A daughter rang me recently to ask: “Mum, in all seriousness how could you have allowed us all to play in the Spring Gully bush for hours during holidays? What if there were paedophiles out there?”
I replied: “How could I have stopped you? That was your playground and we parents all knew you were safe. After all, you were the mighty Famous Five or the Secret Seven, depending on numbers on the day.”
What our children never realised was that occasionally a parent would stroll up to their bush huts at the end of the street to check on them. That was as much observing as they needed.
No paedophiles would ever choose to confront that formidable clan which included at least four families in the street.
The world is a different place today. Parents are more protective, children are more restricted in their freedom, whether in the country or city.
Our kids played cricket and football on the road but that would never be approved today.
Apart from the much greater traffic on our roads, the whole protection bit would be too much for most of today’s parents.
It is worth reminding ourselves every now and then, however, that children are at their best when they have free rein to play in a wild and challenging environment.
Rob and I recently met the whole family for a picnic at Hanging Rock. It was a beautiful day and Macedon was cloaked in the glorious colours of autumn.
My enjoyment came in watching our eight grandchildren climb to the summit. They did not draw breath. Every rock that could be scaled was scaled.
A delightful scene I will remember was of our youngest grandchild belting up the track as fast as her little legs could carry her, laughing gleefully while behind her relatively fit dad struggling manfully to keep up with her....and failing dismally in the race.
Later the children fearlessly tightwalked a tree that had fallen carelessly across a deep gully.
This was children at their most relaxed, in their natural environment, nothing proscribed, nothing artificial, with that magnificent rock standing sentinel, guarding its environment, as it had since time immemorial.
Despite the huge influx of tourists who were discovering the challenges of this very steep walk, testing their knees again on the trek down, there was a strange calmness, a hush over this beautiful scene.
There is a sense of sacredness, an aura that transcends the daily trippers who come to marvel at its wildness.
The rock is steeped in history echoing through thousands of years, and of aborigines who once inhabited this beautiful wild region. Before them, who knows what animals roamed these wild rocky outcrops.
I never fail to recall the film which I maintain is arguably the greatest film ever made in Australia, Picnic at Hanging Rock.
The evocativeness of the surroundings, the haunting music of the panpipes, the intrinsic fear we have of wild places, the mysterious disappearance of the schoolgirls all resonate with me whenever I return to Hanging Rock.
I know the story was fiction, but many people today believe it was based on a true story. Joan Lindsay, the author of the book has categorically denied this, but many today still want to believe it to be true.
I know we will return again for our annual picnic to Hanging Rock. It is our favourite family meeting place.