Left to our own devices

We called it "The Device". 

It was a name that suited our sense of mystery and excitement as young children making the most of the play value of our local environment. 

Before the realisations of stranger danger and the like we roamed freely through the town streets, back lanes, fields, woods and any private property not protected by anything that resembled a physical barrier to inquisitive minds.

The Device had appeared one afternoon. We did not see how it came to be in our domain because for some part of the day we were required to be at school. In reality, two men from the Council had arrived in a van carrying the apparatus. 

It consisted of two parallel cables, thick, rubberised and secured to the road with hammered in brackets through the tarmac. Fairly ordinary stuff to us who had experience of quite technical things from prising the lids off gas meter boxes, leaving metal objects in the path of Municipal Grass Mowers  and throwing old plimsolls up and to straddle the lines and cables that criss-crossed the district. 

We stood on the kerb and verge and weighed up The Device. The ends of the cables were just that, ends. Squatting like a golfer in the planning of a long putt we squinted along the full distance of the strands. They were perfectly aligned and with regular and solid fixing to the carriageway. A stout stick, wedged under the sections between the brackets was unable to dislodge anything to any satisfying extent and we soon lost interest. 

The road itself was a busy one. In our short lifetimes to date we had seen the traffic levels increase significantly as our town continued to expand with new housing, shops and business premises. When at one time it was possible to just sit on the kerb, feet on a drain gully for a good proportion of a summers day the same practice now ran a real risk of being run over or tossed up into the hedge in the bow-wave and slipstream from a large articulated lorry. One of our number had been hospitalised after having his toes crushed under the wheels of a delivery van for Liptons Stores.

A project in school about the olden days had included studying a yellowing parchment type map, or even a bit like linen on a gauze backing. What was now the busy road had been, some 100 years before, but a single line rough cart track going and coming from nowhere in particular. 

Times had certainly changed. In a lull in the otherwise constant movement of vehicles the braver amongst us mimicked a tightrope walk along one of the cables or straddling both. As the black lines lifted up over the far kerb they disappeared from view into the unkempt grass of the verge. A scuffing action with our feet cleared the vegetation where it covered the cables. It was at that point that we found the main part, the brains of The Device. It was a small metal box. 

Our Mother had a Tupperware container about the same size which could easily cope with a full packet, although of shortlived existence, of digestive biscuits and remnants of former wrappings around Custard Creams, Abbey Crunch and , my particular favourite, Bourbons. The sizes of the rectangular objects were compatible and perhaps Mother should have followed the example of The Device by fitting a large, imposing padlock to the biscuit container to prevent it from being opened.

Even the best tempered steel was not strong enough for the impact of half a brick and the lock was easily demolished. Inside we found some sort of mechanism and a dial display of black numbers around a series of white drums. As we stared at our discovery there was a whirring and a clicking sound. The right hand digit increased by one. The same sounds and process repeated on a regular basis and the counted total increased each time by a single increment. I think we must have been a bit thick because it took some time for us to realise that the action of the display was caused by the passage of a vehicle, along the road and  over the cables. 

In a collective expression of "oohh, The Device counts traffic" , thoughts of mischief and mayhem flooded into our young and active minds. 

In the following weeks and at every opportunity out of school and having completed any domestic chores we all took it in turns to jump up and down on The Device. 

It was quite a logistical operation involving most of the kids in the area. There were those keeping an eye out for cars and lorries using the road. Others were witnesses to the increasing count of the dials. On a strict rota all of us, bar none, showed great energy and commitment in jumping up and down. 

Initial curiosity in increasing the digits on a steady, plodding, marching action basis soon developed into very intense competition to acheive the highest count in any sixty second stint. Quite maniacal behaviour ensued and the All Comers Best Record for counts per minute changed hands, it seemed, just about every time someone took up the challenge. 

Within twenty four months that stretch of road had returned to its mid Victorian status as a quiet and sleepy lane, going from nowhere to nowhere because the town had a brand new, dual carriageway by-pass. 

Apparently the Council and Highways Departments, after undertaking a structured and authoritative traffic survey had grossly underestimated the amount of vehicle movements in proximity to the housing estate and what was evidently a very popular open play area for the local children. The original 10 year plan to create a safe, family orientated environment was accelerated in the interests of safety and amenity.

Even today, some 40 years later, when I drive along the 'A' Road that runs around the periphery of my town I have a sense of misguided civic pride.