Memories Of A Great Childhood

[munro]

Lawyers, politicians and business people are responsible for parents not letting kids play out side? How so?

In part it was a response to the OP, who mentions lawyers and politicians - all the 'elf'n'safety gone mad stuff.

As for business people, well, they spend ages and large fortunes devising ways of commoditising the things people do and selling them to them. Part of this involves ensuring that whatever it is, you can't do it for free. Beach in Devon near where my daughter used to live, they put parking restrictions on all the roads within miles of the beach and then put parking meters in the car park. So unless you could park a couple of miles away and cycle you couldn't get to the beach without paying. And so on, ad infinitum. All the "Famous Five" outdoor activities stuff, it's hard to think of anywhere round where I live in the SE where kids could get away with it. And I'd probably get arrested for neglect or something similar. But there's any number of "days out" places where you pays your money and gets it all neatly packaged and commoditised and sold back to you, devised by business people born in the 40s, 50s and 60s who've been brought up on the business school ethos of identify a gap in the market and ruthlessly exploit it. Even if you have to create that "gap" first.

And as other posters have pointed out, it's the feckin' cars. Over and over. If we could control feckin' car drivers (and I'm one meself, when I'm not on foot or bicycle) it would be a different world. For children the wall of death hurtling down every road is a catastrophe.

[200p]

Parking near any beach WAS free.

Every piece of land is now a potential yield that must be maximised.

[daniel stallion]

And as other posters have pointed out, it's the feckin' cars. Over and over. If we could control feckin' car drivers (and I'm one meself, when I'm not on foot or bicycle) it would be a different world. For children the wall of death hurtling down every road is a catastrophe.

Partly.

A lot of it though, is the media. Scaring the shit out of stupid people. Look at the hysteria with the Fox story at the moment. Hundreds of millions of people have lived in the UK in the last few centuries. A few of them have, allegedly, been bitten by a Fox.*

Queue documentaries, endless analysis, footage of idiots pretending to be terrified and the systematic demonisation of a notoriously timid animal the country has tortured, for a laugh, for years.

When something that is actually worth worrying about happens the UK becomes like a gigantic panic room.

It remains ironic though that the frightened idiots are from the generation reminiscing (and, let's face it, partly fantasising) about such a care free childhood.

* if you believe the recent lies.

[frozen_out]

Cars have totally destroyed modern children's social life. The rest is all one big red herring.

Absolutely. From both ends, as it were.

The reason I'm wary of my kids playing out and about by themselves is because the roads are so busy. One of the reasons the roads are so busy is because of parents ferrying their kids about because it's too dangerous because of all the traffic.

[Guest Absolutely Fabulous]

School Attitudes 1977 vs. School 2007

Scenario 1: Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.

1977 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up mates.

2007 - Police are called, Armed Response Unit arrives and arrests Johnny and Mark. Mobiles phones with evidence of fight are confiscated. Both are charged with assault, ASBOs are taken out and suspended even though Johnny started it. Diversionary conferences and parent meetings conducted. Mobile phone video shown on 6 internet sites.

Scenario 2: Jeffrey won't sit still in class, disrupts other students.

1977 - Jeffrey is sent to the principal's office and given 6 of the best. Returns to class, sits still and never disrupts the class again.

2007 - Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin. Counselled to death. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADHD. School gets extra funding because Jeffrey has a disability. Jeffrey drops out of school.

Scenario 3: Billy breaks a window in his neighbour's car and his Dad gives him the slipper.

1977 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normally, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.

2007 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy is removed to foster care and joins a gang. Psychologist convinces Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mum has an affair with the psychologist. Psychologist gets a promotion.

Scenario: Mark brings cigarettes to school .

1977 - Mark shares a smoke with the school principal out on the smoking area.

2007 - Police are called and Mark is expelled from School for drug possession. His car is searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario: Mohammed fails GCSE English.

1977 - Mohammed retakes his exam, passes and goes to college.

2007 - Mohammed's cause is taken up by local human rights group. Newspaper articles appear nationally, insisting that making English a requirement in school is racist. Civil Liberties Association files class action lawsuit against state school system and his English teacher. English is banned from core curriculum. Mohammed is given his qualification anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers, puts them in a model plane paint bottle and blows up an anthill.

1977 - Ants die.

