Please Scroll Down to See Forums Below 
jb160
New member
Looking back it's hard to believe we have lived as long as we have done.
As kids, we rode in cars without seatbelts or airbags – there was no such thing.
Our baby cots were coloured with bright lead-based paint. The bedroom was lit by a candle resting in a saucer of water to put it out when it burned low.
When you woke up in the winter the windows were iced over on the inside and you could write your name with your finger nail, no central heating then!
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles – just a cork stopper. We rode our bikes on the road and not the path and we had no headgear.
We spent hours building go-carts out of wooden boxes and pram wheels and then rode down the hill, only to find out we hadn't any brakes. After crashing a few times we learned to solve the problem but it wore your shoes out.
We would leave home in the morning and walk for miles, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
The clocks were put back two hours and you played on the park till 11pm in broad daylight. No-one was able to reach us all day long – no mobile phones in those days.
We got cuts and broke bones and teeth, and there were no law suits. They were accidents. No-one was to blame but ourselves. We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and got over it.
We ate treacle tarts, bread and butter with sugar on or thick lard with salt. There was no sliced bread, it came whole and was cut with a carving knife – oh how dangerous.
We were never overweight – we were always outside playing. We shared one drink with all our friends from the same bottle and no-one died!
We did not have PlayStations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, personal computers or TV and the nearest we got to a mobile was two empty bean cans attached with string and pulled tight. You could talk to a mate but you certainly couldn't get Aunt Joan in Australia.
We huddled around a radio set and listened to Dick Barton-Special Agent.
We had friends. We went outside and found them. We went on bike rides and could mend a puncture at 10. We walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or shouted their name outside or just walked in and talked – without asking a parent.
Out there in the cruel world, without a grown up. How did we do it?
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate vinegar leaves off the grass and crab apples from the hedgerows.
Local football teams had tryouts and not everyone made it. Those who didn't had to learn to cope with disappointment. Students not as smart as others failed a test and were held back until they passed it again – tests were not altered to make up the numbers.
We got the cane at school for doing wrong – you took your medicine and sat down with your backside stinging you didn't complain and your parent's never knew. The idea of a parent backing us up if we broke the law was unheard of. They sided with them and you got a good hiding into the bargain.
This was the age of the comic – Film Fun, Eagle, Dandy, Beano and Hotspur and also the dreaded school boardman who could spot a child not at school as quick as a traffic warden can spot a car on double yellow lines today.
The past 60 years have seen an explosion of inventions and new ideas and has produced some of the best people.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and dealt with it all.
As kids, we rode in cars without seatbelts or airbags – there was no such thing.
Our baby cots were coloured with bright lead-based paint. The bedroom was lit by a candle resting in a saucer of water to put it out when it burned low.
When you woke up in the winter the windows were iced over on the inside and you could write your name with your finger nail, no central heating then!
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles – just a cork stopper. We rode our bikes on the road and not the path and we had no headgear.
We spent hours building go-carts out of wooden boxes and pram wheels and then rode down the hill, only to find out we hadn't any brakes. After crashing a few times we learned to solve the problem but it wore your shoes out.
We would leave home in the morning and walk for miles, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
The clocks were put back two hours and you played on the park till 11pm in broad daylight. No-one was able to reach us all day long – no mobile phones in those days.
We got cuts and broke bones and teeth, and there were no law suits. They were accidents. No-one was to blame but ourselves. We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and got over it.
We ate treacle tarts, bread and butter with sugar on or thick lard with salt. There was no sliced bread, it came whole and was cut with a carving knife – oh how dangerous.
We were never overweight – we were always outside playing. We shared one drink with all our friends from the same bottle and no-one died!
We did not have PlayStations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, personal computers or TV and the nearest we got to a mobile was two empty bean cans attached with string and pulled tight. You could talk to a mate but you certainly couldn't get Aunt Joan in Australia.
We huddled around a radio set and listened to Dick Barton-Special Agent.
We had friends. We went outside and found them. We went on bike rides and could mend a puncture at 10. We walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or shouted their name outside or just walked in and talked – without asking a parent.
Out there in the cruel world, without a grown up. How did we do it?
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate vinegar leaves off the grass and crab apples from the hedgerows.
Local football teams had tryouts and not everyone made it. Those who didn't had to learn to cope with disappointment. Students not as smart as others failed a test and were held back until they passed it again – tests were not altered to make up the numbers.
We got the cane at school for doing wrong – you took your medicine and sat down with your backside stinging you didn't complain and your parent's never knew. The idea of a parent backing us up if we broke the law was unheard of. They sided with them and you got a good hiding into the bargain.
This was the age of the comic – Film Fun, Eagle, Dandy, Beano and Hotspur and also the dreaded school boardman who could spot a child not at school as quick as a traffic warden can spot a car on double yellow lines today.
The past 60 years have seen an explosion of inventions and new ideas and has produced some of the best people.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and dealt with it all.
