Winter Childhood
Going to school in the dark, streetlamps still burning at half-past seven, sodium glow turning the world sepia, breath visible, footsteps echoing— a procession of small bodies through the cold.
Coming home in the dark, three-thirty and it had been dark since two. You'd been inside all day—arithmetic, floor polish, the clank of radiators—and when you went in it was dark, and when you came out it was dark, and somewhere in between, for three or four pale hours you never witnessed, there had been something resembling daylight.
The sun rose at half-past ten. You were already at your desk. Set at two. You were still at your desk. Three and a half hours of weak, grey light, and you trapped inside for every minute. The morning was dark—declensions, vocabulary, the master's voice parsing Virgil. The afternoon was dark—Greek verbs, the ablative absolute, Horace's odes read aloud in a language dead two thousand years but alive in that room, in the winter dark. At break you'd joke in Latin—quid agis?— because it was funny, because you could, because conjugating amo, amas, amat was as natural as breathing. By the time the bell rang for home, darkness had been back for over an hour, settled in, comfortable, as if it had never left.
Getting up in the dark to go to school in the dark. This was the cruelty of winter: darkness when you woke, darkness when you walked, darkness when you returned. The sun made a brief, theoretical appearance— mid-morning to mid-afternoon— whilst you conjugated verbs and divided fractions. You never saw it rise. Never saw it set. Only its absence, morning and evening, absolute and identical.
Your mother's voice from downstairs. Cold lino on bare feet. The unfairness of it—that adults expected children to function before dawn, to dress and eat whilst night still pressed against the windows. Above you, in the roof space, the owls settling after their night's hunting, talons on timber, the soft shuffle of feathers. You'd learned to sleep through their calls, those long, wavering questions they asked of the darkness. Now they were silent, roosting, whilst you descended into the day.
Putting on your jacket to go home in the dark, the classroom emptying, desks scraped back. The dark outside wasn't arriving—it had arrived hours ago, was waiting for you, patient and complete. Fumbling with toggles, your fingers clumsy, mind already halfway home. The weight of your satchel, scarf wound wrong, the corridor full of bodies and noise, then out into the darkness, the same darkness you'd walked through that morning, unbroken, continuous, as if the day had been an interruption in the darkness's dominion, a brief irrelevance.
But then—
A big fire burning. Not metaphorical. Actual flames in an actual grate. The coal bucket. The poker. Shadows dancing on the ceiling. You could stand so close your shins went red and mottled. The room divided itself into zones—tropical at the hearth, arctic by the window—and you navigated between them like a tiny explorer.
Stew in the pot, cooking for hours, filling the house with its promise. Carrots and potatoes, meat that fell apart at the touch. Not food but restoration, warmth made edible. Your mother ladling it into bowls. Steam rising. The first mouthful too hot but you ate it anyway because winter had made you ravenous in ways that had nothing to do with hunger.
Go to bed early. Not punishment—there was simply no point in staying up. Bed was the destination, the place where you could burrow under blankets, where your own body heat would eventually— eventually—make a small pocket of warmth, and you could sleep whilst outside, the darkness continued its occupation. Above you, the owls waking, stretching their wings in the roof space, preparing for their night. Their territory and yours, overlapping— you sleeping through their hunting, they roosting through your school day, both of you creatures of the dark.
It's dark.
This was the refrain. The constant. Not complaint but observation. Dark when you woke, dark when you slept, mostly dark in between. The daylight rationed to a few pale hours you never saw—squandered behind classroom windows, wasted on spelling tests and times tables. Winter was endurance, a test you passed simply by surviving until spring, until the light remembered how to linger, until you could play outside and actually see what you were playing with.
And yet—
There was something in it, wasn't there? In the darkness and the cold and the huddling together. A kind of clarity. You knew what mattered: heat, food, home. The comfort of small things—dry socks, a lit room, someone else's presence in the darkness.
We were closer to the bone then, we winter children. Closer to what humans had always known— that survival was work, that warmth was precious, that darkness could be endured if you had light to return to.
It's dark.
Yes. It was.
And we were there, small and cold and alive, walking through it.
