boogaloo Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL MY FRIENDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1930's 1940's, 50's, 60's and early 70's ! First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos... They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer. Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitch hiking. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds , KFC, Subway or Nandos. Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm 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 actually died from this. We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Toffees, Gobstoppers, Bubble Gum and some bangers to blow up frogs with. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, 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. And we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii , X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY , no video/dvd films, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..... 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. Only girls had pierced ears! We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time... We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th birthdays, We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them! Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet because we didn’t need to keep up with the Jones’s! Not everyone made the rugby/football/cricket/netball team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on MERIT Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and throw the blackboard rubber at us if they thought we weren’t concentrating . We can string sentences together and spell and have proper conversations because of a good, solid three R’s education. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! Our parents didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade' and 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla' We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL ! And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS! You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good. And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were. PS -The big type is because your eyes are not too good at your age anymore 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
10800 Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 and some bangers to blow up frogs with I wouldn't condone this one (never heard of the practice)! (b1954) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 It must be what makes me suffer from terminal deja vu (all over again)...................................... Best, Pete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Trevellan Posted September 7, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 7, 2011 (edited) As another product from 1954 much of that list is disturbingly familiar. However, no frogs were (deliberately) harmed in the making of my childhood... Edited September 7, 2011 by Trevellan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thos Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 But we did dissect frogs in Biology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
10800 Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 I tried to avoid that! But we also freely used bunsen burners, concentrated acids and other nasty chemicals in chemistry labs without gloves, goggles etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Webbo Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 Remember it well. Making a swing in the trees overhanging our local river at the lower end of a farmers field, swinging out and dropping off into the river, swimming back and doing it again, this was done skinny dipping, we didn't want to get our clothes wet. The kids can't do it now even if they wanted to because it's under the M18. We lived in a pit village and most of the streets were of terraced housing, we played football, coats etc for goalposts and cricket, dustbin lids for the wickets, if you hit the ball through the gas lamp it was a six. Going to the colliery where there was a reservoir and skinny dipping in the summer holidays. What I want to know is what would the kids do now if there was a total electrical breakdown over the country for a week or two. To be honest though we was brung up in an age when there was hardley any perverts about and we were safe. I'm not going to put the extra thoughts down in writing, but it entails a rope, a piece of wood with 3 holes in it and some sapling. webbo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium 45156 Posted September 7, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 7, 2011 Agreed on all of the above except the frogs - now a banger stuck into a nice soft cowpat... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Webbo Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 I tried to avoid that! But we also freely used bunsen burners, concentrated acids and other nasty chemicals in chemistry labs without gloves, goggles etc. We conned our chemistry master into showing us how to make gunpowder just before guy fawkes night. webbo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thos Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 We also played with mercury and phosphorus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thos Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 We also crawled through culverts under the road. Going through one particular one involved climbing out of the other side up a near-vertical slope, pulling ourselves up by grass roots. The streambed where we played changed frequently because the area was riddled with coal workings and it kept collapsing. When a new hole appeared near the stream we would go down each day to see what had changed. A chap near us built a garage next to his house - the next morning it was six feet underground because he had disturbed the mine workings. We just accepted that the ground could give way at any moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium petethemole Posted September 7, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 7, 2011 I'd never heard of tuna in the 50s or most of the 60s, Canned fish was sardines, sild and pilchards, from cans you had to undo with a key while not cutting yourself. Didn't drink water much, just weak orange squash. Fish and chips from a chippy was "common" unless on seaside holiday when the chippy bus came to the village once a week. We played in a field that had bullocks grazing in it; cowpats were a minor hazard and were wiped off shoes and (cricket or foot) balls with long grass. The farmer tolerated us as long as we didn't leave our dams in his stream when we went home. We had fun with bangers but no frogs, though I heard of them being blown up with bicycle pumps by the kids you tried to avoid at school. Unaccompanied fishing at a disused reservoir and the river. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billbedford Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer. Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints. Just be thankful you survived, infant mortality in the 30s was 10 times what it is today.......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
