Growing up in the 70s and 80s, there are not many occasions when my rents (down with the kids there) asked me where I’d been, when I’d been out all day.
For those of you of a younger disposition, allow me to elaborate.
We’d be out in all weathers, apart from heavy rain, when it was a boring stay in your bedroom playing, until it finally cleared and you returned to the outside world.
Imagine now, when you are sent to play in your room, joy!
Well in the 70s & 80s the same was thought of, when you were yet again told to “Go and play out!”
Half eight or nine, would see us skip out of the back door and disappear into the real world, until teatime, or the afternoon for a quick snack (on a non school day), then back out as quick as a flash.
If mates called (knocking or walking in via the back door – the front door was only ever used for important people, like police, or important visitors) and you weren’t in, then they would have to attempt to find you.
They almost always did, with unerring accuracy, they would be able to pinpoint your whereabouts, over vast distances.
You could be up in a tree 3 miles away, whacking conkers out for everyone, they’d find you.
You could be 5 miles the opposite way, grabbing frog spawn (by hand) to put in a huge white nappy bucket and keep, “Round your back” until they grew into frogs and bogged off.
You could be, “Down the shop,” helping another friend to decide and spend their 10p on a mixed bag, which you got to share.
You could be in the nearest stream building a dam, you could be raiding another gang’s bonfire to put on your own, you could be 3 mile north, sledging down the hill on a bin liner or long chunk of cardboard, you could be playing footy round at the little park, etc.
Building countless numbers of dens, playing in half finished or derelict buildings, skimming, scoffing raw rhubarb, crab apples, plums from the local allotments.
With not a single mobile phone in sight!
Now I know the world changes and it’s not your fault that you cannot do all these things in today’s sterile world, but you’ve had all these freedoms taken away from you.
Land owners, fences, barriers, no ball games, keep out, is all that you get today.
Play only in designated areas, more often than not with parental supervision.
It’s rubbish.
Otherwise, cram your bedrooms with the latest gadgets and screen games and stick you in them, all day, everyday.
Most of these same parents, enjoyed the things they stop their children from doing.
They didn’t and won’t stand up for genuine freedoms for children to play and develop.
When was the last time you made a dutch arrow? (Do you even know what a dutch arrow is?)
When did you last make a go-kart, with wheels from the scrappers? Pushing down the nearest road with only the sole of your trainer on the wheel for a brake?
When did you last fly a kite?
Make a catapult out of an old inner tube and a dolly peg?
Play in old scrapped cars or land rovers?
Fish with a net?
Pop open a glass bottle of milk and swag the cream? (Yes recycled glass bottles, delivered daily and the cream that’s no longer allowed or available that is now “Good bacteria” additives, which are plastic packaged and a multi-million pound industry)?
Mud fights in a derelict building or an unfinished house build?
Help out on the local farm with the hay bailing? In return for a feast from the farmer’s wife and tractor/trailer rides?
When did you last find a tortoise in the wild? A rabbit? Dogs that roam freely then go home when it was getting dark or a mealtime?
Go to a park without having to be driven there and back?
On the subject of parks…
Your slides today are pants, ours were easily about 12 foot high, without safety ground and in summer you’d run up the slide the wrong way and you hadn’t lived until you’d screeched your way down without a shirt on or in shorts and leaving your skin at the top!
Your roundabouts are girly.
Ours were big boxed types, that you laid down on your belly and tried to pick up a lolly stick up from underneath, while the blood rushed out of your eyeballs as someone was spinning it at the speed of sound.
If you got the stick, you’d then drop it under for someone else to go at.
Ever rode on a witches hat?
Another 12 foot park ride with a concrete base that spun around, that you could also climb right to the top of!
Rocked the 6 seated horse up, so it almost came off it’s base and crashed down leaving you feeling as if you’d been whacked in the spine with a hammer (if you didn’t stay on your feet).
What is it with your titchy witchy swings?
About as thrilling as a paper cut.
Ours were so long/tall, when you got to level height with the frame top, the chains would kink and you felt like you floating in air, nature’s way of warning you that if you went any higher you’d look like a right tool in front of your mates!
That’s if you could find a swing that hadn’t been “kicked” all the way around, that the council used to have to come out every so often to untangle from it’s wrap around the frame.
Bikes.
If you were lucky enough to have a bike, or one that you’d made yourself out of old parts (normally with only a front brake) you shared it, it’s home was in your front or back garden.
You had a puncture, you fixed it, you didn’t buy a new inner tube or tyre.
You glued a patch on it and covered it in french chalk, (after bending two of your mum’s best forks getting the tyre off) then blew it up, stuck it in a bucket of water to check for air bubbles.
Water fights.
No super soakers, or water balloons by the thousand.
You waited for mum’s fairy liquid bottle to run out and used that and if you got to fill it once you were lucky, after that you’d not be allowed back in the house to fill it again.
That’s if you didn’t drink the water from your bottle, an outside tap or a hose.
Chalk.
No, find some plaster board, then deface the street with arrows leading your mates to somewhere and nowhere.
Nature’s rain would clean it. No one would complain as it’s just kids.
“What’s for tea?”
“Shit wi’ sugar on!”
You ate the same as everyone else in your house, no take outs, the occasional chippy tea was a rare treat.
If you didn’t eat it, you’d get it for your breakfast the next day.
Puddings came out of a tin.
Want a biscuit? If you were lucky you got a couple of biscuits, not a full pack.
Most probably, broken biscuits from a pack from the market.
Toys.
You’d get them for birthdays and Christmas, not every other week.
No huge parties for birthdays, it was a disco to your rent’s records after a picky tea, of finger buns, crisps, sausages on sticks and if you were lucky, you’d have balloons.
All the kids on your street would come around for it, as you knew everybody, even the ones that didn’t go to your school, as you’d play with them every week, all year round.
Teeth.
The going rate was 5p small 10p big.
Only later did it increase a bit. Not the £2 a tooth it is now!
I lost count of the number of kids I knew growing up, who lived in their wellies, no matter the weather.
If you had an old brother, you got their stuff when they had outgrown it, with only occasional new stuff like socks and undies for you.
Christmas was a pillow case, everyone got a selection box (they used to be mixed then between all the brands), some new felt tips, a colouring book and lots of stocking fillers.
You’d get one main present, or a super present to share with your brother or sister and the rest were stocking fillers and board games. (There’s that word again… share!)
I remember a tv game and a black and white portable tv, that was an amazing Christmas, even the milkman stayed for over an hour playing on it!
Aunties.
Not real relations of course, friends and neighbours of mum and dad that used to visit occasionally and if there was no one in at your house, you’d go round to theirs and they’d feed you and send you on your way, or could go to them if you needed help for anything.
Bedtime.
When did bedtimes get so late?
Once we went up the wooden hills (8.30pm on a school night, 9pm on a weekend or holiday) we went up to sleep and it was then adult’s time.
Your world today is so bland, sterile and reliant on money.
If only I could take you back for one day and show you how great life used to be.
You don’t know what you’re missing.