When I was a lad....

[spitz]

I bet us youngsters have a lot mor fun that you lot ever did.

Of course yer youngsters have more fun nowadays, if we ever got caught knocking on doors and running off we’d get a smack around the head by the target (home owner) can’t do that any more because the kids are protected from any sort of discipline to the point of insanity. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers gave it out and took our punishment when caught, kids have too many rights nowadays and they know them.

Anywho, I can’t remember ever going anywhere without a football, ever.

[mattt_h]

i was born in 85 spent half my life playing in rivers and woodland making rope swings and trying to fish in the river irwell did the scout thingy and used to go camping up on the moors with my mates great fun best days off my life untill i discovered alcohol.

[lew]

Also born in 85, we used to play in the farmers fields when little, it was great... made dens etc, also did the scout thing, learnt to make fire, (not the best thing to teach me ) alcohol seemed to ruin that natural fun and replace it with another, that left you feeling sick and dehydrated in the morning... god how I love it


lew

[Mike]

Lew and Mattt_h.... have unknowingly hit it on the head, we have two different parts of society here, the Townies and the Country Lads and as such, two different diciplines..... I was born in the middle forties in a fairly affluent area, large houses but few cars and one TV in the village on which to watch the coronation on.. but we all did as has been recounted on this thread and had safe Fun... Townies had the bomb sites to play on and enjoy... Today these are gone and kids there are restricted by what is available FREE.
Where as, in the rural areas most everything is FREE.
There is a lad who lives behind us who is 9 years old and is never at home from dusk to dawn, he saves all his pocket money for special days out.....but he and his mates are never bored One day its fishing, next out on their bikes another helping to get the harvest in and so on.
He and his peers are always occupied, where as the townies have little to occupy their time.... Bike rides... out of the question too much dangerous traffic....fishing..where in that polluted stream a mile away! so what do they do? Stay in or stand on street corners...... the environments are so diverse its hard to generalise. Furthere more in my days we had the Best snow andwith the exception of this year, the hottest summers.... I know, I was there!
Aye

[mattt_h]

i also remeber going to the park up the road and mainly playing on this roundabout well it was more like a loop of metal on a pole used to love that and the slide that was taller than a double decker bus and the rope climbing frame even taller still, now repalced with a 12ft climbing frame and a 8ft slide

[voodoo sprout]

As Mike said, it varies. I was born in 1985, and I lived in a town many miles from a gap in the roads big enough to be called countryside, and probably fitted into the catagory the old blokes are describing. I rarely went very far from home, me and my friends would (when we were old enough) go on bike rides a shocking 500 metres away from one of our houses, and generally stuck to the same places. Usually we never went off the road our houses were on, though traffic on was light so football was generally the main passtime. Our parents weren't overly worried about kiddie fiddlers much, but didn't often give us more than a few hours away from home. All in all we didn't do an aawful lot. We had fun, but we were far more limited than you lot seemed to be .

[Wholley]

I was born in '53 on a small tidal Island just above the Thames.
Commercial fishing and agriculture mostly.Got to shoot woodie's with my 16 bore and rabbits etc with my 22lr.At fifteen I was with the fleet,deckhand on an old sidewinder out of Mersea Island after cod and herring in winter(bloody cold).Dover Sole and"Skate"in the spring and Sea Bass in the late spring/early summer.As a bunch of snot nosed kids our summer hide-out was an old pillbox where we could empty the mag's of our Bren's and 50cal.machine guns into imaginery E-Boats and surfacing U-Boats from the slits provided by the War Dept.Mersea is now ,sadly a dormitory town for London,Bunch of Big city commuters with no idea of how the Island used to be.I left the UK in 1978.I've returned a few times,but not for long,as for some reason it makes me sad.
Wholley.

[Whitey]

Well I grew up in America. Like Wholley me and my friends grew up with lots of land to roam on. We used 22 Lr's, and BB guns to bag rabbits, squirrles. We lived in the woods off and on. Mowed lawns for extra money. Of course we had video games, I'm 30, prehistoric video games, but our lives didn't revolve around them. We would fish, build boats, and build fires to keep warm by the lake. We played Army and harvested the fields.
Me and my dad would hunt in the fall and winter, fish in the summer and chop alot of wood. Good times

[Wholley]

Hey Whitey,
I had an old lakefield .22.My Grandfather stole it in Canada.Rusty as all hell,I cleaned it and re -blued the finish.Then I put a scope on it,so that I could see really big squirrels running away after I missed them.
I then discovered Windage and Elevation.As we lived so close to the Fingeringhoe ranges I used to watch the pongoe's at play with their shiny new SLR's.Colchester was the nearest large town back then,the oldest Garrison town in the UK,not that I got there much as it was too far away.
Chunky?Did'nt you say you were at Colchester once?
Glasshouse wasn't it?
Wholley.

[Andy O'Pray]

I had an old lakefield .22. My Grandfather stole it in Canada.

Oh yeah! Well we would like it back again as our military is in desperate need of it.

Aye - Andy.

[Whitey]

Wholley,
The 22 I had/have belonged to my grandpa. It was made in 1938, bolt action, no scope. Contrary to popular belief most Americans shoot very accurate, well the blue eyed ones down south anyway. My dad used to take me to my uncles pond and set batteries up behind the dam. If I missed, pop on top of the head followed by "DON"T JERK THE TRIGGER!" from the old man. I'll teach my boy on it someday. I think it is a browning, I'll double check this week. I had a 4/10 single shot growing up, tight pattern. I never re-blued a rifle, I hear it is a pain in the ass and that the stuff gets all over the place. I want to get into bow hunting, like the wagon burning injuns. Shooting an ELK with a rifle would be too easy, a bow would make it fun, considering I'm not hunting because my life depends on it, if I miss there is always the grocery store. If I hit, cool, meat for a year.

[Wholley]

Whitey,
Who gets the fun out of shooting Elk with a bow?
You or the Elk?
I'd rather shoot the poor bugger with a 7.62 and put it on the table,relatively painlessly than chase it around using your best tracking skills until you can harpoon the thing again.
Bow hunting should be a thing of the past unless against deer at close range from a well established hide or tree.
Just my opinion.
Don't get me started on crossbows.
Wholley.

[Wholley]

Andy,
If the Canadian Government want it back their going to have to pay for the cleaning,re-blueing and the sight.
We could meet at the border with a Canadian Official.
While he speaks to a member of our erstwhile BATFE in two Languages we could get a wet or ten.By the time they have come to an agreement,Ill have me gun back and we'll both be sheets.
Long Drive though,
Wholley.

[Whitey]

Wholley,
Let me clarify. I was trying to imply that bow hunting is a real skill, and I bet I couldn't hit the Earth with an arrow, much less an elk. I don't like to kill much of anything more than time these days, and mostly intend to just walk around with my buddies, talk loud, make lots of noise and head to the bar after we come out empty handed. I have seen some clean shots with a bow though. I just want an excuse to get away from "Playing house" for a saturday. As for crossbows, I don't think it is legal to hunt with those things is it? I think wheelchair guys can, but no one else. I've shot them before, I don't care for them, they aren't designed well, and not very safe.

Why the mean face? I thought we was friends?

[Wholley]

Whitey,
No insult intended,
I shoot deer well with my current rifle,so I tend to stick with what I know.
Getting colder down here,I can smell em.Time to fill the freezer!
Wholley.