2007 - MI5 and police are called and Johnny is charged with perpetrating acts of terrorism. Teams investigate parents, siblings are removed from the home, computers are confiscated, and Johnny's dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly with American airlines ever again.

Scenario: Johnny falls during playtime and scrapes his knee. His teacher, Mary, finds him crying, and gives him a hug to comfort him.

1977 -Johnny soon feels better and goes back to playing.

2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces three years in prison. Johnny undergoes five years of therapy; becomes gay.

Frighteningly accurate.

[Guest Absolutely Fabulous]

Absolutely. From both ends, as it were.

The reason I'm wary of my kids playing out and about by themselves is because the roads are so busy. One of the reasons the roads are so busy is because of parents ferrying their kids about because it's too dangerous because of all the traffic.

Cars, TV and video rentals. At one time the only way ANYone could see an X-rated movie was going to the flicks and running the gauntlet of the cinema manager - having to convince cashier that they were over 16.

For some time now, irresponsible parents have rented porn and horror and left them lying around, for impressionable toddlers to watch. God alone knows what effect that would have on an immature mind and developing set of values.

Explicit sex scenes, violence and foul language have become run-of-the-mill on TV.

All this watershed malarkey does not work.

[Guest Absolutely Fabulous]

parrently, the phrase " rule of thumb" comes from court guidance on wife beaters....if the stick used was thicker than a thumb, then the man would be guilty of assault, if not, then the wife could make no complaint.

I think that this is an urban myth. All the wife beaters I knew used their feet or fists, and no judge I know, ever saw using a stick -whatever the thickness - as acceptable.

[Guest Absolutely Fabulous]

TO ALL THE CHILDREN WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1940s, 50s, and 60s. First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a tin, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a van - loose - was always great fun. We drank water from the garden hosepipe and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because...... WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down a hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have Play stations, Nintendo's, X-Boxes or iPods. We did not have video games, multi channels on cable TV, video or DVD movies, surround sound, cell phones, text messaging, personal computers, Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We played with worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. Made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out any eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them! Local teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that today. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL! And if YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS! You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as children, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good. While you are at it, forward it to your children so they will know how brave their parents were.

CTT

Children were still at risk from paedos - even back then. My sister had a lucky escape - aged 7 in 1947, and a little girl went missing in my childhood too. It wasn't as reported then, but also kids played close to home generally, or roamed in little' gangs'. NOT like the thuggish gangs that the word 'gang' is used for today. Little groups of kids, playing in a neighbourhood where neighbours were - thankfully - fairly nosy!

Communities were close knit: now we don't have communities, as there are too many rifts and divisions in society for a variety of reasons, one being a range of cultures, each of which tend to 'flock together'.

[Sibley's Love Child]

[happy_renting]

Ah, the OP brings back fond memories...

Long sunny days out on my bicycle, or when it rained , there was the fun of splashing in puddles, rambling miles from home, kicking piles of leaves.

And when we were given 6d pocket money, we could make it last a weekend. 3d perhaps for a Saturday matinee, and then 1d would buy a couple of sherbet 'flying saucers' or 4 'fruit salad' sweets. 3d would buy a decent ice lolly.

Of course, all that came to 7d. Still, we were still free to cycle for miles, down to the shopping centre, where that funny man who loitered around the public toilets might give us another 6d.

[daniel stallion]

Ah, the OP brings back fond memories...

Long sunny days out on my bicycle, or when it rained , there was the fun of splashing in puddles, rambling miles from home, kicking piles of leaves.

And when we were given 6d pocket money, we could make it last a weekend. 3d perhaps for a Saturday matinee, and then 1d would buy a couple of sherbet 'flying saucers' or 4 'fruit salad' sweets. 3d would buy a decent ice lolly.

Of course, all that came to 7d. Still, we were still free to cycle for miles, down to the shopping centre, where that funny man who loitered around the public toilets might give us another 6d.

Great day, mate, great days.

It was like my school. There was an incinerator, which was basically a metal cage that glowed red hot, that was used during school hours just by the side of the playground and an open air swimming pool. You would never get that these PC-mad days.

Yes, admittedly a couple of kids each year were badly burned and scarred for life and a minimum of one kid would almost drown each term - in once case actually drown - but we were free, free as badly burned chlorine-filled-lunged birds.

[Dubai]

Is that t'ovis lad?

