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Carefree childhood.... so much of this struck a chord

By (user no longer on site) OP over a year ago

A VIRAL email describing carefree childhood in the Forties, Fifties and Sixties is storming the internet.

The anonymous message recalls the days before health and safety, political correctness and even the web itself, writes EMILY FAIRBAIRN.

See if you recognise the nostalgic picture painted by the email...

CONGRATULATIONS to all my friends who were born in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank sherry while they carried us and lived in houses made of Asbestos.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, bread and dripping, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

Then, after that trauma, our cots were covered with lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles or locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode bikes we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking. We would ride in cars with no seatbelts or airbags.

We drank water from the garden hose, not a bottle. Takeaway food was limited to fish and chips, there were no pizza shops, or McDonald's, KFC, Subway or Nando's.

Even though all the shops closed at 6pm and didn't open on a Sunday, somehow we didn't starve to death!

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one died from this. We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy toffees, gobstoppers and bubble gum.

We ate white bread and real butter, drank cow's milk and soft drinks with sugar, but we weren't overweight because we were always outside playing!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day but we were OK. We would spend hours building go-karts out of old prams then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.

Good old plays ... leaping for joyWe built treehouses and dens and played in riverbeds with Matchbox cars. We did not have PlayStation, Nintendo Wii and Xbox or video games, DVDs or colour TV. There were no mobiles, computers, internet or chatrooms.

We had friends and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies, too.

Only girls had pierced ears.

You could buy Easter eggs and hot-cross buns only at Easter time. We were given airguns and catapults for our tenth birthdays, we rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or just yelled for them.

Not everyone made the school rugby, football, cricket or netball teams. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that. Getting into the team was based on merit.

Our teachers hit us with canes and gym shoes and threw the blackboard rubber at us if they thought we weren't concentrating.

We can string sentences together, spell and have proper conversations now because of a solid three Rs education.

Our parents would tell us to ask a stranger to help us cross the road.

Mum didn't have to go to work to help Dad make ends meet because we didn't need to keep up with the Joneses!

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

Parents didn't invent stupid names for kids like Kiora, Blade, Ridge and Vanilla.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility and learned to deal with it all.

You might want to share this with others who grew up in an era before lawyers and government regulated lives.

And while you are at it, forward it to your children, so they know how brave their parents were.

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By *oulmates YorkshireCouple over a year ago

Leeds

fantastic post

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By *bbandflowCouple over a year ago

South Devon

I love this. It is a little sentimental and maybe over-romanced, but in essence it is spot on. I'm a survivor lol

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

Wonderful ben, and so true.

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By (user no longer on site) OP over a year ago

I really remember how bad those blackboard rubbers elt. One particuarly sadistic teacher used to twist you by the hair by your ears and depending how naughty you had been dictated the laps of the hall you did... thsoe were the days!

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

can remember going home from school with bruises caused by the teachers..

we never told our parents in case we got another smack for being naughty at school..

kids nowadays want and sometimes go to extremes to provoke teachers to lose the plot and hit them !!

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

Another survivor here. A lot of that is so right.

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

yeah, but how many kids of that generation died of scarlet fever, tb etc, were cripled by polio and rickets......died because of d*unk drivers or in cars without seatbelts..... and lets also not forget that they are also the generation that enjoyed free opticians, dentistry and university education (with generous grants) and who voted in the people who cut the benefits they enjoyed, destroyed well paid industries ('I remember when you could leave a job and have another the next day') and are now clogging up the NHS wit their ailments and soaking up all the money with their pensions........

never black and white.....

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

"I really remember how bad those blackboard rubbers elt. One particuarly sadistic teacher used to twist you by the hair by your ears and depending how naughty you had been dictated the laps of the hall you did... thsoe were the days!

"
you are only 4 years older than me, ben, corporal punishment was banned when I was in the infant school......

