Christmas edition 2016

Ever since starting this blog in the beginning of the year I had thought about doing a Christmas edition rather like as if we'd been around of each others houses and said "How  was Christmas with you?"

For me I was a bit late getting up as I had a migraine on Christmas Eve that was reluctant to  shift so I got dressed and came down for a light breakfast before messaging my Caregiver and opening my presents.

That's some of them stacked up so I wonder just what might possibly be inside of them?

The Beano was a staple comic of mine growing up even if today it's only available on download and we always had the Christmas Annual so getting that as a hardback with the stories of Gnasher, Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx and co really is a ritual I love.

 The Dandy suffered a bigger fate as it was discontinued outright but they do one off editions and a annual so I like to read new adventures of Korky the Kat and Desperate Dan of Cow Pie fame.

I love reading although with my learning disabilities I can't manage anything other than junior fiction and even then anything getting more above a reading age of 12 is hard going so mummy bought me this First edition of the new Jacqueline  Wilson novel set in Victorian England.

She also bought me the last Historical novel she wrote in a series looking very much at life in  Great Britain from a child in hospital in the early nineteen-fifties. I'll write a full review when I've read them .

I had this originally in Paperback but had been longing to find a copy with the original text in so my Brother gave me some money toward buying this used copy lacking its dust jacket as original hard backs are really quite rare and expensive.

I had some chocolate oranges, money and biscuits too from people that care about me.

Being little

Teddy Bears were always a big big part of me, associating them very much with comfort and emotional stability not just as huggable items although god knows I could use a hug or two at times but also as playthings, in imaginative play.

I'd have them set out as a family unit, interacting with each other doing things like looking after the younger members or even taking afternoon tea together, exchanging small talk,  taking turns.
My childhood was messed up for situations in my family as much as my disabilities and how people at times treated me because of it, casting me out.

That's why I feel this younger side of me needs to be let out.

The "Barney" Mysteries

The old adage "You can't but a good book down would seem to apply around these parts of late  as some more new to me books by Enid Blyton arrived recently.

These copies are actually editions from the very early nineteen-seventies where while still in hardback form they have been cheapened by printing the frontspiece and spine direct to the jacket and missing off the rear of what would of been the back of the paper dust jacket the original hardbacks had.

 There are six novels in this series of mystery adventures that feature Rodger and Diana Lynton and their cousin Peter, ophaned, who goes under the name "Subby" in the series and his dog Laddie who are also joined by Barney an motherless circus boy who has been on a quest to find his absent father and who has a money called Miranda.

The "Barney Mysteries" is the title these usually are grouped under although some use "R Mysteries" with the "R" coming from the R in the names of all the titles.

The children visit sleepy villages and seaside towns that it transpires are riddled with intregue and it's that they look into.

One of the strengths of this series is the stories are full of atmosphere and good humour, the strong characterization making for much more depth  than most of her work and more sophisticated language that made it the only series Enid herself recommended just for those of eleven years and upward.

Advent

Yes it's getting to that time of the year and guess what? I didn't have to get mine this year because Mummy bought it me!

 With the help of the Secret Life of Pets, I can count down the days toward Christmas while noming on small squares of milk chocolate.

Don't ask what Marmalade, the original "fat cat" may make of it!

In other news, our community Christmas Tree is up, ready for it's inaugural switching on and carol singing.

Thoughts on this blog

This blog seems very much to have been going for a while now from the earliest days of literally grabbing all the material on a really old computer, typing at home and while for once we had some spare time at work over a few weeks, the works one too(!!!) which was a bit quicker.

Rather like me, it's been evolving over all that time as I began to try to understand what  made me, well me, how the more child-like side slotted in with the bits that deal with the adult world because with me this is less playing a role I can just click my fingers and be out of so much that it comes out of me from The Child Within.

It's seen me interact initially with people online in various forums and sometimes going through forums as I realized they were not really for me to getting to know people face to face, spending time with them for several days at a time.

In that time with support I have been working on some of my difficulties such as Math and English finding time to study, reading either by myself or  sometimes a shared book learning to discuss it with others.

As well, this time has seen me become more confident as this adult little boy as I started to get that whole life working better with additional support and structures routed very much in meeting the child-like needs I have properly so I'm well grounded, learning to do more and be more responsible.

I have been tidying up this blog a little, correcting odd mistakes, changing the odd image while preparing a couple of new entries ready for the next hundred  editions.