multiprinter Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 What I want to know is what would the kids do now if there was a total electrical breakdown over the country for a week or two. They would all need to have counselling to enable them to recover from the trauma. Of course, those of us old enough to remember the various strikes which led to power cuts will no doubt recall the simple process of lighting a candle and getting on with reading whatever book we were reading when the power went off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
multiprinter Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 I tried to avoid that! But we also freely used bunsen burners, concentrated acids and other nasty chemicals in chemistry labs without gloves, goggles etc. If 'Sir' was a non smoker he asked the smokers in the class to light the bunsens. 'Sir' in my case was an excellent and entertaining teacher but easily distracted from chemistry if asked about his car - a 1907 or thereabouts Rolls which he used daily in the summer term. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium petethemole Posted September 7, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 7, 2011 I was always warned to watch out for the "funny people" without any explanation of who/what they were or why they were funny. Fortunately I didn't develop a fear of clowns or comedians. I think my parents felt unable to explain further. Many years later I asked my Dad what they'd meant and he still couldn't/wouldn't, he just said "you know, the funny people". As I was also warned against playing with the "common" kids (it never stopped me) I came to the bizarre conclusion that the funny people, whatever they were, all lived on council estates. However among us kids, the existence of "dirty old men" was quite well known! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edcayton Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 We built bangers into the cheap Airfix plane kits, staged crashes and set light to them, They gave out a fabulous thick black smelly smoke before the BANG! And Jetex propelled cars/boats/planes. Ed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Tony_S Posted September 7, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 7, 2011 I wonder if the strontium-90 in our bones helps give a nice rosy tint to the 1950s? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 Born in the 1970s, I can just about remember an age when there wasn't this obsession with expensive designer-label trainers ('cos there weren't any). When you went out to play, it was either in your school shoes, plimsolls or wellies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Natalie Graham Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds , KFC, Subway or Nandos. Just shows, some things were safer back then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_Hughes Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 ... and the Fish and Chips was wrapped in an old newspaper! Wonderful! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 Just be thankful you survived, infant mortality in the 30s was 10 times what it is today.......... Yes, but those few who survived were good 'uns. In the early 60's, I remember when riding my bike, flying over the bonnet of someones car - no helmet in those days. Still, I survived and am none the worse for wear. One day I was doing sums and the teacher (nasty bu**er he was), leaned over and asked if I had used a ruler to draw the line underneath. Obviously I hadn't so he took my ruler and smacked my hand with it - several times. Ahhh, good ol' days. It was HUGE treat for the family to take the train (amazingly we didn't have a car) for a day out to Blackpool. The first stop was Woolies for buckets, spades and flags. The water was horrendously polluted (as we know now). Mum in her summer frock, dad in his white shirt and suit pants with the legs rolled up (can't remember if he had a knotted hankie on his head), both sitting in those rented deckchairs. The trip was enormously appreciated. Only 2 channels on the B&W TV. No remote. If you were posh (we weren't) you might have BBC2 where you could watch colour programs on colour TVs that never worked properly. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenton Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 We also played with mercury and phosphorus. Afterall they needed to teach you how to actually MAKE things like barometers, thermometers, matches and incendiaries ... some war had not long finished and there was certain to be another one along soon where such skills would be needed again. My school had a heavy military influence with possibly 1/3 of the intake from the services with our own firing range, a common punishment being to sign out a 303 rifle and to run a certain number of circuits of the rugby pitch with it raised head high, clean it, and sign it back in. But then I guess discipline was something instilled a pass being required on our cv. No one really complained, didn't like it maybe, but it was always fair punishment for doing something wrong, running in the corridor, late for a lesson, answering back to a teacher or prefect, all those little trivia that kept us in line until "after school". These days it would be considered some form of torture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluebottle Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 I think that the general consensus of this thread so far is that life is a whole lot safer for frogs these days... 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 All we need now is 3 Yorkshiremen. If you miss the reference you are too young. John 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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