A den of one's own

 

    I'm delighted to welcome Helen Moss, author of the Adventure Island mysteries, to Cornflower Books today. As the writer of a series of books which are bound to appeal to anyone who has loved Enid Blyton's Famous Five, it's perhaps no surprise that for this special post for us, Helen has chosen dens as her subject. Speaking as the owner/occupier of many dens in my time (come to think of it, my study is probably the grown-up version), I can certainly relate to what Helen and her characters feel about their special hideaways.

    Over now to our guest author:-

     "The desire to build a den must be an innate childhood instinct. I lived on a farm for much of my childhood, and together with my brother, sister and friends, constructed a never-ending assortment:  excavations under piles of straw bales in the barn, shanties cobbled together from sheets of corrugated iron at the back of the pig-sty, hidey holes under the bridge across the stream, tree-houses of every shape and size, and even a den in the back of a vintage fire engine that had been left in the farmyard (the farm owner had a whim to open a museum of old machinery and had then gone off the idea; hence we had a pony and trap and several threshing machines to play on too).  In the winter we’d build indoor dens in the maze of old attics and cellars.  Even a blanket over the kitchen table would do in a pinch.

    In all cases, the urge was for a special, secret, adult-free zone, that we could kit out with scavenged sticks of furniture, and look-out posts, along with fortifications in case of attack by unnamed enemy forces. The ideal den combined the cosily domestic (we could use this rusty old tin for a teapot!) and the disturbingly savage (if we sharpen these sticks and place them in this hole, it’d make a perfect man-trap!).

    My in-depth research (aka asking my friends) reveals that I’m not alone. Almost everyone recalls their childhood den with dreamy nostalgia. The abandoned building site/dead tree near the quarry/shed in the back garden of the empty house next door/derelict  caravan...they are all remembered in loving detail.

     And nothing much has changed. My sons and their friends have spent years constructing (and destroying) a sequence of ever more ambitious and complicated dens in the fields near our house. Here an ash tree undergoes a total makeover, transforming into a delightful home-from-home-slash-military-base.

    In the Adventure Island series, I’ve tried to capture this primordial desire by bestowing upon Emily, Jack and Scott, some great dens (although they refer to them as hideouts or Headquarters for the various investigations they are conducting). In The Mystery of the Whistling Caves, the HQ is in one of the towers of the ruined castle. In later books in the series, dens include the branches of a huge oak tree in the park, and an old tree house, hidden and forgotten about for a generation, until rediscovered by Jack.

    As a child I always longed for a den inside a hollow tree. This was partly inspired by an Enid Blyton book called Hollow Tree House, in which two children run away from their mean aunt’s house to live alone in a hollow tree.  It all sounded so enticing! If my parents were ever cruel enough to make me eat fried liver again, or forced me to tidy my bedroom one more time, I was so ready to run away – if only I could find the perfect hollow tree. It’s probably a good thing I never did. At least, not until many years later; I found it in a forest in Shropshire just a few months ago.  Surely this enormous old tree is crying out for a runaway child to take up residence. Or maybe even a runaway Mum!

    And then I thought, I bet Jack, Scott and Emily would like a den  (sorry, HQ) in a hollow tree too. So, in Book Eight (which I’ve just written, and will be out next Spring), I gave them one of their own.

    Here is a sneak preview!

A lightning strike had split the ancient tree down the middle, but over the years the two halves had fused together to form a perfect circular room...rustling leaves formed a canopy over the open roof, dappling the light inside like leopard skin. The bulges on the inner wall of the gnarled tree trunk made perfect seats – all covered in bright green moss, as soft and springy as velvet cushions.

‘Cool,’ Scott said, climbing up inside the hollow to a hole that came out on a wide branch. ‘You can see right across the moor to the causeway here.’

     And then, to my joy, the wonderful Adventure Island illustrator, Leo Hartas, captured the magic of the hollow tree den in a beautiful line drawing.

    Doesn’t this just make you want to leave home and move in!

    Being able to invent the hollow tree den of my dreams is just one of the many reasons I love writing children’s books!"

 

    Very many thanks to Helen for her lovely piece and photographs, and for reminding me of the dens of my youth (the first of which was in a hollow-centred shrub of some kind on the spit of headland overlooking the rocks and sea here - what fun I had!).

    Did you have a den when you were younger, or perhaps you have one even now?

Comments

[Marianne Wheelaghan]

Lovely post. Brings me back to when my sister and I had a den down by some old railway tracks (very naughty of us and I would never recommend dens anywhere near tracks ever, even disused ones - but this was the olden days!). The den was in the middle of a thicket of brambles. We had a secret entrance and would have picnics there and read books and no one ever found us. It's amazing what can be evoked by some very choice words and pictures. Thanks.

[Cornflower]

Yes, speaking of the olden days, Marianne, there was that slightly dangerous element to my den, too, as it was at the edge of a steep cliff. We never came to any harm and we had freedom that so many children nowadays are denied!

[Dark Puss]

I made childhood dens in the bracken (when dry) near my (which was then my parents') at the back of my cottage - you know it well of course. In adult life, I haven't been constructing anything but I think it might not be too far fetched to say that CERN plays somewhat the role of a hideaway for me today, perhaps even more so the houses of my dear friends D & F near Geneva. No room for any den in my tiny flat sadly!

[Sandy]

I have enjoyed reading Helen Moss' description of her childhood dens and it seems that her imaginative side was showing itself in their construction. Yes it was an essential part of my friendships as a child that the group had a den which was usually a natural hiddden space in shrubbery, where we would meet and plan.

My dens now with friends are mainly virtual - thanks to some forum chatrooms and 'messenger'. But they are still performing some of the same functions.

[Mr Cornflower]

The greatest literary den I know is the ancient hollow oak in 'Brendon Chase' by BB, in which three runaway brothers hide themselves away for a year, living wild in the heart of a green imagined England. The fishing huts I occasionally visit or the little tree house at the end of our urban garden are about the closest I get in real life, alas.

[Mr Cornflower]

DP, that is some den - when you kindly showed me round one of the vast underground chambers at CERN I remember thinking it would be an ideal stage backdrop for the climactic shoot-out scene in a Bond film!

[Dark Puss]

Yes you are absolutely right about the film-set aspect! If I'd know the lovely Morgana when OPAL was being closed down I'd have flown her over for a photoshoot in "Point 5". It is now occupied by my current experiment CMS and induced radioactivity at the LHC which was not present at OPAL in LEP accelerator days sadly prevents any such ideas.

[Helen Moss]

Thanks everyone for your lovely comments and to Cornflower Books for allowing me the pleasure of contributing this guest post (and apologies for the delay in this response!). Just reading through these comments confirmed what I'd thought - almost everyone has fond memories of their childhood dens!