At the more techy side only 49% of you use Windows with Chrome followed by Firefox being your preferred browsers showing just how far we've moved from the early days of blogging.

Here's to the enduring success of Chris's Boy talk

Think Pink!

The Pink Panther was a childhood favourite of mine both in the Cartoons made during the sixties that I saw as a child and also the Peter  Blake directed movies staring Peter Sellers as the hapless inspector on the case.

I collected a lot of merchandise as a child such as plushies, notepads, toys and calendars and bought Pink Panther themed bubble bath so you could say it was an obsession of mine.

Fall 2016

Slowly waking up here after the overnight rain.

This time of the year give or take a few weeks is one of my personal favourites not least for the rich colours that vary by the hours, something living here I really appreciate being able to literally just stroll on over to the woods and fields.

Around of this time of year  I often see the local grey squirrels leaping across the trees branch by branch carefully balancing , going across the road and into our gardens burying their Winter store.

I find it really keeps my spirits up.

Triggered and trying to pick up the pieces

The week was due to end on something on high and anyone that read the post on Friday  on the other blog may well of been forgiven for thinking that  as I looked at how over the years I had actually developed and as a result of that the blog had reflected those changes in me.

Some of those things included people who were going to have a more parental input in my life to help me better manage it because I was struggling with it providing guidance and oversight and also by consent, spanking me which has worked well.

It's perfectly true to say emotionally and psychologically, many of us carry some baggage around with although for most it's something they have control over but for some of us it goes much deeper than that.

You might think you have it safely contained where it doesn't cause you any problems however this sort of traumatic events can jolt you back back very much in that moment reliving those raw terrifying emotions, freezing you, leaving you shaking badly.

For me personally I do go 'mute' in stressful situations, I stare out oblivious to what is going on around, I just shut down and curl up. It's a vulnerability I have to live with when I'm so overwhelmed I can't act to look after myself.

That's what makes a triggering episode like the one I had on Thursday really bad bring back painful memories of witnessing verbal abuse and physical violence at home and of inappropriate physical contact outside of it. It goes that much deeper than just something you'd rather never happened.

I supposed in a way it had to happen at a site very much for adults because with my mixture of learning/developmental disabilities I don't really slot into sites well because I do need generally a higher degree of moderation and 'hand holding' than most sites expressly for adults offer but either that sites that do are strictly under 18 or more general ones where some topics would (understandably)  be off limits.What I need more - an more older kid style of site -  but for over 18's doesn't exist.

It just happened that in innocuously questioning a part of the main site entrance,  it opened up discussion things that directly triggered emotions from those experiences that left me shaking in my tummy  just even typing it.

I just feel at the moment typing this I need  to try to get this under some control and a part of that is to take a break from the site in question until I feel ready to log back in seeing posts without all these memories flooding back.

I think the whole topic that lead to this needs to resolved, "put to bed" so the thread and everything in it can just float away or be closed off.

For me at some point when I feeling better than I am presently, I would like to work toward some permanent closure  with the individuals concerned and  not just from a personal point of view  that's obviously a very important for me but also for them to try to work through their feelings on what happened and how it's left things.

To me it is that within my limitations, I do need when I'm better to resolve all of this in a mature way rather than just avoiding people who I did really like and mostly likely never saw where things would end up.

The A-Z of Chris staying with you

When you get to see this I will be almost ready to go away for a few days so in the intervening time I have been super busy organizing my transportation, making sure I take what I need and that it is all been properly washed and any outstanding business is taken care off.

When it comes to going away things are always different with me compared to most in that in the first instance whoever I stay with assumes some responsibility for me because of the limits on my abilities not just physically but also when it comes to my abilities to exercise responsibility and make quick judgments.

In a good many respects I have the position and all the authority of a ten year old boy staying with relatives because while I do have a say, the higher level decisions are made for me and I am subject to house rules in a direct way.

This is for a number of reasons such as I struggle with options, often getting confused around implications and consequences to the point of just freezing over, often I require supervision to make sure breaks and get to bed at a reasonable time so I have a no later than bedtime and can be sent to bed if I'm tired.

I do wear uniform when I am with them at all times except if we're going in a place where regular folk congregate such shops and the like.

Also I am scolded and spanked by them should I be dishonest, disobedient or disrespectful to them or anyone else during that period as most adult ways of dealing with this just don't work with me but that does.

