Dan's London Essay

We should not see childhood just as a period of time; we should see it as a place.

One of the people who inspires me is my friend Daniel Raven Ellison.
His latest piece of geography inspiration is his essay on the importance of play for children within the context of London.
It's on the LONDON ESSAY website.

The childhood that Dan describes was also mine, back in the early 1970s when I was a teenager. Although my parents later told me that they by no means 'forgot about me' when I was out, there was a lot of my time that was spent in the local woods and round at friends. Later, I used to cycle most nights the seven miles to a friend's house after he moved.

I've blogged previously about the woods where I used to play as a child.

Dan describes the shrinking distances that parents are allowing their children to stray from their homes, and there is a map created specially for the post by Peter Boyce and Charlie Peel.

Head over to the site and read the whole essay, and then take your kids out for a walk in the woods...