Ramsey Campbell has always been fascinated by childhood—both his own and, more recently, that of his two children. His anomalous upbringing surely led to some of the bizarre stories involving adolescents in the Demons by Daylight period (notably ‘The Interloper’), and in more recent novels and tales children are often the focus of natural or supernatural attacks. What is it about childhood that intrigues Campbell? Does he find children peculiarly vulnerable to the strange—or, conversely, peculiarly resilient to its violent incursions? Is a child's perspective inherently more fantastic than that of an adult, closer to those dreams and fancies which, as we have seen in other works, can dislodge the real and substitute nightmare in its place? Campbell has no monolithic view of children: they can be both helpless victims and singularly evil villains; they can yield passively to the weird and boldly combat it. And while several works clearly draw upon his own childhood experiences and those of his family, in many novels and tales he touches upon fundamental issues regarding children and their relationships with adults and with society at large that resonate far beyond his personal traumas.

Two key stories of the 1970s get to the heart of Campbell's attitude towards children, connecting also with his conceptions of urban horror and ageold evil. ‘The Man in the Underpass’ [1973] is a magnificent tale narrated entirely from the perspective—and in the language—of an eleven-yearold working-class girl, Lynn, in Liverpool. Amidst the all too familiar hazards besetting children in a rough neighbourhood, Lynn attempts to carry on as best she can, retaining some of the naïveté that is her birthright as a pre-adolescent but also becoming prematurely hardened simply in order to survive. Lynn and her friends—in particular a girl named Tonia— become interested in a pedestrian underpass, noticing that it contains a crude drawing of a man whom some adults have identified as Aztec. Is it possible that the underpass is still being used in connection with the vicious midsummer sacrifices of the Aztecs, in which they would tear out the hearts of their still-living victims?