To be honest, I find this actually quite a lot better for me not least for it is a less anxious experience, that if I do mess up (and I'm prone to it) at least everything is over and done with and as necessary I'm helped to put things right to other peoples satisfaction where whenever I had been with people before I just messed up and we just got to the point I was dead nervous about going and they'd be left feeling they'd 'have' to take me or I was for a forever kind of punishment.

That it ties in with my little/middle side and its needs helps to keep some inner tensions down between trying impersonate a grown up and in many ways the lack of such a side in me which just added to the difficulties following higher level discussion of the sort you expect of adults.

It is also helping me more deal with my emotions, sorting some of my attitudes out which people just faced with a potential meltdown in adult company didn't deal with.

In another world

 

This could of been me so easily in actual childhood, sat in class with textbook open upon the wooden desk staring into space, daydreaming or otherwise distracted which it had to be said wasn't something your teacher way back then was very partial too and most still aren't.

Actually as much is it seen settings such as school as a attention or discipline issue, a lot of research has shown that's it not time wasted so much as time and skills at problem solving and using your imagination that can benefit people.

Of course we can all think of just dreaming up an imaginary world which for some may well be preferable to their only too real one, but that imagination can be channelled into drawing and writing fiction.

Perhaps that's why it doesn't surprise me a good number of those writers and artists tended to fall foul of the school authorities. 

The Secret Seven and the missing words

One of things I have made a bit of a start on is getting replacement hard back copies of my Secret Seven books that I originally wrote a bit about on here a few years ago with the bulk of them being modern edition but with good original illustrations and the other five being 1970's paperback ones.

This series is for me a link of that nine through thirteen period where  having moved from the first 'proper' reading books I had from around  six with Mr Twiddle, I was looking for something a bit more 'grown up', a bit challenging both by the style of writing and also use of a wider vocabulary and that of older children.

It's an adventure series of a group of children who meet up having adventures while trying to solve mysteries and in it we see their personalities such as a somewhat bossy Peter, club leader.
In many ways it touches on that sense of longing to be long to a group, a circle which as a child of that age  you sure felt and in the series we see Susie, one of more quick thinking children kept out, perhaps more that she might undermine Peter than anything else.

They have a scottie dog called Scamper who rather like George's dog Timmy in the Famous Five plays a big role, big enough to be counted as a member even!

Actually it is the similarities that invite comparison between both of Enid Blyton's adventure series usually to the the detriment of the Secret Seven in which two later stories do clearly reference Famous Five books almost as if she was saying "If you read this, please consider reading the Famous Five!" but that's negate the point which is this is a self contained series aimed at younger children or children with a lower reading age which was probably why I got them given my reading issues when I did.

The series was started in nineteen forty-nine  and concluded in nineteen sixty-three and like the Famous Five editions later copies were subject not just to things such as changes in currency but also in dress where the girls generally wear pinafores rather as I do now but these were again changed for jeans or shorts and the boys wore jeans unlike boys even in the early to mid nineteen-seventies in school who wore tailored hard wearing lined shorts.

The text also was altered in recent copies to 'reflect' modern social ideas so where in the second novel, Secret Seven Adventure, Peter says to Jack as he is being scolded for allowing his sister Suzie to have his  Secret Seven badge she should be smacked for it and a grown up says to the children  the girl at the circus should be spanked for her constant fibbing, that is removed. Given it was written in nineteen-fifty that would of happened and I can well recall when I did something like that in the nineteen seventies I and my peers sure  were smacked or spanked.

It's small details like that, the references to things in 'shillings' that set the backdrop of this adventure as are things like the circus acts a child of that era saw, regardless of our own views on that today and why apart from the feel of having the hard back I'm slowly building up a collection of them hopefully all with dust jackets, to read and enjoy as I did back then.

Family life

Somedays things just come crashing to you,  a bit of the past that jolts you as if a meteor struck you as you were just walking on down the sidewalk.

It was really about some thoughts that I had with my second best friend at high school at the time, she faced a lot of physical challenges in her life but she had hours of time to try to understand me and we were chatting would of been early 1982 about tv and what we saw mattered to us.

You know, the kind of totally random teen stuff that actually in hindsight was really pretty significant for how I saw and felt.

Let me explain. On commercial tv there was a long running American tv show about family life across the decades called The Waltons that featured this extended family sharing lifes ups and down together in rural Virginia, and the head of the family John Walton Snr, operated a lumber mill and supplemented their income with a small-scale farming. They took in people and shared a lot as a family united, attending church on Sundays.

