Girls should not be typecast as Britney wannabes playing with dollies and
doing nothing more adventurous than skipping. Girls can be challenged and
made to experience the thrill of risk. They rise to it and succeed way
beyond their own expectations. Girls can enjoy just about any outdoor
activity that does not involve pretend weapons, not being particularly
interested in combat. However, they can climb trees and rock faces, ride
bikes and ponies, sail anything on water, sand or air, enjoy archery,
exploration, discovery and discomfort. All it takes, at most, is a little
supervision, and your little girl becomes caught up in activities way more
exciting than dolls and colouring in Noddy books. Sarah Hague,
Montpelier, France
Dangerous pursuits for girls - get comfortable with risk. Think with your own
brain, walk your own road, trust your own instincts and don't assume you
can't keep up. And don't confuse being kind and sweet with being a doormat.
Resisting peer pressure and other people's pigeonholing can feel dangerous
but it's well worth it. A blend of Lyra in Philip Pullman's wonderful His
Dark Materials and JK Rowling's Hermoine Grainger are pretty good role
models for learning to take calculated risks and thinking for yourself
instead of following the herd. Caitlin McKiernan, London
As a child, I was the perfect three- point landing (one nose and two knees), I
didn't climb trees (a dislike of heights), however, I climbed into the
saddle aged two (with some help), liked it and stayed. In fact I was 24
before I left it. Owing to parents not having that much money, and this was
the sport of kings, I always had bargain basement nags. Imagine you are in a
supermarket, rows of pristine tins in front of you, well the kind of horses
I had were represented by the bashed in tins in the bargain sell-off corner.
This fact definitely added to the risk, as unpredictability came as
standard. I was always clumsy as a child, so my despairing mother tried to
make me more graceful and ladylike by sending me to ballet classes,
completely ignoring my total lack of talent, but result is that today I can
fall over with a bit more style. For those who think that ballet must be
without risk has never experienced the full horror of pointe shoes. After an
early childhood spent being catapulted out of the saddle to land in the
particularly dense patch of nettles, and crushing my poor unfortunate
tootsies into the most evil torture devices known to man, I have now
exchanged my four legged steed for a four wheeled one and my husband and I
hope to start safari trialing this season. I love the outdoors and I enjoy
the element of danger, all due to horses and ballet. Sarah Marquis,
London
Dangerous pursuits for girls? Hmmm, I would recommend baking a cake. When I
attempted it last year, aged 18, I nearly lost my eyesight after getting
flour and sugar in my eyes while trying to mix them into the dough using an
electric whisk (if thats even the name for it). Then, being the greedy cake
monster that I am, I decided to increase the temperature in the oven to
speed things up a bit and as a result, I nearly suffocated from all the
smoke caused by the outside of the cake burning. Then there was the threat
of food poisoning to everyone who was brave enough to try to eat it, because
after all that effort, the inside of the cake was still seriously
undercooked. I have since stuck to making fridge cake, which, as the name
suggests, requires a fridge instead of an oven. Ola Marki, Paris
In the current climate of WC (not a tasteless reference to lavatories and a
gastric incident worthy of Delhi Belly, but an abbreviation for the World
Cup) fever here in the office, the most dangerous tasks would be: 1. to ask,
pre or post match "What Gam...?" 2. To draw silly glasses and
moustaches anywhere on The Times WC Poster. 3. to arrange meetings anywhere
close to Kick-Off times. I could continue but am rapidly loosing the will to
live in a male dominated working environment... Patricia Freeth, Cardiff
Sarah Vine's article cannot be serious, this the worst example of white middle
class drivel I have read for a long time! Did she actually attend Enid
Blyton's St. Clares or was it Mallory Towers? I am pleased that where I live
most weekends my daughter and son play with children of all ages, they make
dens, play in kayaks, sail, make fires on beaches, play many imaginative
games of which I know nothing (as it should be), games of "forty forty"
involving 20 or so children, and much more. Of course they are not living in
a time warp from the 70s and do watch TV and play computer games, but thank
goodness these other games are just happening without us grown-ups having to
contrive them after reading books about them. Name and address withheld
Hmmm, well, the tree-climbing, den-making and mud pies were fun, but
'dangerous'? The worst you could do falling out of a tree was severe
concussion and memory loss - not that I remember much of that particular
incident. The most dangerous thing I did as a little girl was cliff-jumping
with my cousins into narrow, shallow Welsh streams (you whacked your tail
bone on the bottom - and that was if you aimed properly) from about 6m. And,
of course, playing with matches (See Anne Fine's The Tulip Touch) Marianne
Park, Sherborne
I really envied rich friends who had gardens or access to public parks. My
friends and I just played in the road, which I suppose was inherently
dangerous! I do remember a beech tree on a garage forecourt that had a
sturdy branch overhanging the pavement. We used to take it in turns to climb
the tree then dangle from that branch by our toes. The rest of us tossed
beech nuts, while the "dangler" wriggled and swung, trying to
catch them between her teeth without losing her tenuous grip on the branch.
