Early fifties, my sister and I, wearing cotton shorts over our woollen swimming costumes, would take our 'tent' (a very lightweight item, made from the top of an old parachute and three garden canes) out into the fields beside Yeading brook (Middlesex) It was like a tiny wigwam, and could be carried easily over the shoulder. The water meadows were full of buttercups, 'ragged robin', flag iris and campion. We set up our tent, and ate slices of Hovis thick with butter, wrapped in greaseproof paper, followed by a Cox's Orange Pippin apple, and half a bottle of Tizer. We'd sit in this tent all day, emerging to paddle in the brook when we got a bit warm. We'd make daisy chains and collect pretty stones. Our parents neither knew nor worried about where we were, and we only went home at teatime. Such innocence and freedom...