That's probably was much as I need to say for the purposes of this entry as I'm not writing a essay on the series or anything as it's what's in more modern parlance a "Slice of life" series seeing the family grow and change over time in accordance with events such as the Great Depression, WW2, the Great Society and Civil Rights  era and so on.

The thing Linda and I were discussing was Family: what it means to be in a family, our involvement or interaction if you like with with Mom and Dad, your immediate siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. The extent it is a 'unit' and all that.

We were also comparing and contrasting our own relationships  with our families to what we had been watching.

In a lot of ways she saw many parallels  between that of how she cared for them as much as they had to do quite a lot for her and the fictional family we saw.

I once said half joking to Denise one recess If it was like mine, then everybody would be off doing totally their own thing, with Mom trying to hold the thing together and me behind a chair on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

That may sound kinda melodramatic but there was and still is the lack of bonds between everybody, no real sense of feeling for one another, for me it wasn't a place of safety with one sibling who'd think nothing of verbally and financially abusing me which wasn't really helped by my being able to spot in seconds any outright lies he was telling to get more for himself as he felt hard done to and obliged to report it.

That's before you bring in Pop who'd explode at the slightest thing, throwing stuff across the room, propelling me in a chair into corners like trash, threatening to burn down the house.
You see, that's the big comparison  between what family was like for her and for me and to open about this really hurt.

This whole experience left a big legacy with me, not least a very strong feeling of longing, almost desperation to loved and cared for.

What I wanted so much was physical and emotional intimacy, a feeling beyond mere words of what it means to 'belong', to be bonded and have bonds that outlast their very beginnings, that provide emotional comfort promoting personal confidence and development.

A relationship that would teach me what I needed to know to get by with people, to be able contribute to it, helping me to stand on my own two feet as a grounded individual within the wider unit.

A wider unit that shared a common purpose, the raising of and looking after that family that was prepared discipline me in a loving, structured, affectionate way so fulfilled my role and expectations within it and our wider community.

I wanted to be...in the Waltons family.

The world beyond the city

 One distinct advantage of where we are is the Peak District national park is on our doorstep, indeed it is in part of our county although neighbouring Derbyshire tends to claim it which was where in many ways we explored and played in growing up.

The hills and fields figured more in the latter for being able to have a runabout, hiding behind things, being totally absorbed in imaginary play, in battles and campaigns that just developed in real time.

Other times we'd visit monuments and churchs often made from locally sourced material, practise identifying architectural styles and types of windows on properties.

That to me was fun!

The return of the original Famous Five

This edition, composed on the chromebook is part of a restoration theme I am engaged upon being linked in part to getting back in touch with some people I was close to a few years who may have some different reasons for their interest than I but is a place where I can discuss that side of reading that for me is rooted as much part with my past and present child-like sense of being as much as a love of reading, my difficulties with reading aside.

Enid Blyton was as no doubt for many of us in the British Commonwealth the author we were introduced by schools and parents keen for us to reading something other than comics and preferable to the big threat of our era, the TV in the corner which was feared for turning us into passive unthinking consumers.

She wrote for all ages although there was a age-range guide for each series so we'd start with something like Noddy or Mr Twiddle which I loved and move through to a series like Malory Towers and the Famous Five to the very top end Junior Fiction and the cusp of Young Adult Fiction and adult fiction often tied to what we studied for English Literature around our mid teens.

I'm revisiting the Famous Five series after re-reading newer copies of them in 2012 mainly because of they way chunks of the situations around the lives of George, Dick, Julian, Anne and Timmy the dog have been altered dramatically that they no long ring true even if the basics of the plot remain.

What I'm in process of doing is replacing these somewhat altered versions with originals from the 1950 and 60's in hardback form.

Although much of the adventure and the sense of being young are universal across each era's children inevitably it is set in the past with it starting in 1942 and ending in 1963 so as amazing as it may sound one thing is they used a different currency and with it a different sense the value of things. 

This was one of the first things to be changed following the UK adopting decimalization in 1971 was references to money and strangely enough the decision by one paperback publisher to put all the children in Jeans even though that wasn't what was worn back then  plus ignores a common theme in the novels which is how 'George' rejects femininity as expressed in dresses and ribbons in preference to the shorts of boys and boyish pursuits.

At a stroke a big part of her gender role rebellion is diminished by removing the contrast to that societies norms.

My start point in revisiting the series begins where I first met them in chronological childhood  and that's with the first three novels that were put in an omnibus edition which to be honest is how most likely I'd of been given these novels and so I got a 1964 copy of "The Famous Five Big Book".