I was never any good at the game and remember crashing down onto the
pavement an awful lot. I don't remember ever getting hurt though. Name
and address withheld
The Times Dangerous Book for Girls? Was this article serious? It has
to be the wettest, most vacuous list of “dangerous” activities ever devised!
How about the following which I enjoyed with my friends back in the 70s? It
was a lot more fun than dithering about with pencil cases, crying, crushes
and fairy cakes. It’s probably why I now run a company, husband and three
children and don’t stand around in the school playground wondering if I am
wearing the right clothes or if I’ve made friends with the right people. 1.
Cooking - Fairy cakes? What happened to fudge (boiling sugar), toffee (more
boiling sugar) and honeycomb (boiling sugar which had a habit of foaming
over the top of the saucepan and turning the cooker into a sticky mess)? 2.
Card games – we whiled away hours playing racing demons, pairs and trumps;
preferably with penny bets. 3. Outdoor adventure games. Probably just like
the ones the boys played, and often we all played together, but without the
wars or guns. We would spend hours roaming the countryside (in groups of
course, even in those days), exploring new lands, making maps and laying
trails for others to follow. 4. Making camps – not just for the boys. Our
camps weren’t just piles of twigs, we had “rooms”, furniture and ours stood
for months. 5. Sailing (would now add windsurfing), swimming and any other
water sports; endless opportunities for adventure games. 6. Producing or
taking part in a play. Is any childhood complete without subjecting the
grownups to one of your own productions, complete with wobbly props, dodgy
scripts and rookie cast? A must for Christmas. 7. Building cross country
courses. For the poor ponies to jump round if you were lucky enough to have
one, or your friends, complete with whips to smack your own bottoms, if not. Annabel
Tall, Bristol
Climbing a narrow alley way using just the two parallel walls for support. The
entangling of legs as they bend in shapes unimaginable and raw bruises on
soft hands, a result of pressing hard against the wall, was a rite of
passage. Quite what the point was I don't know, only to jump 6ft or so to
start all over again once we got to the top! A childhood thrill myself and
my friends thoroughly enjoyed! Only girls have such flexible bodies! And to
come home and say the cuts and bruises on hands and knees were from playing
hopscotch! (they don't make alleys in Yorkshire so narrow anymore). Shaakirah
Kasuji, Batley
Join the Guides. Five reasons to become a Girl Guide: 1. You get to smile
sweetly as you accept your sixth interest badge (while your fellow Guides
are still on their first.) 2. You get to go on cool trips, for instance the
Big Gig. Six hours on a train (perfect for a long, long chat) is really
worth it. 3. No annoying boys. This will be the best two hours of your week.
4. You set the agenda. Either make a dance routine, bake fairy cakes or have
a kick about. It's all up to you, most of the time. 5. It's a great chance
to socialise and make new friends... But really, you can find some great
mates. Don't be put off by the camping. I've been going for ages and not
once have I set foot on a campsite. And I don't plan on doing so either.
Enjoy! Rosemary Koper, North Wales
It is too true that the world has gone crazy with regards to "health and
safety" of the young ones these days. When I was small I was up and
down trees in the mud and constantly coming home with bumps and grazes. But
to say that girls should do to different things to boys is poppycock, I was
celebrated at school for the ability to make the best tree houses, and the
boys were more than jealous! If were to be found on the playground it would
be with the group of boys climbing the trees behind a fence, and this I here
is a skill that is in fact better suited to girls! so my suggestion to you
is not to put a book out about the dangerous things girls can do but, to put
a book out on what boys and girls should be doing instead of sitting at home
playing on computer games, bring on the revolution of the out-doors. Kelly
Fitzpatrick, Maidstone
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