Encourage children's natural creativity

As children (under the age of ten) my sisters and I, sometimes with friends or cousins, would stage plays, concerts or puppet shows (with handmade puppets) at home and invite neighbours and our parents’ friends to attend.

I recall a moment at one such concert: adults seated in chairs placed on the left of the living room and I playing the piano on the right, singing a song called The Knight and the Lady, the lyrics of which were:

“Riding through a green and leafy wood,

Comes a lady wearing cloak and hood.

She is very sad. Isn’t that too bad?

Surely we would help her if we could.”

Meanwhile, one of our "production assistants" tossed an avalanche of leaves on the wooden floor (the "green and leafy wood"), laying the carpet for the cloaked "lady," sobbing as she rode up the corridor into the living room on a tricycle. We had fun bringing our visions to life and it was exciting that adults actually wanted to attend (and enjoyed) our productions.

Patrons would pay 25 cents for admission. I am not sure what we did with the money, especially as dividing it would not have amounted to much, but things were cheaper then and, as children, the idea of acquiring any money for our efforts was exciting, regardless of the amount.

Our spending money was a combination of pocket change (I think we got $1 each per week), money from productions and sometimes the sale of baked goods. I had a children’s cookbook that included recipes for simple things like cookies, cupcakes and mints.

Accompanying Mummy to Valpark was a shopping adventure, as it was perhaps the only "mall" in those days. While Mum was most likely in Vanity Fair buying cloth (she sewed as a hobby, making outfits for herself and us), my sisters and I would rush with excitement to MiniCiti to spend our earnings on Archie comics, ABBA magazines and any other interesting items we could afford – like pens, markers and stationery with which we would write to our Big Blue Marble penpals.

Even if we got toys as gifts at Christmas or for birthdays, we preferred being out in the garden instead, making up games or playing with leaves, insects, snails, our pets or a ball or frisbee. One outdoor "toy" that we enjoyed a lot was Swing Ten – a pole in the ground to which was attached a tennis ball on a long cord. There were two heavy-duty plastic racquets and two of us at a time would hit the ball back and forth to each other, gaining a point whenever the opponent missed a strike.

Kathryn and I played Swing Ten often, pretending we were at Wimbledon. We would fight to be our tennis idol, "Martina" (Navratilova). Neither wanted to be "Chrissie" (Evert) – as she was Martina’s major opponent – so we would take turns to be her.

Perhaps more than the actual game itself, we enjoyed slamming the ball and making loud tennis grunts while shuffling back on forth on our feet as the professionals did.

One of my favourite activities was collecting seeds from the kitchen – red beans, pigeon peas, corn, pumpkin, etc, as well as ends of potatoes and carrots. I would put the seeds with wet toilet paper in glass jars and watch them grow, initially measuring their progress as the shoots emerged. The seedlings would then be transferred to the garden beds I had created (no doubt with help) in the back garden. It was a thrill to till the earth, pull up weeds, play with earthworms and witness the cuttings and seedlings actually growing and becoming pigeon pea plants and pumpkin and watermelon vines...particularly if there was any produce to be harvested.

I am grateful to have been a child then, when the simplicity of creation (our own and those of nature) excited and absorbed us – as opposed to now, when many children remain indoors, playing on mechanical devices and, more so as technology evolves, creating, using AI (artificial intelligence) – thereby utilising less of their own minds and inherent creative powers.

"Appreciating Nature" and "Creating by Hand" could be two important subjects in the school curriculum. Creation is the opposite of destruction. If experiencing and valuing the power of the natural creation within and around us is encouraged and kept at our core from birth, society will be on its way to healing.