That contains the very first story Five on a Treasure Island that sets very much the scene introducing us not just to the Island and the children but also to their families and the social order within it, not least that the adults are the Authority Figures and that the children are spanked (and expect to be) which was the norm back then.

More recent editions remove that completely and attempt to suggest a more negotiated form of parenting that simply wasn't the case and what the children  who read the stories originally would not of recognized because the lives of Julian, George, Anne and Dick where very much like theirs in that way!

Some of the copies I have do have their original dust jackets, some of which are like this - a little the worse for wear although I used transparent tape to repair a few tears on this one - that are enjoyable to look at although because so many got lost or badly damaged copies with them tend to at a premium regardless of the actual condition of the book itself.

For me then while I love the dust jackets, it's the original text and the illustrations by Elaine Soper that have never been surpassed that are the reasons why I'm replacing the other set and enjoying re-reading the stories as they were originally written as I identified with them as that child.

I don't appreciate having my memories messed with.

The importance of honesty

One of things that does matter is telling the truth not that going by popular opinion  is it something we expect from people in positions of power such as business leaders or politicians although I feel our expectations ought to higher even if at times dashed.

The must basic reason for this is we have a need to feel the other person has a sense of honesty and integrity about them, that what they say is based on reality rather than either wishful thinking or something having no basis at all in fact.

Most of us can understand  and relate to what are sometimes called 'magical thoughts' where belief is suspended because the illusion of say" seeing an elephant fly" is preferable to us than the reality which is of course that they cannot. That whole notion is very child-like and because we saw it in our imagination it may feel real but isn't.

Telling the whole truth is something we can all struggle with especially if by doing so it shows us  in a poorer light so we do not so much say something it isn't true: we omit that which  shows our culpability and responsibility for what really transpired.

If there is a hierarchy when it comes to this it is the outright lie, the very thing that had no basis in reality at all that takes pole position.

We use it to place ourselves where we were not, to claim credit for things we did not do, to transfer the blame from us to others when we have done wrong and remove ourselves from situations where we had a responsibility but chose not to exercise it.

I am - and others around me expects me to tell the whole truth at all times and whenever I'm not there's no question of not being punished because of its seriousness.

Socializing and behaviour

Sometimes where you're thinking about how in any given situation we react around each other whither or not it's at home, at work or even say online in a forum it's as well to remember contrary what is often asserted, not everybody involved is in state of permanent fully realized maturity.

While to me and a good number of my closest friends we know we are not and fully see the child within come out in good ways and sometimes not so good ways such as getting stroppy or otherwise appearing rude because as littles this is what we know it what we also see is others who may not identify as we do but exhibiting similar behaviour.

Sometimes it helps if you visualize in such situation say men who might may appear to be so disgusted by the notion of being swept away by emotions as boys in their short pants they feel the need to act up to push away your emotionally driven drama seeing it as a weakness rather than engaging with it working through it to a resolution.

They're repelling something they can't cope with and that to them threatens their rumbustious sense of being, bringing to the surface their 'must hide' insecurities.

It isn't just men who may act like that so might anxious and insecure women and that can aid us in understanding them.

I think when you do see that, it can lead you to toward having a more tolerant view of obnoxious behaviour because we can now see they are still growing and developing feeling able to let more as much as we and they need to work on them.

Sometimes it appears to me, that's the problem, we see people as being "mature" we impose standards on them that they are bound to fail at when they like us are a work in progress in need of appropriate guidance and correction.

Littleness, regresssion and age-play

As ever on Tumblr there's a battle going on between people over what being a little is and any involvement of those under 18 in it however as ever there is more heat than light being generated by the keyboard warriors with many meme's and posts being put up and commented on.

This one is quite well intentioned in trying to explain the difference between age-playing and what emotionally appropriate behaviour that comes from being in actual state of regression where your responses come from the child within and less than any kind of scripted character you play.

 I do feel they have however got Little Space actually quite wrong because that is the emotional and behavioural environment  that as  a person who has regressed you have got into - you feel and so respond as that child - and not the act of being a little.

To get into it it is true you need to regress or otherwise release that child within an adult body or if you are like me not to have developed into it fully anyway.

There are some who are trying to put in a schism between the ChIRes advocates of littleness by regression and that of Caregiver/littles who are being characterized as a part of of the more 'adult' bsdm side.

For  me the whole point in a CG/l relationship is effectively that while in that headspace the Caregiver is providing the love, nurturing and support that is the equal of a parent or guardian arising from those needs as their little you have.