[AThirdWay]

In part it was a response to the OP, who mentions lawyers and politicians - all the 'elf'n'safety gone mad stuff.

As for business people, well, they spend ages and large fortunes devising ways of commoditising the things people do and selling them to them. Part of this involves ensuring that whatever it is, you can't do it for free. Beach in Devon near where my daughter used to live, they put parking restrictions on all the roads within miles of the beach and then put parking meters in the car park. So unless you could park a couple of miles away and cycle you couldn't get to the beach without paying. And so on, ad infinitum. All the "Famous Five" outdoor activities stuff, it's hard to think of anywhere round where I live in the SE where kids could get away with it. And I'd probably get arrested for neglect or something similar. But there's any number of "days out" places where you pays your money and gets it all neatly packaged and commoditised and sold back to you, devised by business people born in the 40s, 50s and 60s who've been brought up on the business school ethos of identify a gap in the market and ruthlessly exploit it. Even if you have to create that "gap" first.

And as other posters have pointed out, it's the feckin' cars. Over and over. If we could control feckin' car drivers (and I'm one meself, when I'm not on foot or bicycle) it would be a different world. For children the wall of death hurtling down every road is a catastrophe.

Ok, different worlds mate. Up here in the East of Scotland you can park right next to the beach, are free to roam at will (except across the local MOD firing range. Of course this attracts kids like moths to a flame!), we are 10 minutes away from the Grampians and 30 to the Cairngorms, are relatively free of priests(Let's hear it for the kirk!) and each new estate has traffic calming measures built in. The biggest danger to kids on the road, perverse to your point, are the local neds ripping around in their 'souped up' Saxo's. the antithesis to "lawyers and politicians".

I don't agree with the age range you put on the type who "identify a gap in the market and ruthlessly exploit it". I would say, when it comes to "activity days, the perpetrators are more likely to be in their late 20's and 30's. Can't prove that though!

I blame two groups. The media and their 'peado on every corner' bu11sh1t, and dumb parents who can't tell the difference between sensational headlines and reality.

[the_duke_of_hazzard]

Was watching a Tony Hancock DVD last night, and there was a cutaway to a street in Earl's Court in the fifties during the day, viewed from above. There were about 10 cars parked on a 100 yard stretch of road, and no cars driving down it.

[Guest Absolutely Fabulous]

Was watching a Tony Hancock DVD last night, and there was a cutaway to a street in Earl's Court in the fifties during the day, viewed from above. There were about 10 cars parked on a 100 yard stretch of road, and no cars driving down it.

I feel the same when I see films done in the 50s when I was growing up. My Mum used to send me to the local shop - just across the road - to get a loaf for her when I was about 8. I crossed at the crossing but there were VERY few cars going up and down, believe me. The road BTW was the A666. Now it is very busy and I would not send a kiddie alone across it. In those days people drove at 30mph - 40 was speeding!

These days folk have to prove their mettle by racing round like Nigel Mansell. Everyone seems in a hurry, and grumpy with it.

[Battenberg]

Cars. In particular, the danger of being run over by them and the consequent need to be ferried around in them.

Cars have totally destroyed modern children's social life. The rest is all one big red herring.

Children were still at risk from paedos - even back then. My sister had a lucky escape - aged 7 in 1947, and a little girl went missing in my childhood too. It wasn't as reported then, but also kids played close to home generally, or roamed in little' gangs'. NOT like the thuggish gangs that the word 'gang' is used for today. Little groups of kids, playing in a neighbourhood where neighbours were - thankfully - fairly nosy!

Communities were close knit: now we don't have communities, as there are too many rifts and divisions in society for a variety of reasons, one being a range of cultures, each of which tend to 'flock together'.

I would add that the loss of small local shops hasn't helped either. My corner shop is Tesco Extra on the A48. Can't really send my kids out on their bikes for a pint of milk.

[winkie]

As kids then we felt safe and free, played hopscotch, french skipping, built camps and swings across the brook, went to the local youth club twice a week, went blackberry picking down the ally ways, went into town with friends on the bus, in summer holidays spent the whole day with them at the outdoor swimming pool. Money was scarce so had to make our own entertainment, manners and respect of elders was important, parents seemed to have more time and discipline their children more than they do now.

...a squirrel taught us to cross the road.