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By *nJ_NW_cplCouple over a year ago

wirral

Love it love it love it..... Did our growing up in the 70s but it was still the same. "Mates were mates for ever and what you said is what you did" A great Bon Jovi quote that summed it up.None of these last minute changes that e mail and texts have made far to easy. We wouldnt want to be 10 again but it was a nicer time, mostly xxx

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

I actually detest much of this living in the past malarkey as the 'best days', even worse in the last 5 years or so we have become more obsessed with bringing back styles/movies etc into this day(how many 70s.80s.90s do we need remade).Maybe thats what happens at the start of every century...reminisce about the last one..

to top it all off, I hear the 90s fashions are coming back... so its essentially a remake of a remake..of a remake lol

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

Agree, they are just days, but still a part of our history and culture and sometimes interesting to see how much in common people actually had.

Don't like the over-romancing of it tho. I hated always wearing second hand clothes, hand-me-downs and clodhoppers, truth be told and no one mentions the dentist who drilled our teeth and filled our teeth because it was "the thing". (My sons are 25 and 27 now and not a filling between them.)

Surely we did not need them, rarely did we get enough sweets? Our sweets were scrumped apples.

My mum did have to work part time for a while or the ends would not have met as there were 8 young mouths to feed and my big brother started to go of the lines and she had to give that up.

Yeah it was good but mainly because we were loved.

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

I must Disagree with the "car-crash" theory..

older cars were made from steel / metal

modern cars are plastic / alloy..

Seatbelts or not - the older car would not fold in half and trap or kill most of its occupants !!

the safest is the safety harness kinda thing - that the racing drivers wear...

seatbelts can sometimes cause more injuries than not wearing one !! btw

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By *emima_puddlefuckCouple over a year ago

hexham

hate this with a passion...

"First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank sherry while they carried us and lived in houses made of Asbestos"

my dearest friend lost her mother a year ago today to mesothelioma, a horrible painful death. Asbestos kills.

So leave medicines around for your child...hey why not tell them they are sweeties. My mum was a nurse, my father a fireman, they both talk of the joy and wonder of people survivng crashes that pre seatbelt laws they would have died in.

We drank water from the garden hose, not a bottle. Takeaway food was limited to fish and chips, there were no pizza shops, or McDonald's, KFC, Subway or Nando's.

i think tap water exists still...and if parents fill their kids with junk food, thats their choice, no one forces them to go.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, bread and dripping, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

So tests for killer diseases are bad things

True there was better recycling of bottles, i assume like us everyone who approves of this chooses to get their milk delivered by the milkman, higher cost but greener.

We ate white bread and real butter, drank cow's milk and soft drinks with sugar, but we weren't overweight because we were always outside playing!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

kids still play outside.More kids would if motorists didnt seem to think anything that impeded their journey was a crime against humanity.

No one was able to reach us all day but we were OK. We would spend hours building go-karts out of old prams then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.

We had friends and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies, too.

Again, kids play out...if they cant where you are campaign for road safty and traffic calming.

Simply not true,ear piercing was a male fashion first.

ot everyone made the school rugby, football, cricket or netball teams. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that. Getting into the team was based on merit.

Dont have to imagine it, thats how school teams are picked today.

Our teachers hit us with canes and gym shoes and threw the blackboard rubber at us if they thought we weren't concentrating.

Ahh yes...and the scandals coming about about priests and teachers who ran rampant in the 70;s,well thats just coincidence.

We can string sentences together, spell and have proper conversations now because of a solid three Rs education.

Some of the most articulate people i know are teenagers, all the people i know who have poor literacy are over 50

Our parents would tell us to ask a stranger to help us cross the road.

Well i am a child of the 70's and i grew up with danger stranger...the writers parents clearly were less concerned with their saftey.

Mum didn't have to go to work to help Dad make ends meet because we didn't need to keep up with the Joneses

my mum worked,her mum worked, my great gran worked,it is a middle class myth that there was a period when all women stayed home.The working classes could never afford that.

The last bit is just poor rhetoric, yes its normal to be nostalgic for your childhood, but rose tinted spectacles are not helpful.