It is not necessarily sexual although some may enjoy that however meeting any sexual needs may find themselves which might be only in their 'Big' side of life.

They are not so much opposites degrees in which individuals chose to live their lives making informed decisions recognizing as appropriate the issues of informed consent as the bottom line always is that as adults legally only we can consent-minors regardless of any other feelings simply cannot deemed the responsibility of others such as parent(s) or guardians.

Of course the other big problem is there is too little recognition of the existance and needs of adult little boys in those communities -everything seems geared around girls and "daddies".

The splendour of Summer

As we enter the August bank holiday, I thought I'd  like to take look back to the Summer  when I was I was away and I saw this group of trees.

 It just appealed to me greatly so grabbed my camera  and took this picture in the early morning of it while other folks were doing other things like getting up.

Nature has always held a fascination for me, not least in my childhood being surrounded by countryside.

 

It isn't just flowers that interest me, even leaf structures do too.

Summertime Cub

 

Summertime means many things but being out, exploring, going on a hike is very much a part of what it means and was a part of my original boyhood as much as relatively unstructured play with my mates was.

Scratch the surface of this boy and you will find the eternal cub scout at his happiest playing games. learning new skills and having fun under the guidance his leader so it really was no accident at the age of fifteen and sixteen I went back in time, wearing cub scout uniform.

Today although officially you can't be a cub scout within the organization, I do shadow and follow much of what cub scouts do and learn to gain their badges having a specific uniform for such activities that include short trousers.

For a boy who hasn't really past ten years of age being taken back to learn the life skills I need while having fun makes a lot of sense

Summertime with more play

Summer for me always brings back memories of vacations of the past typically in traditional seaside resorts with beaches, long shore lines to walk on and playing in the sand, making big sandcastles with moats.

It includes the days we went down to the park for a game of footy or just a made run about making up games as we went along.

It's also days out at the fair, visiting the amusement arcades, eating ice cream, going on the Dodgems and riding the Merry-Go-Round with its distinctive rhythms without a care in the world.

It's also the place adult but child me really feels at home in, doing what I understand the best having fun.

Summertime play with your mates

Summer means time together exploring and doing things together in our very own spaces so we'd make dens or climb up to our tree house for a pow-pow and sesson together for ages or at least until our Mum's called us in (and home).

It is most emphatically NOT a girls zone, you have your own with your own kind so only boys are allowed to partake in play and rituals we, as boys, love and so we have our action figures, games and toys like guns we play with with much badinage and horse play tossed in for good measure.

We definately know what boys are here as we form a tight bond and that's how we like it  enjoying our masculine ways while the girls do their thing no doubt feeling better off for not having to accomodate us.

Of course there are times we might do the odd thing together but otherwise this suits all of us down to the ground.

I'm glad to be a boy.

Summertime 2016

A few weeks in the Summer, that period where on the last day of school you'd be feeling quite elated for being free of double maths period and the cross country in all weathers for a while and yet a couple of weeks on you're bored.

It's almost as though you cannot cope without that routine, knowing exactly where and what you'd be doing at any one point in time.

Holidays when I was younger had more of a routine planned into them by parents or other bodies such as schools just to get around of this.

It wouldn't be summer without some consideration of summer attire which for boys like me means more t shirts and casual shorts as in beach or sports types as like most boys as much as I like uniform, just breaking out of it for periods is great.

Boys like me belong in and wear Speedo type swimming trunks in and around the water, tight fitting and making us look rugged and, heck more attractive even compared with the swim shorts we used to wear.

Time for a ninty-nine me thinks...

Co-ordinated uniforms

The school term may be officially over for the new familiar six weeks school hols but this doesn't mean school terms are over for good as much as you'd like to see the end of S R Jones's humilating and often homophobic presence as science teacher.

I likened him back then to the popular brand of toothpaste which upon getting back to him only resulted in being smacked in front of the class for cheek and disrespect.

Instead as if by magic come September it all begins again.

Connected of course with all that is the ritual of going to the boys department or sub section of the men's wear that deal with more formal boys outfits for a fitting for the new school years uniform where out comes the tape measure to take chest,waist and inside leg measurements coupled with any school requirements before getting some items you go into the tiny cubical with thin curtain to try on.

That in real school life things went a bit wrong because at my school, like a good number they favoured long trousers while really it would of made more sense for me to had been put back into short trousers of the then brievity and treated a bit more like a junior to work on my attitudes and develop some sense of self discipline rather han relying totally on the notion of pleasing or not having pleased a grown up.

