All Our Yesterdays

[Guest boysfaetheblackstuff]

great read

[bill88 6]

Undi,i blame you for all the problems in kids today

I have family fae Coatbridge,maybe you know them ?

Great read buddy

[AL BUNDY 45]

noticed your from viewpark did you know the fella his wife used to drive him as he couldn,t drive last time i seen him was just before the ban in scotland. another one from your way his wife worked in the nursing home behind tunnocks .he had acouple lurchers and terriers.

 

i take you talking about (BIG J H) he stiill the same she take him all over

that could be him met him on a building site in hamilton he didnt have dog at the time told a story about one of his mates dogs getting killed following a hare across a roadi think it was the industial where comet is .swapped a few videos with him a while after this by this time he,d got himself a dog . used to have ads in edrd every week.

[SUNDAYBAIN 19]

Something I read in here awhile back got me thinking about how we learned things as a kid. Also in relation to the amount of obese kids you see these days. Now this isnt one of those grumpy old men type rants lol(honestly) but those of us at that certain age can remember what it was like before the advent of mobile phones and PC's. The state of the art video games were two white lines and a wee white dot that went blip blip. There I go off topic already. Anyways it got me thinking about things like bush craft and how we learnt to hunt.

 

Most of our time as kids was spent out doors playing footy, building bogeys from old prams and sliding down bings on bread boards. Remember all the daft games you played as kids, chap doors run away, hunt, hide & seek etc etc. Our whole year was devided up so we knew when it was time to collect frogs newts & lizards from the old pond and brickwork. In the winter we made slides on the roads & pavements. I was always facinated by wildlife, projects in school were usually about birds (feathered variety) or animals. My mates uncle owned ferrets and if we were lucky we got to go out with him on a Sunday. Usually we were the bag men carting a big heavy ferret box over your shoulder or carrying what felt like giant rabbits for him (well we were only about 6 or 7yrs old).

 

It was bloody hard work at times and you learnt to be quiet and follow instructions to the letter with a boot up the arse if you did something that caused a rabbit to escape. We learnt to set nets the right way recognise signs that burrows were occupied or ones that hadn't been used in a while. Over time you become quite adept at stting snares under fences were rabbit runs went. All great learning experiences, I was about 9 or 10 before being trusted enough to go out on my own with dog and ferret. Most of these trips were pretty uneventful and never produced anything of great note. But I continued to learn from my mistakes and became pretty useful at the ferreting game with or without a dog.

 

Now of all the things I got up to out doors my favourite pastime was bird nesting. In between Coatbridge and Viewpark we had what we referred to as the Glen which was basically a 7 mile stretch of wood land that ran from our scheme all the way to Glasgow zoo. This was our playground as kids, there were ponds and old coal bings to explore all kinds of wildlife and birds and we knew exactly where and how to get to it. Egg collecting was one of the major pastimes for us as kids we could spend the whole morning and afternoon looking for eggs and often did.

 

Now leaving aside the morality of the thing for a moment remember these were the days you could walk up the road with 4 or 5 rabbits over your shoulder and no one would give you a second glance, more often than not you would be patted on the back and told well done...lol. Anyway what it did do was give me an education I couldn't get in school. I knew all the types of birds by sight what their eggs looked like and where they nested, I could even tell what the bird was by looking at the nest. Some of the scrapes we got into trying to retreive eggs from nests that were in trees that must have been 30 odd feet tall quite a feat for a 10yr old. We would shimmy up cliff faces for rock doves or rock pipits wade waste deep in the foulest water to get to ducks or Moorhen eggs and even fight of bloody great big swans for our prize. Between us we had one of the most sought after egg collections in our scheme. From Linnets, yellow hammers, swallows and house martins, to Herons and kestral hawks and owls we knew where to look and how to extract eggs from the trickiest of places. Anyone who has tried to extract a blue tits egg fro a tiny hole in a tree will know what I mean.

 

Everyday was an adventure for us and without thinking about it conciously we learnt all sorts of things from the wildlife and the environment around us. We even had a kind of moral code that you abided by and if you didn't stick to it you were out the gang. We had a rule that you never "herry" a nest which meant you never took all the eggs. You could only have two of a kind of any egg and you never took anyone you didn't know to nesting sites. This was how I learnt my field craft and still to this day when I'm out I still look for tell tale signs of birds nests and I dont suppose this will ever leave me. I remember us being the envy of all the scheme when a mate of ours nicked an ostrich egg from a glass case in our school, no-one else had seen one nevermind had one...lol. Any this kinda brings me back in a roundabout way to the point I was making about fat and obese kids. How many of these kids have ever climbed a tree or would recognise a blue tit from a sea gull? not many I'd wager. As kids we had a great degree of freedom to explore our surroundings and take risks which we did on a regular basis. Does it make us better people I dont know but I would like to think so. We had respect for our elders we didn't rob or abuse old folk will kids ever get that kind of freedom again? I dont think so which is sad cause theres a whole world of experience out there and things to be explored it would be a shame if it was lost to whoever follows us next in this world.