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

well said and especially this bit

........... my mum worked,her mum worked, my great gran worked,it is a middle class myth that there was a period when all women stayed home.The working classes could never afford that.

.............. spot on

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

"Agree, they are just days, but still a part of our history and culture and sometimes interesting to see how much in common people actually had.

Surely we did not need them, rarely did we get enough sweets? Our sweets were scrumped apples.

My mum did have to work part time for a while or the ends would not have met as there were 8 young mouths to feed and my big brother started to go of the lines and she had to give that up.

Yeah it was good but mainly because we were loved.

yup agreed x, just more about the last 20 years coming back...and heavy nostalgia over the 90s as a time of 'high' creativity surely is the biggest joke.It really wasnt that long ago, and it really wasnt that an iconic era.

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

must be fantastic to leave your front door open and get back to find your house the way it was when u left it ...

we can remember the days before burglar alarms / car alarms and the likes...

does anyone give a flying fook if they hear a house or car alarm anyway.. ??

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By *emima_puddlefuckCouple over a year ago

hexham

"must be fantastic to leave your front door open and get back to find your house the way it was when u left it ...

we can remember the days before burglar alarms / car alarms and the likes...

does anyone give a flying fook if they hear a house or car alarm anyway.. ??

We rarely lock our doors, none of our neighbours do either,

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

"must be fantastic to leave your front door open and get back to find your house the way it was when u left it ...

we can remember the days before burglar alarms / car alarms and the likes...

does anyone give a flying fook if they hear a house or car alarm anyway.. ??

We rarely lock our doors, none of our neighbours do either,"

what part of Hexam?

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By *emima_puddlefuckCouple over a year ago

hexham

"well said and especially this bit

........... my mum worked,her mum worked, my great gran worked,it is a middle class myth that there was a period when all women stayed home.The working classes could never afford that.

.............. spot on

Thanks

Gets my goat that one does...i am the first,as far as anyone knows on either side to be able to stay at home...proper middle class me

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By *emima_puddlefuckCouple over a year ago

hexham

"must be fantastic to leave your front door open and get back to find your house the way it was when u left it ...

we can remember the days before burglar alarms / car alarms and the likes...

does anyone give a flying fook if they hear a house or car alarm anyway.. ??

We rarely lock our doors, none of our neighbours do either,

what part of Hexam?"

We dont live in hexham

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

Yep read it in the paper today its ace xx

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

"must be fantastic to leave your front door open and get back to find your house the way it was when u left it ...

we can remember the days before burglar alarms / car alarms and the likes...

does anyone give a flying fook if they hear a house or car alarm anyway.. ??

as most of the older generation in my family say, they left their doors open cos there was sod all to steal....

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

aye they were hoping someone'd leave em summat.

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By *ooseLipsWoman over a year ago

Durham-ish

Yeah I read it too, and loved it, ESP the taking of the pop bottles back and buying a quarter of whatever with the money....

My Dad even gave us the money to get his cigarettes while we were there and they served us too......

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

"Yeah I read it too, and loved it, ESP the taking of the pop bottles back and buying a quarter of whatever with the money....

My Dad even gave us the money to get his cigarettes while we were there and they served us too......"

yeah like we are gonna believe that.

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By *irty_bhamMan over a year ago

birmingham

i remember finishing school as a 7 year old and going to the park with my friends then home for tea, back out to the park till 7 then back home to wind down and ready for bed.

no worry's of gangs, pedo's or anything else.

we had a community who looked out for everyone. that was in inner city birmingham.

we had some amazing times back then and i know 99% of kids today will miss out on what were vital development years that an xbox can never replace

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

"Yeah I read it too, and loved it, ESP the taking of the pop bottles back and buying a quarter of whatever with the money....

My Dad even gave us the money to get his cigarettes while we were there and they served us too......

yeah like we are gonna believe that.

