The grounds, with a stream and ponds, backed onto an experimental farm belonging to Tate & Lyle, the sugar refiners and manufacturers of delicious Golden Syrup in a green and gold tin featuring a lion with bees circling it's head. So, although the house was set in one and a half acres of land, there were hundreds more acres to play in, as far as we children were concerned.

At the age of seven, in 1952, I was sent to Shortlands House school. The setting for this stage of my education was a late Georgian double bow-fronted house. There was a huge cedar tree in front of it with a spread of at least sixty feet.

The English teacher, Ernest Moss, inspired us with his translation of the Iliad for children. Pure inspiration! His art and music lessons were also to have a great influence on all of us in later years.

The school's headmaster Mr. Knee (very Scottish) was respected and, when he spoke, you listened! If you didn't listen and broke his rules, the penalty was between two and six strokes of his heavy leather strap, split down the middle and inflicted on the hands.

These punishments were always administered after discussing your academic results, whether good, bad or indifferent and merry chit chat, such as laughing over how well the school play had been received by the parents or trying to guess what Stanley Matthews, the footballer, would do next.

The thrashing was administered without emotion - a necessary evil. All the children at that school knew the parameters of acceptable behaviour and accepted the consequences of any misbehaviour. Setting out to do some mischief or other, one thought like Clint Eastwood: "Do I feel lucky?"

The only school bully  was the Latin master, a Pole who had 'suffered in the war'. It seemed his misery was taken out on me, so I let his tyres down after school one day...

After school was adventure time for two hours - the most we could reasonably manage without causing parental hysteria by arriving home after dark. On one occasion, these two hours were spent in the grounds of a local convent school and, in particular, on their lake. Four barrels and planks were tied together. We cut tall stems of bamboo from the gardens and turned them into a serviceable mast and yardarm to which we attached some sheets I had appropriated from my mother's storeroom.

The six of us had successfully recreated the galleon that we had constructed out of matchboxes and brown card during the history lesson. This was the real thing! We set sail to find the terrible Spanish... Unfortunately, we forgot to build in a rudder and, instead of sailing along under the discreet cover of the willow trees,  the breeze blew us into full view of the startled nuns. We were all wearing school uniform. The convent's complaints were directed to the rabid Scot, Mr. Knee. Thus the disciplining was taken away from our parents and delivered via Mr. Strap.

Taking the attitude that derring-do and adventure would result in less pain if we carried out our exploits closer to home, we embarked upon the enterprise of making a fort out of the summer house in my parents' garden. On a Saturday, we began. To start with, it was necessary to have a look-out post. A lot of hard work with a saw, a stepladder and a few other tools yielded a three-foot square gap which was accessible via the stepladder and afforded a view of the 'sea'. Unfortunately, the 'sea' was broken up into three ponds and we decided that it would be improved if only we were to dam the stream.

By Sunday, we had a fort and an ocean (getting bigger by the hour)! Oh, what fun! The boating, the swimming and... Had the reincarnation of Bomber Harris arrived and re-created the Dam Busters? Our dam had burst! Imagine six children and sundry ships (tarpaulin-covered tea-chests) hurtling towards what was a technical feat of eight-year-old engineering. Our dam.

Mrs. Lear's garden decided to follow us downstream, towards the illustrious, landscaped and delicate Japanese garden of Dr. Bryce, the local G.P. with it's huge Golden Orfe, Carp and carefully collected Terrapins... We were incredulous that water could wreak such destruction! Even the trellis bridge seemed magnetically attracted to us. This was adventure!

Even today, it is too painful to relate to you the consequences of running a fort and a navy...

During history lessons, we had learned that there were cave-dwellers in prehistoric times. We also learned that dinosaurs stalked the earth. The time scale was so enormous that, in our confusion, we ignored the fact that Triceratops and  Tyrannosaurus Rex were pre-humanoid. Pterodactyls never saw a Neanderthal. Sabre-toothed tigers didn't actually crunch on human bones but to us, they most certainly did!

Tate & Lyle's farm was surrounded by woodland and included a beautiful garden around an old country house. The clay chalk, we discovered, was perfect for digging caves in. One Saturday, six cavemen clambered over the fence and out of the 20th century into primordial ferns and sundry strange vegetation - it was Rhododendron, actually. With practised observation, we were secure in the knowledge that, due to not seeing any hairy mammoth footprints or skeletal remains from reptilian conflict, we were temporarily safe to start our excavations.

Each night, as we left Tate & Lyle's territory, we hid our endeavours under bark, bracken and leaves, so as not to have it discovered by the dreaded Neanderthals who roamed slope-shouldered around the farmyard. It took the whole summer holiday to finish the three inter-connecting caves. Now we hammered a drainpipe through the roof of the first cave, to create a chimney for cooking and eating our Brontosaurus steaks (the fillets from father's fridge...). Was this heaven?!

Through streaming eyes and sniffling noses, we agreed that the chimney was probably authentic but all good things must come to an end and they did, with a vengeance. The trail we left from the 'Gate into the Unknown' was picked up by the 'Neanderthals' and the multinational company sent a registered letter to my father. You can probably guess the rest, as Brian Ferry might say...

The whole point of my telling you these stories is that the children therein had an outlet for their boundless energy. Any tree tall enough was the mast of a whaler or tall ship and it was our mast for the climbing. A pond was to be fished, sticklebacks to be netted, de-spined and pickled - food stores laid down for when the Russians attacked, along with boxes filled with ginger marmalade, condensed milk, Cadbury's chocolate and peanut butter.

Life was an adventure. Today, children do not, or are not allowed to, have these freedoms. They live in politically-correct straightjackets.