Miggy Clearings -Field of Dreams

Miggy Clearings (Field of Dreams) Recently I read a piece in a Sunday supplement about the 1950s Britain. It described it as a drab grey decade, still suffering the austerity left over from the war, with rationing still in force and stereotype concepts of utility furniture, hair nets, nine inch tellies and 40 watt bulbs. Nah! That’s not the fifties I knew, my fifties were set in a golden age of youth culture and great music – we’re talking pre-Elvis here – great singers ruled the roost like Guy Mitchell, Frankie Laine, Frankie Vaughan and Johnny Ray and their songs had proper words, words you could sing along to at the top of your voice if you so wished, especially if you were lucky enough to be wheeling your bike through the woods to cricket practice on that ‘field of dreams’ Miggy Clearings. Songs like: ‘The sun is shining oh! Happy day’ or ‘I talk to the trees’ which was quite appropriate for Miggy woods was so remote no one would hear you singing and if they did then what the hell! Why should you care this was the fifties and life was as good as it gets. The Clearings was a grand place, it was the healthy lung of Leeds – high enough to have a panoramic view across the whole of the city, large enough to incorporate a score of football pitches and with air fresh enough to take your breath away. Surprisingly in view of its great size the Clearings is not and never was an easy place to find, no doubt this is due to its remote location and secluded position in thick woodland. Initially I had two abortive trips trying to find the place myself. This may account for the fact that the ‘field of dreams’ has remained somewhat of a ‘lost world plateau’ to most Leeds lowlanders. Once discovered however, the magic of the Clearings has an ability to match ones declining physical prowess against the passing of the years. If you hadn’t a bike then the best way to reach The Clearings in the 1950s from Leeds was by means of the tram. The tram track ran clean through the woods and had a handy stop right in the middle – this must have been just about the most remote tram stop in the whole of Britain. Alighting at this stop the field itself was to be gained only by climbing one of several steep paths up through the rest of the wood, which was no mean feat then and has become meaner through the years. The return journey entailed a wait at this woodland stop. The old tram would emerge rocking and rolling down the steep gradient. It was unusual for anyone to be waiting at the woodland stop so the driver would be enjoying getting quite a ‘lick on’ down the hill – when he spied you waiting there you could see he looked really ‘bogged off’ – you could imagine him muttering ‘B…dy Hell!’ He’d have to bang the anchors on and the old tram would complain bitterly, sliding and screeching to a halt, often many yards past the stop. Alas! The last tram ran in 1959, but beneath the burgeoning vegetation the odd sleeper or rusty bolt bears witness to the fact this golden age was more than just a dream. The passing seasons of The Clearings rewards visitors with a myriad of sensations – the grass newly cut would transmit wonderful aromas. On a particular spring weekend the huge field would parade in white from countless daises. On another it would be a yellow mass of dandelions or buttercups, when the dandelions entered their ‘hairy man’ phase and blew around, that too was a sight to behold. Being so high The Clearings was rarely waterlogged – so one could invariable play football when lower pitches were little more than bogs, but the wind, now that could be a problem a Clearings wind was something to behold. I once saw Bobby Collins toward the end of his career having a kick about with a Sunday morning team up there and realised Bobby was mortal after all for even he couldn’t kick the ball against a Clearings wind. In summer the works cricket team had a corrugated hut on The Clearings that acted as our pavilion. We used it for changing in and as a place for the ladies to serve tea between the innings. We also had a huge roller for rolling the square, this when not in use was chained to a large tree, unfortunately we were never able to prevent the local vandals from releasing it and rolling it down the woods – then it would be a matter of mustering the whole team and a tractor to try and pull it back up again. I think its still down there now. In the end they demolished the whole hut, which evidences the fact that vandals were already alive and well as early as the 1950s. On other occasions the woods could be an asset as in the case of one match I recall: while playing a football match one of our team, who happened to be a twin, became injured (this was at a time before substitutes were allowed) it just so happened that his twin brother, who was also a footballer but did not play for our team was standing on the touchline – at half time the injured twin disappeared into the wood – allegedly to relieve himself – and returned as his uninjured brother for the second half. Autumn would bring golds and browns to the leaves and form another layer of leaf carpet over last years carpet and the countless years before softening the irregularities of the terrain and filling the air with that unique smell that tells you that it’s autumn. In winter the rugby teams changed in a sort of park ranger cum gardeners hut along with all the rakes and spades, it was a dark low affair nestling in a woody dell, usually there was a great fire burning in there but no light. When you were changing into the playing gear it was all right, you could just about see what you were doing from the daylight coming in through the doorway, but after playing when you returned covered in mud, to change back into your normal togs the light would have gone and the fire out, it was like returning to a great dark cave- then it became a matter of trying to remember where your clothes were and feeling about in the dark. People would be putting on the wrong shirt – socks were almost impossible to find. Of course if you’d won what did the loss of a sock matter. Eventually the combative sports of youth give way with the years to jogging in the lunch break and finally walking and watching others compete. But the Clearings has not finished with you yet for this is the stage when it really is ‘the field of dreams’ – when you can’t do it for real you can still dream of that goal or try scored, boundary hit or catch taken. In this I know I am not alone for while walking the dog up there I saw an old kid wheeling a bike, periodically he would stoop and pick something from the grass dropping it into a plastic bag suspended from his handlebars. Puzzled to see what he was collecting I kept having a glance round to see if I could make out what it was he was picking. On such a glance I was surprised to see he had dropped the bike, bag and all and was in the process of running towards the centre of the field. What’s he up to now I thought? Perhaps he’s going to relieve himself? But why run towards the centre of the field the woods were the other way. Intrigued I watched – he reached a set of goal posts and set himself as if to do the hundred yards dash – this old kid must have been all of eighty – flat cap – trousers in socks. I bet he’d been a sprinter? He rocked backward and forward as if waiting for the gun and then he was off sprinting for the other goal, it wasn’t fast, it was better than that: it was beautiful! I’ll never know who that old chap was but I know I like him, he’d succumbed to the enchantment of the field to have a go at recapturing his dream and he’d had enough bottle to do it. Earlier this year while walking the dog on the Clearings I noticed that the position of the goalposts, which had moved around over the decades to different areas of the field had returned to the same position they were when we played under seventeen’s football. Could it really be fifty years since we beat a team thirty eight nil on this very pitch and our goalie Geoff Manning was sent off for ungentlemanly conduct after sitting down and leaning against the goalposts; miffed because he’d never touched the ball for the whole of the game? I thought great, I’ll sit down where Geoff sat all those years ago, have a drink of coffee and re-live that game, after all this was the field of dreams. So I planted my haversack at the foot of the posts and as I don’t seem to bend so easy in the places I once could – it was a matter of leaning with my back to the goalpost and shuffling down till I reached the ground to arrive at the same position Geoff had taken up all those years ago. In this position the dog and I enjoyed a pleasant ten minutes me drinking coffee, he eating biscuits – You don’t forget a ‘thirty eight – niller’ even after all those years. At the conclusion of this pleasant interlude and now even stiffer I tried to regain my feet once more, this entailed another spot of leaning against the post and shuffling up in order to regain my feet. It was only while in the process of walking away that I happened to look back ‘shock horror’ the goals perfectly aligned on my arrival were now leaning backwards and to one side like a rhomboid. That it should come to this – my weight had damaged the field of dreams! They’d not be able to play on that pitch come Saturday. . Ah Well! I comforted myself, at least this time the vandals would be blamed for something they hadn’t done