That's beside the fact being unco-ordinated and still playing rather a lot at breaktimes it would of been more cost effective given long seldom lasted a month without holes coming in knees.

BEING LIKE THE BOY ON THE LEFT REALLY WOULD MADE MORE SENSE.

Leaving and resuming years later

In the old order of things you'd be in school this week as Summer Term wound itself down as we couldn't really go any further in our classwork  so we'd have trips out, maybe a school production, certainly a school leavers service and board games on school desks at other times.

I remember that time in July 1975 quite well as we had a composition to write about our time at school, the things we learnt and our hopes for our futures at high school all to the backdrop of It Ain't Half Hot Mum on tv and Whispering Grass sang by two cast members on the radio.

The kit you need, I need even, as the eternal boy reflects that era although we didn't have caps and blazers, and the latter was one item I had to get that summer, removing any outward appearence of an adult.

Restoration to a school aged junior boy is the order of my day which is why two impliments are included for bringing my behaviour in line consistant with that era as that's what I understand best.

A juvenile little boy really is best treated for his misdeanours with a well caned bottom which he was used to if not merely threatened with 1975 style.

It is a very effective way of teaching me a lesson and I support adults who as this adult little boy teaching me right from wrong caning me without question.

It'll make a good boy out of me.

Summer Littles Away time

This year I did get away with some littles even if bits weren't really my cup of tea for being,well, girlish.

As an adult little boy who is more on the Middle side for me this whole thing is rather like the Caregiver/little side of things in that it is a space to allow the child-like me out to play and interact as if I was an actual child at a emotional age appropriate level for me, the one impacted significantly by my developmental/learning disabilities that in so many ways I function ordinarary and with no choice at that level.

It's hardly age-play, I mean I didn't choose it, it just the hand I was given and it's a matter of learning to make the most of the only life I have.

I have been interested as much as I'm more around upper UK juniors and first year senior side about things more associated with younger children as for example I've always been drive to spin or rattle things such as whizzing tape reels around or enjoying the sound of winding a cassette back with a pencil or impulsively leaping to a rattle.

While I was away a "Baby Gym" with a pretty patterned mat and mobiles that made noises had been set out and I though, "Right, it's a quiet area" and decided to have a bit of a play with it.
It only took a few minutes and I sensed myself shifting to a younger more tactile headspace playing with it so while I may not identify with AB, some things from it could be in my little space needs that benefit from being met.

The other large side to this that for this whole period I am in a setting where my behaviour and attitudes are under the gaze of adults with authority over me and where I know I will be taken to one side and spanked without exception for any breaches of what I know isn't acceptable.

We did have a games morning where in sports kit we played in teams which was rather fun plus jigsaws and models to complete.

I brought my Beano summer special with me rather like I used to on family holidays in the past and a plushie to keep me company.

Alternative presentations in the Famous Five

I do enjoy reading not least the books written by Enid Blyton although over the years they have suffered from Bowlderization as social mores have changed, ill judged attempts at modernizing to make them more "relevant" to today's children and that applied to how the children were dressed.

The Famous Five series suffered from that with children of the 1940's being put into jeans and modern bright t shirts when boys would of worn above the knee short trousers and girls typically dresses with "George" alias Georgina showing her rebellion by wearing boys shorts and only answering to George.

This really it undermines a big part of the story beyond the adventures.

The 1978 adaptation for Tv followed that ill advised  alteration but the 1995 ITV Tyne Tees series kept more of a period feeling including as shown in this picture the very attire Enid had in mind.

Age play

What does age play mean to you?

It’s not a phrase I use simply because my Middles with a little side flows from my inner child in real time less than the notion of say taking on a pre-defined role with an script, running more with actual child within emotional responses and  needs as it happens in real time. 

I'd call this 'age regression'.  It’s more space for my Middle with little side to express herself with the ‘play’ being the setting where she comes out.

It also is the case with developmental disabilities and brain damage, even at school, not least high school, I was considerably younger than my years which left me out of sync from my mid teens onward with most of my peers although I could share in say a love of music and some movies at least but with a lot their more grown up interests and sexual references going completely over my head, like they’d be talking about making out and I’d be more interested in having a teddy bears picnic or a tween sleepover

.
For me those situations either on line or in playmeets  with some of my friends over here are very therapeutic to me because they’re where I can really let that side of me out without the fear of people poking fun although the community where I live are very tolerant of my child-like ways and being know to have “special needs” does run  to my advantage in that way, allowing a greater degree of self expression than I’d of imagined after leaving high school.

