Totterdown Fields

ONE cannot see them now, although they are still there underneath. They are all hidden by rows of little houses, like rows of little soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder, the chimney pots their rifles, little houses put up in recent years by a benevolent London County Council for the people of the slums, so that, instead of looking at nothing but bricks and mortar and smelling nothing but the steam of trains and the beer from the neighboring public houses, they can see the sky and the trees and the flowers, smell fresh air, and substitute the ups and downs of Totterdown Fields for the drab monotony of the even roadways.

But in my childhood Totterdown Fields were our delight, our playground, filled with buttercups in the spring, and then dandelions and daisies in their season. The hedges were luscious with blackberries, and in each one of the fields a bland cow seemingly chewed the cud at any time one happened to pass that way.

We always took the road up the hill from home, then another one to the left at right angles, and walked some distance until suddenly there burst upon us the grand broad view of the fields leading down the valley and finally to the village street. We had to walk outside of the fields until we got to the stile through which we made our way to the footpath, and whether the sun was shining fully on the wild flowers or a moon was watching their pale movement the whole vista was haunting and sweet. There was actually nothing very eventful in ‘going down the fields,’ for there was nothing to see but the buttercups and the wild roses in the hedges and the lilac in their seasons, though over at one corner, next to the farm where the cows lived, there was a small pond, very green, where frogs disported. Sometimes we would take a stick and stir up the water, and worry the frogs a bit, but it never occurred to us to do more than that. We hardly ever paddled in the dirty water, we never interfered with the cows, and we never snatched down the lilacs or wild roses. Our generation of children never thought of it!

It was last summer, after an absence of many years, that I stood again at the top of the hill and stared down at the rows of little houses, so prim, so tidy, the little gardens aglow with gay flowers, slender trees along the roadsides each surrounded with its wooden corset, while every house looked a cosy home with its dainty curtains and its little square lantern over the front door with an electric bulb inside — the whole place a miracle of municipal housekeeping, a model village indeed.

Even the children looked spick-and-span with their smooth heads and their clean frocks and suits, as they went efficiently either up or down the hill toward the school building near the centre. Mothers stood at garden gates and watched them go, while the school bell tolled its increasingly impatient tempo as nine o’clock drew near. As the last child ran the last few yards the school bell ceased to ring and the old church clock, close by, solemnly struck the hour.

It was a scene to make glad the heart of the socially-minded citizen. Here was a dream of slum clearance translated into fact. Here was progress, here was perfection in little things, beauty for the little man, opportunity for the underprivileged, contentment, health. I knew that I ought to have been proud and happy as I looked at the change; that I should have gloried in this exhibition of growing civilization and should have compared the happy contented faces here with the discontented unhealthy faces of the meaner London slums.

But why must progress kill? Why can’t I have my fields and the little people their model village as well? I don’t want to be selfish, but I have come a long way to see my fields, so will not some fairy kindly charm away for me all the little houses, the children, the schoolhouse, the gardens, the chimney pots, everything, and raise the fields from underneath the little houses so that, even if only for a moment, I may see them again? I want to stand there once more and look at them, sloping so broadly, and so generously, and so gradually down, the hedges alive with birds and buds, the cows standing contentedly by, and the little lane at the bottom leading to the village street with its hedges arching overhead. I want to hear the church clock strike again, anxiously counting the strokes as I used to do to know how much more time was mine for lingering. I don’t want to see the skirt of a single child vanish through a schoolhouse door, nor have even the smoke from one little chimney cloud the upward way of one skylark. I want to go back.

But the fairies are gone too, and the little houses are so solid, the careful streets leading down to the progressive town below are so established, the schoolhouse is so final, and new citizens are growing up in this new village — and I don’t know how to turn the clock back.

But one day I shall! That will be when I am dying, when memory will rush back in ecstasy to the childhood days. Then I shall shut the door behind me, take again the road up the hill, panting as I go, hurry along the road at the top, until finally there will burst upon my hungry eyes the old grand sweep of the fields. It will be springtime, I hope, with the gladness of growing things and a chatter of birds. I shall squeeze myself through the stile — it was always a tight fit — and begin to go slowly down. The buttercups will laugh at me, the dew will soothe my tired feet, the church clock will toll the hour, and I shall know that I am home.