, and in issue 5 I tackled the subject of Modern life and the need to sometimes escape from it all for a bit (or perhaps forever) by reflecting on my childhood and that of my own children.
Luckily I lived in a small town that happened to sit next to an old country estate (since sold off as a hotel) with large open fields and a freshwater stream, and a number of wooded and wild areas next to farmland, so I spent a lot of my time walking in the woods (including the real-life ‘Hundred Acre Wood’), cycling around with friends, climbing rocks, fishing on the river, and on rainy days; playing cards and board-games with my sister. I would also hangout with my dad and be his ‘go-for’ whilst he worked on various home-improvements or construction projects.
I fondly remember at the age of eight helping him convert an old Bedford van into a camper van; we went to the scrap-yard together and climbed over all the junked cars looking for parts such as windows and an elevating roof to scalp onto the thing, then fabricated various cupboards and seats out of ply-board for the interior. Once it was finished I dragged my parents around the country in it, staying on camp-sites in places that were conveniently located within visiting distance of aircraft museums.
You can read the full article here: https://inretrospectmagazine.com/article/the-good-life/
