Dobe Island; My Place in the Sun

I was an only child until I reached fourteen. Before my brother arrived I did what only children tend to do. I learned how to use my imagination and play alone. Talking to people who were only children it seems that’s what many did. Of course we are all different, some, more gregarious, searched for lots of friends. Others preferred their own company. I like to think I fell somewhere between the two. I had a few mates both from school and from other kids in our street. As we grew into our teens we went out separate ways due to jobs; girlfriends and so on and of course we found new friends some of mine I’ve kept in touch with over the years. Anyway this is not really about friends. 

Back to my childhood. From as early as I can remember I was fascinated with cars., well vehicles in general. At five I could name the make and models of pretty much any British car (most were back then). I even astounded my Dad’s mate when he pointed out a Renault and I said, ‘I dunno the name, but it’s French.’ 

That of course led to a mammoth collection of Dinky and later Corgi model vehicles. Some might say I was spoilt, but I didn’t have heaps of toys like kids tend to have today, just lots of cars and lorries. 

Most of my collection was bought with pocket money or birthday money at our local toyshop run by an incredible and charming man blinded by a mine during the war. I assume he had a mental map of the shop because It was impossible to ask for a toy that he could’t find in a minute. I became a regular, every month Dinky toys released a new model and I would buy it with saved up pocket money, provided it interested me. I never wanted the “gimmicks” they occasionally produced, like the Jimmy Bond Aston DB5 for example.

During the times when I played alone, my bedroom became my world. My mother did me a big favour when she chose a bedspread with a pattern of white thread formed in squares on a dark maroon background. It didn’t take a lot of imagination to turn the white lines into suburban streets or motorway for my cars and trucks to speed along.

My bed became a country, I decided it would be an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where the local population spoke with a mid-Atlantic accent, and charged around in Cadillacs, Plymouths or my precious De Soto which had sprung suspension. The island needed an airport and I sited it at the far end of the bed under the pillow. I would take driver three or four lengths of my bed to get there.

I needed a map and a road system and so I drew several versions of my island until I found one I liked. It was kind of mixture of square and circular but with a small peninsular at the south east where the Airport stood. I named it “Dobe Island,” a small outcrop in the ocean but modern with an extensive road system including a motorway connecting “Dobe City” to the airport. 

Of course Dobe Island no longer exists, but then it never really did. All cartography referring to the place long lost in the mists of time and adolescence. Also the world where my island existed became a very different one when I was forced to give it up to the new real estate developer, namely my little brother, and it eventually became a world of rock and punk.

If there is any true irony in life, two decades ago I went to live with my partner, Maria, on the island of Grand Canaria, a small island in the Atlantic Ocean near Africa. Grand Canaria is a (fairly) modern island approximately round in shape with an airport on the south west coast and a motorway system linking the capital, Los Palmas, to the airport. Of course the speak Spanish rather than Mid -Atlantic English except when they need to speak with tourists;

Like Dobe, the sun always shone and I loved it.