For the over 40's

[david2363 42]

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 50's, 60's, and 70's probably shouldn't have survived,

because...

 

 

Our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked.

 

 

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.

 

 

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just plimsoles and fluorescent 'clackers' on our wheels.

 

 

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the front passenger seat was a treat.

 

 

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle - it all tasted the same.

 

 

We ate dripping sandwiches, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

 

 

We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one actually died from this.

 

 

We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

 

 

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us all day and no one minded.

 

 

We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms. We had friends - we went outside and found them.

 

 

We played elastics, street rounders, kick can and knock door run away.

 

 

We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits. They were accidents. We learnt not to do the same thing again.

 

 

We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue - we learned to get over it. (AND MOVE ON)

 

 

We walked to friend's homes.

 

 

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live stuff, and although we were told it would happen, we did not have very many eyes out, nor did the live stuff live inside us forever.

 

 

We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.

 

 

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.

 

 

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!

 

 

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and 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're one of them. Congratulations!

 

 

 

(If you aren't old enough, thought you might like to read about us).

[mad al 146]

I like that, kinda says it all, thank you............Al

[mooster 1]

45 and couldn't agree more mate,one thing is omitted though....

Don't you remember our parents and oldies telling us how easy our life was compared to their own childhoods!

Makes you wonder if we will go full circle one day.I wouldn't be too surprised but probably not in our lifetime!

Very interesting,thanks.

[craig 0]

I remember drinking out of a burn one day, walking along it for 100 yards and finding a dead sheep in it, people would have me hospitalised for that now, and i can still remember how good the water tasted

[Guest The Shaman]

Never truer words said

 

When I was about 6 years old I was playing in the local park, on a tea-pot lid that had a few planks from the top missing, as a typical scruffy snotty nosed kid I climbed inside to sit on the framework as my friends pushed it round ever faster. As acn be expected I slipped, my foot (complete in wellies, it was the summer holidays but we all wore shorts and wellies) became trapped between the framework and the playground tarmac real tarmac not the spongy reclaimed tyres they use now.

 

Anyway I got a piggyback home, welly pulled off, old dirty bandage from the bottom drawer wrapped roughly round, the bruising was scary, all my foot turned either yellow, purple or both. No hospital.

 

If that happened nowadays the local authority would be sued and my mother would have been arrested for child negelct for not taking me to hospital.

 

Worlds gone mad.

[bondy 0]

spot on there mate. i,d like to do it all agian thou.

[snoopdog 1,256]

i got a few years before iam forty but remmber all of that .. amen to the days when lads could be lads making a push iron out of 4 scrappers big front wheel ..with chopper back wheel.. cow horn handlebars we used to call em trackers ... sledges out of blueplastic barrels cut in half..i remmeber when we all made bow and arrows with a nut on the end to weight em down we all once laid on our back fired our arrows staight up in the air and laid there spread eagle waiting for the arrows to come down.fook me we did some daft things me ma would of gone mental if she had seen half the things we did. i was once was riding down my village on my tracker ..and some older lads pulled me up they had been on the old railway having a fire ..one of them had a can of petrol he said if we put a bit of petrol on your back wheel and light it and you peddel fast it will look well smart these lads were about 15 or 16 iwas about twelve. so of coarse i wanted to to impress em so i agreed not that i had alot of choice.. anyway they put some on and i set of like a loony i was peddeling like feck and i looked at em an they were laughting like f**k a couple of seconds later my back was getting very warm the petrol had sprayed on my back and iwas on fire . ..i jumped of me bike ripped me new blue parker with the rabbit fur round the hood and jumped on it trying to put it out.. them feckers were in hysterics and were rolling about laughing .i had to wizz me coat and tell me ma that i had lost ..i got a clout ,but i would have got to if thet had found out the truth.. ..just a couple of stories from the proper days ....feck me iam sat here pissing me self thinking back ...i could go on and on...

[Kay 3,709]

Never truer words said

 

When I was about 6 years old I was playing in the local park, on a tea-pot lid that had a few planks from the top missing, as a typical scruffy snotty nosed kid I climbed inside to sit on the framework as my friends pushed it round ever faster. As acn be expected I slipped, my foot (complete in wellies, it was the summer holidays but we all wore shorts and wellies) became trapped between the framework and the playground tarmac real tarmac not the spongy reclaimed tyres they use now.

 

Anyway I got a piggyback home, welly pulled off, old dirty bandage from the bottom drawer wrapped roughly round, the bruising was scary, all my foot turned either yellow, purple or both. No hospital.

 

If that happened nowadays the local authority would be sued and my mother would have been arrested for child negelct for not taking me to hospital.

 

Worlds gone mad.

 

Christ thats brought back some memorys, shorts & wellies i remember as a kid sliding down the the pit mount on a tin tray & getting filthy kids today cant get filthy

[DeanD 3]

I'm just 46 now. I'm surpised it wasn't mentioned that we walked to school everyday... uphill both ways. Seriously though isn't it a shame how paranoid the world has become... things haven't changed that much really... Except that now we can either hear or read about Everything that happens on the planet... and That makes the world Paranoid. Like that old saying... "Ignorance is bliss."

 

Jmo...

Edited January 26, 2007 by DeanD

[Guest MOLLY]

You had to dirty your clothes out none of this changing twice a day. Only school uniforms had to be changed out of to keep clean, because parents could'nt afford them. School cardigans were home knitted to save money, and your knickers were either dark blue or bottle green and huge

MOLL.

[midnight walker 8]

spot on .i can still feel the red mark round my legs where the wellies left there mark . i used to go out crack of dawn with my whippet woudnt be back till it got dark if a kid done that now there would be a search party out looking for them how things have changed

[JOHNBOY 18]

ha ha ya old fuckers !

[jacob 28]

ha ha ya old fuckers !

scarily accurate,aaaaaaaaaaah, not the old feckers bit

[steve66 3,452]

We used to ride round in pairs on our raliegh choppers playing chips (remember the old american police series)or play eskimos with our green parkers with the rabbit fur trim around the hood

great days love to wind the clock back and do it all again

[NIGHTSHADOW 3]

Yes thay were good days shame it all changed for the worst