I relate to this as the parent I am and the kid I was.

I went to boarding school in the 80’s and 90’s. There were houses, there was the school, the masters, the usual abuses - but there were also the gangs. They’d all have a name along the lines of “The Orcs” or “The Goonies”, and a clubhouse built of scrap and brush somewhere in the woodland attached to the school, usually accessible only by crawling through tunnels of brambles and a hidden trapdoor, and knowing where the tripwires and murderous sash weights were concealed. Most would have a few dozen boys in them, spread over the five years of the school. Younger boys would be skivvies, diggers, and by the time you were 12 you’d be a war chief, and organising and leading raids against other camps. Old pool cover was a particularly sought after commodity during raids - not only did it keep the rain out, but it kept the place warm in the winters.

Outside of term I’d go and saunter around abandoned factories and rail yards near our home.

Anyway. I think they cut the woodland down decades ago to replace it with more playing fields.

That thing, however - that little, tribal community of kids - is very much live and kicking, but non the west, very much no longer in the physical world.

My kid is being raised in a forest - and I’m acutely aware that sooner rather than later she is going to need a gang.