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Clansman

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Hi Folks

Found this on a Fishing website that I frequent.

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.

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 flip flops and fluorescent 'clackers' on our wheels.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the passenger seat was a treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle - 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 Play stations 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 and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt. 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. 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.

I am one of those who had the luck to grow up as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.


Recognise any of that?
 

HomerJSimpson

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From the age of 10 onwards I'd travel to the golf club on public transport everyday carrying my clubs. Never feared about getting mugged for them or had any hassle walking from Wimbledon Village to the club across the common. Use to play all day and get the bus home in the evening (after the rush hour). Never a problem.
 

Dave3498

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Sounds like you had the sort of exiting childhood that I enjoyed myself Clansman, but I'm afraid it is something that we had the pleasure of, but cannot pass on. I agree with haplesshacker - a good post but on the wrong part of the forum.
 

andycap

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That is great ,
reading that i can see the images in my mind .It details my childhood so well , i think i did nearly everything in that post :D
 

thomas1981

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As the name suggests i was born in 1981 and got to say growing up in a village i got up to 90% of the things you mentioned(wore seat belts and never ate anything alive). But i agree 100% with your point but would say things have only changed in the last 10-15 years. One more thing remember who are the parents to these youngsters people who grew up in the 60's,70's and 80's.
 

steve

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wouldnt worry about it being in wrong place easy mistake,i probably wouldnt have read it in out of bounds and that was a great post. :D
 

haplesshacker

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Thomas.

You have a point about the kids of the 60s, 70s and 80s are the parents of today. However thus it was with our parents born in the 40s, and grew up as teenagers when the 'teenager' was invented in the 50s.

The main difference is the level of what is acceptable and what is not. Youngsters will always be rebelious, but it's when they have no respect for anyone, it becomes a problem.

These kids talk about respect as a buzz word, and ironicaly they have no idea as to what it means.

National Service anyone!?
 

viscount17

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National Service - nice idea, but the forces wouldn't want them!

It was partly why it ended, things had become too technical and training is expensive, so 2 years wasn't enough to get a return.
 

viscount17

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the initial post brought back memories,

I loved the jelly on the dripping,

never had a TV 'til I was 10, didn't miss it - we were never in.

whole street, football and cricket matches, dads and all the kids, mums usually watching, nattering and knitting!go to the beach and the whole street went too - always to the same bit opposite The Ship.
Climbing up the side of the pier (how we did it without being cut to ribbons I have no idea - but we did), getting chased by the Pier attendants and jumping off into the sea. Diving off the groynes - in hindsight that was bl**dy dangerous, somehow we all survived.

out at the crack of dawn - 'be back for dinner' - rarely was, it was usually dark and Dad on the warpath. next day confined to your (shared) room but we had an escape route over the roof.
disappear all day, go miles (no bike at the time), hop a ride in the guards van (remember them?) or sneak on a bus to get back. (my dad worked for the same bus company, Southdown. I wonder now if the conductors knew)

takes something like this to remember how good those days were!
 

viscount17

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this has prompted another memory,

did everyone have that one kid in your 'gang' who was always the one things happened to?
the one who, when you were throwing stones up to knock down the conkers, always got his stone falling on his head,
or who, when you were crossing over the fence by climbing a tree and walking a branch (there were holes in the fence but you just didn't use those), always fell off.

Rob, where the hell are you?
 

haplesshacker

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Strangely enough, no.

Those type of kids never even hung around for a week. Those whole gang things were great in the school hols when I was 8, 9 and 10. Turf all the old mans kit into the corner of the shed, and call it our gang hut. Pics of Lambo Contach and Lotus Esprit. Oh and that poster of the female tennis player, (you know the one), thumb tacked to the walls. Panini football stickers, Top Trumps, Pocketeers, Beano and 'Warlord' comics, action men. All this and a huge common half a mile away for even more fun.

Ahh the 1970s.
 

Nico

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Yep,it was me.

Broke my arm jumping off a rope swing,broke one wrist playing Rugby,the other falling off skateboard,2 toes kicking a football,lost count of the scars etc.

No wonder Rugby was over for me at 21 with wrecked knee!
 

Herbie

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Thomas.

You have a point about the kids of the 60s, 70s and 80s are the parents of today. However thus it was with our parents born in the 40s, and grew up as teenagers when the 'teenager' was invented in the 50s.

The main difference is the level of what is acceptable and what is not. Youngsters will always be rebelious, but it's when they have no respect for anyone, it becomes a problem.

These kids talk about respect as a buzz word, and ironicaly they have no idea as to what it means.

National Service anyone!?

SPOT ON!
When I grew up a certain number of values/principals/morals were one way or the other nailed to your charactor for life,Now not all but a lot of todays generations have hardly had those things in their make up at all. Everything today seems to be free game with little consequence or even remorse and definitely no sense of guilt.Likewise no responsibility or respect.

Now back to the good old days, I am so proud I have lived through a time where little was easy and everything was created for todays ungrateful selfish so and so's lol.
 

viscount17

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Thomas.

You have a point about the kids of the 60s, 70s and 80s are the parents of today. However thus it was with our parents born in the 40s, and grew up as teenagers when the 'teenager' was invented in the 50s.

The main difference is the level of what is acceptable and what is not. Youngsters will always be rebelious, but it's when they have no respect for anyone, it becomes a problem.

These kids talk about respect as a buzz word, and ironicaly they have no idea as to what it means.

National Service anyone!?

SPOT ON!
When I grew up a certain number of values/principals/morals were one way or the other nailed to your charactor for life,Now not all but a lot of todays generations have hardly had those things in their make up at all. Everything today seems to be free game with little consequence or even remorse and definitely no sense of guilt.Likewise no responsibility or respect.

Now back to the good old days, I am so proud I have lived through a time where little was easy and everything was created for todays ungrateful selfish so and so's lol.

If you were a kid in the 40's, 50's and early 60's, you probably had a fairly tough childhood, not that you would have noticed at the time.

There probably was not a lot of money going round; certainly not credit. If you couldn't afford it you went without. There was discipline in schools and in the streets; you would not have dared backchat an adult.

Quite possibly we all conciously or subconciously determined that our kids would not have to go through that. We were determined that they would have those things that we did not - perhaps we let the brakes off too far.
 
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