I love my parents for taking me for a ride, high as a kite, through the treetops; and for telling me about the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas, about Merlin and his spells, about baby Jesus and the Three Wise Men. All these stories enrich childhood and, together with so many other things, help to make it, in memory, a time of enchantment. The adult world may seem a cold and empty place, with no fairies and no Father Christmas, no Toyland or Narnia, no Happy Hunting Ground where mourned pets go, and no angels- guardian or garden variety. But there are also no devils, no hellfire, no wicked witches, no ghosts, no haunted houses, no daemonic possession, no bogeymen or ogres. Yes, Teddy and Dolly turn out not to be really alive. But there are warm, live, speaking, thinking, adult bedfellows to hold, and many of us find it a more rewarding kind of love that the childish affection for stuffed toys, however soft and cuddly they may be. Not to grow up properly is to retain our ‘caterpillar' quality from childhood (where it is a virtue) into adulthood (where it becomes a vice). In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and our ancestors. But if we don't grow out of it in the fullness of time, our caterpillar nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, evangelists and quacks.
