Viv of Ginger Pop wrote:I think that every school should have a secret passage...
Just came upon this long-running thread, which I seem to have overlooked before.
I seem to recall, so dimly I wouldn't absolutely swear that something couldn't have gone wrong with my memory, that my old school in Adelaide had a secret tunnel - or so the rumour that I heard went. It supposedly led from a nearby railway station (I think) and went underneath the school, and came out underneath the stage in the school hall. This was probably a distance of quarter of a mile or something. Why it was constructed, I have no idea - I wonder if to do with the war (I or II) or something - not sure.
I recall thinking that I'd really like to go into it, but knew I'd likely never get the chance. And I don't even remember where I heard the rumour, so it could be quite mistaken. Once or twice I've tried Googling for anything about it, but so far have found nothing.
Also during my Adelaide years, I do seem to remember - again, the memory is very vague now - learning of an abandoned tunnel of some sort in the hills and planning to join a couple of other kids at school to go and explore it. For some reason we never did, though. (I wonder if there's any web site called something like "Secret tunnels in Adelaide".)
I once decided to start digging a secret passage in an undeveloped part of the garden, and set to work. I planned to go downwards, then a few yards down to start going horizontally. However, the initial hole never got beyond about three feet deep: I don't recall why I stopped, but maybe it was the realization that digging tunnels was *hard work*, especially with the amount of clay, stones, and so on.
It's probably fortunate that I stopped eventually, because it would have been very dangerous to continue, especially if I reached the point of starting to horizontally, because cave-ins would become a serious hazard. I think I had vague plans of shoring it up with beams of wood, like I'd read about in some Blyton book or other, but certainly had no clear idea how I'd do that - and certainly wouldn't have known how to do it *properly*.
I really don't know what my parents thought of this, because I don't recall anyone saying anything about the danger of it. Maybe they knew all along I'd give up long before it reached the point of starting to be dangerous.
Neither of my brothers was involved in this tunnel-digging: they read Enid Blyton, but I think far less prolifically than I did; and I think they got into her imaginative world far less than I did. And I know from odd conversations more recently, where Enid Blyton may briefly come up, that they don't remember much about her books any more: they certainly don't remember any actual stories in any detail, and don't even remember book titles - all the books, even all the series, just blur into a sameness for them. (My older brother read only Famous Fives anyway - the younger one probably read at least some books from a few series.) And they probably think I don't remember any longer either.
Not much later than this, at my cousins' place, a vertical hole 10 or 15 feet deep was actually successfully dug. I'm not quite sure if my cousins did it or my uncle, or maybe both - I do seem to associate it with one of my cousins for some reason, even though he would have been quite a young child at the time. But I think it was for the practical purpose of acting as a cellar for wine, and had nothing to do with acting out Blyton scenarios. And it was so used for a time. (Seems an odd thing to do, but that's what I remember; I'll ask my uncle or aunt about it next time I visit them.)
I don't know how they coped with the safety angle of it: my uncle was an engineer, so maybe he was able to ensure it was safe. Recently, when I've seen that site, I can see the remnants of the hole, but it's now filled up with twigs and branches and other debris. I don't know if it was filled deliberately to prevent anyone falling in, or whether all that stuff just drifted in there over the years - because the hole certainly isn't properly filled in with dirt or anything, and you can still see down several feet amongst all the branches filling it.
Regards, Michael.