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Bunks

A comic book rendering based on stories of Brightside kids making forts and bunks.
Matt McInnes made this 2018 comic based on Brightsiders’ stories about building bunks as kids. In 2018 he facilitated a comic book making workshop for kids to teach them the craft at the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre. (Drawings by and Courtesy of Matt McInnes, 2018) [Link to Methods and Sources to read the <em>Best Fort Ever</em>]
Two children pose beside their fort in the backyard of 56 Lancaster.
This photo of the backyard at 56 Lancaster provides a rare glimpse of a Brightside kid’s above ground fort. (Courtesy of John Brodnicki)

Brightside kids were both resourceful and creative when it came to amusing themselves.  For example, they built 'bunks' – a type of fort - by digging holes and covering them with railway ties, used lumber, tin cans, and earth (which they claimed ‘wouldn't burn’). There they would hide and hang out. Brightside kid culture had it that you didn't go in other kids' bunks. 

Listen: Kids and Their Underground Bunks. Click the play circle below.

Show/Hide Transcript

Speaker 1:    

There was this streetcar stop here that we used a hop to go to the field.  

There was the field, there was the streetcar tracks, the little inlet, the train tracks, in the field where we used to play over that way. 

Speaker 2:    

What did you use to play in the field? 

Speaker 1:    

Oh, baseball, football, that’s where we had our bunks. 

Speaker 3:    

I was just going to say about the bunks… 

That’s where the bunks would be. 

…the guys would build bunks and then they would trap one another because they had a trap door and the kids would forget – bang - down into the hole. 

[laughter] 

John was part of that. 

Speaker 4:    

This was all along the tracks here? 

Speaker 3:    

Around here in this area. 

Speaker 1:    

What were, so the bunks were, what were the bunks like underground… 

Speaker 3:    

Underground. 

… just holes, that you know, that they just dug holes and kaboom. 

They trap anybody. Or maybe they go in there and… 

Listen: A Good Place for Bunks. Click the play circle below.

Show/Hide Transcript

Speaker 1:    

That’s where we had our bunks... 

Speaker 2:    

Yeah, yeah. 

Speaker 1:    

… built our bunks. 

Speaker 2:    

Little holes, right? 

Speaker 1:    

Little holes?! They were big holes! 

Speaker 2:    

Oh yeah? Like how big? 

Speaker 1:    

Well… 

[chatter] 

… you get three or four guys in them.  

And cover the tops… 

Speaker 2:    

Yeah, yeah. 

Speaker 1:    

…and, uh, everybody had their own bunk. 

Speaker 1:    

And you don’t dare going to somebody else’s bunk. 

[chatter] 

Speaker 2:    

At least not the bunks. 

Speaker 3:    

The tops of the bunks… 

[chatter] 

Speaker 2:    

Did the Beach Street boys ever raid your bunks? 

Speaker 1:    

No! They didn’t know we were there. 

Ahh. 

Speaker 3:    

The tops of the bunks… 

Speaker 4:    

Why is Pee Wee standing? 

… were railway ties that came four across. 

Speaker 1:    

Steal the railway ties. 

[chatter] 

[laughter] 

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