[MrPin]

I blame two groups. The media and their 'peado on every corner' bu11sh1t, and dumb parents who can't tell the difference between sensational headlines and reality.

The olden days was never quite like an Enid Blyton novel.

The only reason we weren't robbed is we had nothing worth taking!

Can you see Mr/Trump's golf course from where you are ???

[frozen_out]

Was watching a Tony Hancock DVD last night, and there was a cutaway to a street in Earl's Court in the fifties during the day, viewed from above. There were about 10 cars parked on a 100 yard stretch of road, and no cars driving down it.

You don't even have to go back that far.

If you watch early episodes of 'Minder' the London streets are eerily free of traffic.

I was looking on that google street vision thingy a few weeks back at one of the houses I lived in as a kid. The houses were arranged in a large oval with a small field in the middle, it seemed huge when I was a kid and we spent hours on there playing football. Looking at it now saddens me as the people living in the houses obviously decided it was put to better use as a makeshift carpark and it's all churned up and muddy, with barely any grass left. Sad.

[AThirdWay]

The olden days was never quite like an Enid Blyton novel.

The only reason we weren't robbed is we had nothing worth taking!

Can you see Mr/Trump's golf course from where you are ???

Nah, but on a good day I can just catch the flash of his toupe flapping in the wind. I'm nearer Carnoustie and St Andrews than Aberdeen.

No rose tints here. We would fight anyone at the drop of a hat, and posh boy's dinner money was fair game but unless there were broken bones, we sorted it ourselves. No need for adult intervention, never mind social services! The truest part is staying out at all hours. Over the summer holidays, we left the house in the morning and didn't get back until 9/10 at night. No worries, just turf up when your hungry!

[Bosh]

I can honestly say that I had a truly wonderful childhood. Good parents, freedom and some great friends. I was born in the mid 60`s and during the 70`s our playgrounds were derelict houses and old WW2 bomb sites in inner London.

Nobody had designer clothes, gadgets and we were all scruffy and fairly piss poor.... Mum was a cleaner and Dad worked at Battersea Power station... They were grafters and even though I am only 42 I still clearly remember having an outside crapper and no bathroom... Bathed once a week in a tin bath and in the summer Dad would hose us down after a day playing in the bomb sites.

Some would see this life is a pitiful... I know my kids do ...... To explain to them that a treat back then was a packet of crisps and some R-Whites lemonade on a friday evening if the budget stretched to it...

To give you an idea and if you ever watched the original series... They used to film many scenes of the Sweeney in what was then our playgrounds.. The old Gasworks and surrounding streets in Fulham...

I became an expert climber, a decent footballer, a fast runner, learned to look after myself, streetwise... Confident and healthy etc....

We were never mugged as we had nothing to take... Plenty of punch ups and scrapes, and bruises and cuts but we were absolutely free.... I was never abused by anyone and we forged friendships that still exist today....

I know it grates some people but those days really did exist and I make no apologies for living during those decades...

Maybe I was lucky that nothing really bad happened to me but if it did I would have been better equipped emotionally and physically to deal with it I reckon....

Time of my life !!!

[Tonkers]

I also had a blast - never got bored and felt the need to turn to crime or petty vandalism either. Well, my mate used to nick icepops by shoving them down her jodphurs.

Completely skint but worked at a stables and got horse riding in return. Great days. Occasionally one of us kids at the stables would get locked up in the chicken coup with the tramp, Ken, who lived there. You would be in there for hours with Ken and his bowl of shit until you got let out. The other one was to get locked in with a very stinky goat who liked to nibble. Had to dig through a manure heap to escape that one. You would probably call us feral nowadays.

*sigh*

[winkie]

No mobile phones.......if need be, called the operator and reversed the charges.

Taught never to accept sweets from strangers or get into a strangers car.....did get the odd flasher, we used to giggle

[MrPin]

Maybe I was lucky that nothing really bad happened to me but if it did I would have been better equipped emotionally and physically to deal with it I reckon....

Time of my life !!!

Ha I remember those areas in the Sweeney, as we had relatives in Fulham.

Nothing bad happened to me either. I guess if it had, I wouldn't be posting my usual tripe here!

[ccc]

Well, my mate used to nick icepops by shoving them down her jodphurs.

Rock on. And those Rolling Stones chaps thought they were living it large.