That happened in my village too lol

I used to go for my dads fags until he died

And i was 10 when he died

Never any problem xx

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

"i remember finishing school as a 7 year old and going to the park with my friends then home for tea, back out to the park till 7 then back home to wind down and ready for bed.

no worry's of gangs, pedo's or anything else.

we had a community who looked out for everyone. that was in inner city birmingham.

we had some amazing times back then and i know 99% of kids today will miss out on what were vital development years that an xbox can never replace

no pedophiles?- seriously dunno how thats came into ur mind

99% of the kids today can wipe our arses in war games...(pretty much early versions of military simulators)

crime and gangs have always been around...just so happens they spilled over into 'senseless' violent gangs-"my uncles a gangster", and so on.

I seriously think some people sweep so much what was wrong in Britain under the carpet and cling to those good old days... when basically we had fewer rights on the whole...and much much less accountability. Our issues now are financial ones namely in the problems with heavy corporate capitalism.

We arent the big British Empire anymore, we are an American product(just be glad they find us quaint for now)

so just in general to the nostalgic ones, some good memories yes...but remember ur innocence only hid the changing world and some of its horrible bits, whether its better or worse, its here...in 2012

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By *irty_bhamMan over a year ago

birmingham

"i remember finishing school as a 7 year old and going to the park with my friends then home for tea, back out to the park till 7 then back home to wind down and ready for bed.

no worry's of gangs, pedo's or anything else.

we had a community who looked out for everyone. that was in inner city birmingham.

we had some amazing times back then and i know 99% of kids today will miss out on what were vital development years that an xbox can never replace

no pedophiles?- seriously dunno how thats came into ur mind

99% of the kids today can wipe our arses in war games...(pretty much early versions of military simulators)

crime and gangs have always been around...just so happens they spilled over into 'senseless' violent gangs-"my uncles a gangster", and so on.

We arent the big British Empire anymore, we are an American product(just be glad they find us quaint for now)

so just in general to the nostalgic ones, some good memories yes...but remember ur innocence only hid the changing world and some of its horrible bits, whether its better or worse, its here...in 2012"

don't get me wrong,

i know that there were gangs, pedo's and all sorts back then but what i said was "without the worry"

back then it wasn't splashed across the media so the paranoia hadn't set in.

i can imagine it was actually worse back then as detection and prevention is much better now,

but what we didn't know didn't stop us from being allowed to be out and enjoying ourselves.

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

I do get ur meaning bham, unfortunately that was the double edged sword of the media...but without it children would never have gained what little voice they have today...some victims are only coming out now after 20-30yrs without the support and guidance that is available now.

To the kids playing outdoors and free from gangs etc...well my nephews does well with others...but he does play video games... but he IS in the house at nite, he isnt in gangs(from my knowledge), my point is...we cant have it both ways can we?

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By *waymanMan over a year ago

newcastle

"i remember finishing school as a 7 year old and going to the park with my friends then home for tea, back out to the park till 7 then back home to wind down and ready for bed.

no worry's of gangs, pedo's or anything else.

we had a community who looked out for everyone. that was in inner city birmingham.

we had some amazing times back then and i know 99% of kids today will miss out on what were vital development years that an xbox can never replace

Sorry, but the fact that you didn't notice it doesn't mean child abuse wasn't happening - it just means it wasn't happening to you.

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By *waymanMan over a year ago

newcastle

"must be fantastic to leave your front door open and get back to find your house the way it was when u left it ...

we can remember the days before burglar alarms / car alarms and the likes...

does anyone give a flying fook if they hear a house or car alarm anyway.. ??

Probably not because they're last century solutions...

Burglary and twoccing have reduced because of uPVC doors with five point locks and immobilizers. Anyone who's in the domestic burglar alarm business these days must find it getting tougher.

Mind you, there have been some burglaries round here where the thief has drilled a lock and levered the five point, so you never know, police might have to go looking for guys wandering the streets with Bosch cordless drills....

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By (user no longer on site) over a year ago

Had this message several times on Facebook and yes it is soooo true

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