Our Childhood - Katherine Malone

[El Prez]

Submitted on behalf of proud Dad Yorkie Malone.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

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 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 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 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. And you're one of them. Congratulations!

Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

[GINGE]

Gentlemen I could cry I loved every minute of the Sixtys and Seventys
and would love to go back there.
We had joy we had fun we had seasons in the sun ..........
( Terry Jacks 1974)

[lew]

i wish i had a stick

[Black Rat]

Pres.......some you forgot!

Lighting bonfires in the local woods and then jumping through the flames! Yes snorkel jackets did melt but that was part of it.

'Smoking' bamboos! Cetainly made you cough and splutter!

Pea shooters firing rock hard peas that you 'proffed' out of a box (with a lion on it and a round white tablet used for some mystical reason known only to mums!) that was for your dads sunday scran.

Seeing who could pee the highest and furthest (girlies too round our way!)
and not a social worker in site!

Borrowing your dads 'art' mags from under the bed, top of wardrobe, bedside cabinet and sharing them with your mates.

Riding on the back platform of buses and jumping off whilst the bus was still moving!

Taking fireworks apart and making 'genies' which were lit in the street with great clouds of white smoke and singed eyebrows.

Playing ratatat ginger and legging it! (Once got a bucket of water in the face, well deserved!!).

Going into our local 9 o'clock shop and asking (repeatedly) what time they shut! (I think that merited a boot up the arse!).

Any more?

[Rotary Booty]

Unfortunately, I was a kid in the '40's!

I can remember looking at a picture of a 'hand' of bananas in a grocer's window, every time I walked by, in total amazement. They are my favourite fruit to this day.

I stood for hours in a queue to get my sweets ration, and when they came off rationing, it was like the world had switched the lights on.

A school friend from the local Italian ice cream shop called us 'English Pigs' during a kids argument, and his family were taken away for questioning!

We used to run alongside the Bren Gun Carrier that was based at the end of our street, trying to jump on board!

The Anderson shelter in our garden leaked, had water on the floor, and the bedding had mould on it most of the time. We spent hours in there!

We had a game where we ran a stick along metal railings, because it made a great sound. Then they took all the railings to make tanks.

I had a pigeon called Fred, but it disappeared one day, and my dad said it had joined up to carry messages for the Army. (I didn't believe him!)
We had 'chicken' for dinner that night.

We used to bike to 'the crater' to play in the water at the bottom of it, until we were told not to, as it was where a Spitfire had crashed, and the pilot was still missing.

I wish I'd been a kid in the 50s, 60s or 70s!

[Charlie]

Scabs of the knees and elbows, courtesy of the accidents mentioned above.

Peeling them off, only to find out the weren't ready. Trying to pat them back on, accompanied by the "oooh, ahhh, ow's"

[Andy O'Pray]

You have sure brought back some memories Derek. I grew up close to a POW camp. Every morning a truck load of German and Italian prisoners would turn up. guarded by a British Army corporal. As they were marched away to their work details, a bunch of us kids would march behind them, with mock wooden guns, chanting, we won the war, we won the war.

From what I remember they were not bad guys, when they stopped for their lunch break they would share their sandwiches with us kids.

Aye - Andy.

[Guest]

Lew, theres some posh bastards on here ain`t there/ scabs, sweets, gocarts, nettles, mags from under the bed, cor, wish i was posh

[El Prez]

Loz, you're a bloody sprog! The white tabs were Bi-carbonate of soda, the white ones did little apart from perk up the water and soften the Mushy Peas, the real gizzits were the green Bi Carb tabs, produced by Farrows. They turned the peas an extra bit green. Still made oi fart!
My Mum has been steeping her peas for Christmas since the end of May!

[Mike]

Dare I....... Yup... I'll degrade the thread... Girdles and rollons, Pink bloomers with elastic bottoms all on the monday wash line, along with real nylons frilly silk slips and Eider downs, proper cotton sheets left on the grass to give'm a real fresh feel. Christmas eve spent at the bottom of the bed under sheets and eiderdowns..waiting for Dad to come up.
Not forgetting Saturday Morning Pictures for a threepenny bit with a teenage Audry Murphy, Laural & hardy and the rest.... No cartoons, real films!.... aye those were the days.......

[Pilgrim Norway]

Good one Derek -

Powdered egg - sea coal - three jam jars to get into the cinema -
sitting under the stairs during an air raid because we couldn't make it to the shelter in the back yard. My mother queueing up for an hour and half
for ( as she thought fruit ) only to find that they were selling wall paper
when she came up to the front of the queue - bought it anyway...

Gasometers - ship yards - coal mines - full employment....

The last of the above are sadly missed in the North East these days.....
Third generation unemployment I'm told....

'Aye

[Black Rat]

Loz.....they were called 'Olde english' flavour Spangles! I always liked the bright green one and the red one!

Plus 'Spanish Gold' chewing tobacco! Junior smoking sets onyx ash trays, clacker balls (all mine seem to do now!). salt and shake crisps
six pennorth of chips in newspaper........

and those snotty nosed kids always had nits!

ps those peas were....I think.......'morton marrow fat' !! good memory!

You could also buy fags from the corner shop as singles, 5p with a book of matches! I wasnt that sophisticated, tea bags and bamboos for me!

[Wully]

Yes Mike, Saturday morning movies, great memories. Captain Marvel and the Hook; Gene Autrey and Gabby Hayes - always wondered how Gabby could get killed off one Saturday and be back on screen the next Saturday - youthful innocence . Yanks were stationed near our home in Northern Ireland and used to give us tinned pineapple and chewing gum. Also used to give us ride in their gliders - only from the top of the hill to the bottom. Because I had two older sisters I was always very popular with the yanks!!! The fifties was a really good decade in which to grow up; I spent most of it as a recruit at Lympstone. The first record I bought was Johnny Halliday singing 'The Story of My Life'

[lew]

yea they are posh, all i want is a bloody stick

[El Prez]

Lew, I can't be the only bonehead around here wondering what the hell you are wittering about. What's the story?