Eating in it.
Being part of it.
Seemingly forever. — a procession of small bodies through the cold.
Coming home in the dark, three-thirty and it had been dark since two. You'd been inside all day—arithmetic, floor polish, the clank of radiators—and when you went in it was dark, and when you came out it was dark, and somewhere in between, for three or four pale hours you never witnessed, there had been something resembling daylight.
The sun rose at half-past ten. You were already at your desk. Set at two. You were still at your desk. Three and a half hours of weak, grey light, and you trapped inside for every minute. The morning was dark—declensions, vocabulary, the master's voice parsing Virgil. The afternoon was dark—Greek verbs, the ablative absolute, Horace's odes read aloud in a language dead two thousand years but alive in that room, in the winter dark. At break you'd joke in Latin—quid agis?— because it was funny, because you could, because conjugating amo, amas, amat was as natural as breathing. By the time the bell rang for home, darkness had been back for over an hour, settled in, comfortable, as if it had never left.
Getting up in the dark to go to school in the dark. This was the cruelty of winter: darkness when you woke, darkness when you walked, darkness when you returned. The sun made a brief, theoretical appearance— mid-morning to mid-afternoon— whilst you conjugated verbs and divided fractions. You never saw it rise. Never saw it set. Only its absence, morning and evening, absolute and identical.
Your mother's voice from downstairs. Cold lino on bare feet. The unfairness of it—that adults expected children to function before dawn, to dress and eat whilst night still pressed against the windows. Above you, in the roof space, the owls settling after their night's hunting, talons on timber, the soft shuffle of feathers. You'd learned to sleep through their calls, those long, wavering questions they asked of the darkness. Now they were silent, roosting, whilst you descended into the day.
Putting on your jacket to go home in the dark, the classroom emptying, desks scraped back. The dark outside wasn't arriving—it had arrived hours ago, was waiting for you, patient and complete. Fumbling with toggles, your fingers clumsy, mind already halfway home. The weight of your satchel, scarf wound wrong, the corridor full of bodies and noise, then out into the darkness, the same darkness you'd walked through that morning, unbroken, continuous, as if the day had been an interruption in the darkness's dominion, a brief irrelevance.
But then—
A big fire burning. Not metaphorical. Actual flames in an actual grate. The coal bucket. The poker. Shadows dancing on the ceiling. You could stand so close your shins went red and mottled. The room divided itself into zones—tropical at the hearth, arctic by the window—and you navigated between them like a tiny explorer.
Stew in the pot, cooking for hours, filling the house with its promise. Carrots and potatoes, meat that fell apart at the touch. Not food but restoration, warmth made edible. Your mother ladling it into bowls. Steam rising. The first mouthful too hot but you ate it anyway because winter had made you ravenous in ways that had nothing to do with hunger.
Go to bed early. Not punishment—there was simply no point in staying up. Bed was the destination, the place where you could burrow under blankets, where your own body heat would eventually— eventually—make a small pocket of warmth, and you could sleep whilst outside, the darkness continued its occupation. Above you, the owls waking, stretching their wings in the roof space, preparing for their night. Their territory and yours, overlapping— you sleeping through their hunting, they roosting through your school day, both of you creatures of the dark.
It's dark.
This was the refrain. The constant. Not complaint but observation. Dark when you woke, dark when you slept, mostly dark in between. The daylight rationed to a few pale hours you never saw—squandered behind classroom windows, wasted on spelling tests and times tables. Winter was endurance, a test you passed simply by surviving until spring, until the light remembered how to linger, until you could play outside and actually see what you were playing with.
And yet—
There was something in it, wasn't there? In the darkness and the cold and the huddling together. A kind of clarity. You knew what mattered: heat, food, home. The comfort of small things—dry socks, a lit room, someone else's presence in the darkness.
We were closer to the bone then, we winter children. Closer to what humans had always known— that survival was work, that warmth was precious, that darkness could be endured if you had light to return to.
It's dark.
Yes. It was.
And we were there, small and cold and alive, walking through it.
Eating in it.
Being part of it.
Seemingly forever.