Watership Down & Other Childhood Traumas
Being a young child in the 70s was awesome. We played outside, built stuff and ate things we found growing on bushes (this did not always work out brilliantly, to be fair). But lurking like an ominous, giant, profile of the Queen on the other side of the coin, were the childhood traumas inextricably linked to the era. The 70’s were the “iron fist wrapped in the velvet glove” decade. What looked like wholesome, harmless, family-friendly fun was, more than likely to become years’ worth of repressed memories and therapy just waiting to be realised.
Nothing exemplifies this more for me than hearing the opening strains of the song “Bright Eyes” **(see footnote) coming on the radio. “Bright Eyes” was the theme song to the most horrific movie in cinematic history to have been marketed to children (and I am including all the Peewee Herman movies here), Watership Down. It was 1978 and the primmer class of Rewa Rewa Primary School were off on a wonderful adventure, a trip to the cinema. Wooed by stories of the English county-side, water-coloured, animated bunnies and public school timbred voice artists, we set off – what could possibly go wrong. Well let me give you a brief run down, it is a bunny-ageddon bloodbath. Not long had my 5-year-old self, settled into her seat, when it was first cotton-tail down – taken by a hawk. Then we had a bad rabbit tear the throat out (yes, you read it right) of another rabbit, then the dogs came – that was not a good time for our lupine friends, the snare, the painful poisoning, oh and the weird grim reaper, bunny thing and the baleful shadow/vision that fell over the fields drowning them in blood. Someone has actually created a Watership Down carnage-count on YouTube. The movie averages 1.438 woodland kills a minute; fun for the whole family. Needless to say, the entire cinema full of children were hysterical. I think I may have wet myself as we all scrabbled from the theatre toward the light and I wouldn’t sleep alone again for about 6 months. As a rather, shutting the gate after the horse has bolted (or a turning your head after the bunny has been eviscerated) side note to 1970’s schools, when the theme song to a movie has the lyrics, “Following a river of death downstream, or is it a dream?” perhaps stop and ask yourself, what part of “river of death” sounds appropriate for a 5 year old? And in answer to your question, Art Garfunkle, “or is it a dream?” I would say it’s more of a bowel liquifying nightmare, one I still have today, thank-you for asking.
If we felt a little shell shocked after going to the pictures to watch rabbit snuff films, at least we could go home and play with our dolls. Yeah, nah. Dolls in the 70s were made of weird plastic that smelt like old mans heads (don’t ask). They also had very sharp phalanges, if after a play session you had retained both eyeballs, it was a good day. Once I got so badly gouged by my doll Bobby, that my mother took him off me and told me she was sending him to a Siberian labour camp. I actually think he went into the hot water cupboard, but I feel that either way, the punishment fitted the crime. They also had the blinky eyes; the kind that when they were open seem to stare into your soul and know that it was you who put the fly spray in Jarrod’s milk and when they were closed, looked like some sort of Victorian death portrait. It’s a wonder children ever slept.
Nowhere was safe from trauma in the 70’s and school was no exception. Not only was I sent there in corduroy and what was later to be known as “David Bain” jumpers, but I had to endure being picked for a team. These days, teachers tend to use a simple 1,2,1,2 arbitrary selection method, to save everyone from social discomfort and allow for an element of team balance. Back then, the feelings of the uncoordinated and those who “had trouble manipulating the equipment” (genuine Standard 4, P.E report quote. What the actual …) were not worthy of being taken into account, so team selection went like this. Two sporty, cool people whom I probably simultaneously had a crush on and harboured tremendous resentment toward, would get to choose other cool, sporty, coordinated people for their respective teams until only me and the kid who ate paint were left. Then, the kid who ate paint would be chosen and I would pretend I was wracked with stomach pains and make retching noises, where upon the teacher would take pity on me and let me go to the sick bay. I still don’t know the rules of rounders and have only a nominal grasp of ball tag.
Despite a small doll-finger sized scar in my hairline and a morbid fear of scatter-ball, I mostly survived and thrived in the 70s. I grew to be adult enough to suspend disbelief at animated movies, have ninja like skills in avoiding toy assaults and choose my own teams for sports that I am actually good at, like beer pong. Best of all though, there are only the odd moments that I still waking up screaming from dreams about being coated in bunny entrails, now that’s a story of survival.
** At this point it is vital that I point out, this song is not EVER to be confused with Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, with the line “turn around bright eyes” in it – one of the best power ballads ever written. Although, the video does leave me with a few questions about Bonnie’s role at that boys’ school?