 

ATB

God that took me back undisputed great read ,yep my brother and me had a great collection of eggs same rules as yourself

[GORSYBANK 0]

brilliant, just as i remember.

funny how the world seems to change as you get older.

i worked 12-14 hr days for nothing (except the occasional bollocking from the keeper) then rode my bike back home 8 miles everyday,and would not have missed a day of it.

i wrote letters to every notable estate in the country offering to work as underkeeper for nothing,livin on rabbits and berries if need be.

this paid off in the end,

BUT HOW MANY KIDS TODAY WOULD EVEN CONSIDER IT.????????

 

NO I AM NOT THAT OLD (JUST MAD IN TODAYS KIDS EYES).

 

20YRS TO GO TILL I RETIRE,DOUBT THIS WILL EVER HAPPEN

[undisputed 1,664]

aye funny how things change....anyone remember the old rope swings across the burn with the big tyre on it or the branch to sit on . Then you boarded when the swing came back and we'd all pile on...lol few times I'D thought i'd kill myself. keano you and asbo were still twinkles in yer da's eye back then...lol

[Rabbithunter 456]

good read that

[lamp+battery 98]

good read that mate sounds lie you had fun mate

 

 

atb..........lamp

[undisputed 1,664]

Undi,i blame you for all the problems in kids today

I have family fae Coatbridge,maybe you know them ?

Great read buddy

 

we used to batter the coatbridge boys they wernt allowed out after 5 o'clock just ask anythingoes he's still like that and he's nearly 40

[bill88 6]

Undi,i blame you for all the problems in kids today

I have family fae Coatbridge,maybe you know them ?

Great read buddy

 

we used to batter the coatbridge boys they wernt allowed out after 5 o'clock just ask anythingoes he's still like that and he's nearly 40

 

Hey,i'm no rough like you "eastenders" i'm fae a nice part of Glesga,The Drum.

[undisputed 1,664]

noticed your from viewpark did you know the fella his wife used to drive him as he couldn,t drive last time i seen him was just before the ban in scotland. another one from your way his wife worked in the nursing home behind tunnocks .he had acouple lurchers and terriers.

 

i take you talking about (BIG J H) he stiill the same she take him all over

that could be him met him on a building site in hamilton he didnt have dog at the time told a story about one of his mates dogs getting killed following a hare across a roadi think it was the industial where comet is .swapped a few videos with him a while after this by this time he,d got himself a dog . used to have ads in edrd every week.

 

cant be bj he's never worked a day in his life.....can talk for scotland mind you

[undisputed 1,664]

Undi,i blame you for all the problems in kids today

I have family fae Coatbridge,maybe you know them ?

Great read buddy

 

we used to batter the coatbridge boys they wernt allowed out after 5 o'clock just ask anythingoes he's still like that and he's nearly 40

 

Hey,i'm no rough like you "eastenders" i'm fae a nice part of Glesga,The Drum.

 

 

jeez that's some place mate...lol

[the monkey 338]

That took me right back to growing up in my village The school bus driver used to drop me off about 5 mile from home on the way to school, a ferret and half a dozen nets in my pockets

 

Its a material world now !

 

Oh and hands up who have shot there mates with a bsa meteor lol

 

i,ve still got the scar

[mackay 3,330]

aye funny how things change....anyone remember the old rope swings across the burn with the big tyre on it or the branch to sit on . Then you boarded when the swing came back and we'd all pile on...lol few times I'D thought i'd kill myself. keano you and asbo were still twinkles in yer da's eye back then...lol

 

 

I occasionally walk the dogs where I grew up and to look now through the eyes of a middle aged man it's scary, a big old oak tree rope swing (the oaky) which when you were out at full tilt over the river clyde was a hell of a height, coming back in screaming no boarders (two chances) as all and sundry (girls too) launched themselves at you.

Then there was the railway viaduct cat walk we practically lived up there in the summer, God only knows what height that was.

We pranced along rail lines without a thought, jumped on the back of any horse or cow (anyone have a cowshit fight?) waded rivers, left the house first thing in the morning and had to be dragged screaming in at night. Raided allotments ate what most people would consider inedible but got by. We got our arses tanned regularly, strapped at school but it didn't deter us, the only thing that struck fear in you was hearing those words, your getting kept in.

[undisputed 1,664]

aye funny how things change....anyone remember the old rope swings across the burn with the big tyre on it or the branch to sit on . Then you boarded when the swing came back and we'd all pile on...lol few times I'D thought i'd kill myself. keano you and asbo were still twinkles in yer da's eye back then...lol

 

 

I occasionally walk the dogs where I grew up and to look now through the eyes of a middle aged man it's scary, a big old oak tree rope swing (the oaky) which when you were out at full tilt over the river clyde was a hell of a height, coming back in screaming no boarders (two chances) as all and sundry (girls too) launched themselves at you.

Then there was the railway viaduct cat walk we practically lived up there in the summer, God only knows what height that was.

We pranced along rail lines without a thought, jumped on the back of any horse or cow (anyone have a cowshit fight?) waded rivers, left the house first thing in the morning and had to be dragged screaming in at night. Raided allotments ate what most people would consider inedible but got by. We got our arses tanned regularly, strapped at school but it didn't deter us, the only thing that struck fear in you was hearing those words, your getting kept in.

 

 

There were a few of us getting our arses skelpt....lol I know the bridge your on about we called it the painters ledge