How do you express you inner-kid: online? offline as part of your everyday life?

Online is fun as I am very childlike, cracking lame jokes, getting super excited but thankfully most people are at least tolerant of my childlike ways although I make serious posts on non IK sites but am very open at sites like DDLG World  about my little side sometimes really regressing in say a IK chat room
In what we call Real Life, as will be apparent later on, my 'big’ and I express ourselves pretty much the same, which can be fun  cos I just can’t help being myself as I use child-like phrases and words instinctively, often have plaything with me (my last works colleagues 'got it’ and were super understanding of me being very much a child to the point of buying childrens gifts at Christmas),  do dress in a more child-like way, often have cute plushies around, and easily move into little/middle headspace when I’m out, playing with thing.

My IK really comes out at Adult Little Boy meets and sleepovers, it’s just like boarding school which I loved having been to one and I’m always dressed as Middle in either playwear or English school uniform which fits me perfectly.

How do you view your innerkid? As an integrated part of you? As being totally separate? .. or maybe you don’t feel you have an innerkid per say just feel littler.

The answer to this is simple  which is to say I don’t have much of adult sense of self through the real world impact of learning, development and intellectual disabilities to the point much of the adult world is beyond my personal comprehension, having no interest or need to. 

I have chores like tidying up and helping with hoovering.

Basically I’m a child with a big age number living more like a child apart from paying taxes and that.

Challenging ideas

Can past ideas around boyhood presentation and roles be an inspiration where today's seem so tame and lacking any meaningful kind of challenge and adventure with a big bundle of cotton wool to wrap around you as much as you feel that urge?

Just what is so wrong with idea we might learn to do things that call for attention to detail and self discipline and maybe have a role with some responsibilities?

This boy would of loved to had been dressed up in short short trousered sailor suit rather like these members of a Soviet era youth organization, looking very smart rather than the messy casuals I had (and don't mention the beeping jeans!).

That was more my idea of being a boy not a pint sized carbon copy of Dad.

A note from the dorm, 77 style

Imagine instead of it being 2016, it was actually 1977 where we'd made major technological breakthrough where instead of being sat typewriting a letter leaving a space for illustrations, we'd actually got the internet?

Well, one thing I'd of been writing about from our dorm is my comics because back in 1977 our newsagents had a few shelves full of them for boys and girls of all ages, not mini magazines or tat infested fim, toy and footie tie-ins.

Comics that had stories existing in a self contained world we'd all drift into.

I remember Tiger from Juniors but the one I really got into big time was the War Comic, Warlord that launched in September 1974, to the point my parents went all over Nantwich, Cheshire to get me some back issues I was missing.

It fitted in well with my mania for Action Man.

Roy of the Rovers was a boyhood institution that gave rise to popular phrases, the inspirational footie figure who combined ball control with the kind of emotional control to be a mature player on and off the pitch.

It also had features on the actual game although strangely enough then there were weekly footie magazines for boys our age 10-14 like Score! 

Comics reflected life as we lived it, to the boy of today it may seem another land with different rules and expectations.

The grown ups were our enemy, we'd always be trying to get out of things, playing tricks on them, forever pushing the boundaries but our luck would run out and soon enough our bottoms were made to pay the price.

That's the thing you notice when you re-read a good number of the comics and their annuals today, you were always shown cheek, bullying, lying and damaging other peoples stuff would be punished and adults wherever we were did with immunity.

Summer and me

Summer after the Whit Holiday was always something to look forward to as after six weeks of lessons, end of term tests and all that we had the Hols, six solid weeks away from school and all its boring rules and petty swabbles between classmates except for the fact after two weeks "we woz bored"!

Sometimes the period tied in with key events such as sorting your subjects to study at the end of the third year for GCE's (or C.S.E's) for the next two years and the examinations or moving up to another part of school like the last term in Infants or the Fifth Form where come september you'd be in sixth and treated more as a young adult.

Summer term in 1974 was big with me as we'd just moved to a new school building with lots of new things we could now do but we'd only have a whole school year before we'd make our own ways to differing secondary schools.

Also being a year older I was finding I was getting more out of popular singles of the time as I understood more about what the songs were so my tastes were getting a little more sophesticated and an example of that was "Jarrow Song" by Alan Price which was about the march protesting being out of work  and One Man Band by Leo Sayer.