If you're not smiling by the end of this then what were you
doing when you were young? Just for a minute, forget everything stressful and read this.
Close your eyes and go back in time......
Before the Internet...Before semi-automatics, joyriders and crack....Before SEGA or Super Nintendo...
Way back........
I'm talking about Hide and Seek in the park.
The corner shop.
Hopscotch.
Butterscotch.
Skipping.
Handstands.
Football with an old can.
Fingerbob.
Beano, Dandy, Buster, Twinkle and Dennis the menace.
Roly Poly.
Hula Hoops, jumping the stream, building dams.
The smell of the sun and fresh cut grass.
Bazooka Joe bubble gum.
An ice cream cone on a warm summer night from the van that plays a tune Chocolate or vanilla or strawberry or maybe Neapolitan or perhaps a screwball.
Wait......
Watching Saturday morning cartoons, short commercials or the flicks.
Childrens Film Foundation, The Double Deckers, Red Hand Gang, The Tomorrow People, Tiswas or Swapshop?, and 'Why Don't You'? - or staying up for Doctor Who.
When around the corner seemed far away and going into town seemed like going somewhere. Earwigs, wasps, stinging nettles and bee stings. Sticky fingers. Playing Marbles. Ball bearings. Big 'uns and Little 'uns. Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, and Zorro. Climbing trees. Building igloos out of snow banks. Walking to school, no matter what the weather. Running till you were out of breath, laughing so hard that your stomach hurt. Jumping on the bed. Pillow fights. Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles.
Being tired from playing....remember that?
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team. Water balloons were the ultimate weapon.
Football cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle. Choppers and Grifters.
Eating raw jelly. Orange squash ice pops.
Remember when...
There were two types of trainers - girls and boys, and Dunlop Green Flash and the only time you wore them at school was for P.E. You knew everyone in your street - and so did your parents. It wasn't odd to have two or three
"best" friends. You didn't sleep a wink on Christmas eve.
When nobody owned a pure-bred dog. When 25p was decent pocket money Curly Whirlys. Space Dust. Toffo's. Top rumps.
When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny.
When nearly everyone's mum was at home when the kids got there. When any parent could discipline any kid, or feed him or use him to carry groceries and nobody, not even the kid, thought a thing of it. When being sent to the head's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home. Basically, we were in fear for our lives but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs etc. Parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! and some of us are still afraid of them.
Didn't that feel good?
Just to go back and say, Yeah, I remember that! Remember when....
Decisions were made by going " Ip Dip Tom Tit "
"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly". The worst thing you could catch from the opposite s*x was germs. And the worst thing in your day was having to sit next to one. It was unbelievable that 'British Bulldog 123' wasn't an Olympic event. Having a weapon in school, meant being caught with a catapult. Nobody was prettier than Mum. Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better. Taking drugs meant orange-flavoured chewable aspirin. Ice cream was considered a basic food group. Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true. Older siblings were the worst tormentors, but also
the fiercest protectors.
If you can remember most or all of these, then you have LIVED.
Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their "grown up" life...
Nostalgia
Oh Mark, you made me cry...in the nicest possible sense..it bought back memories of being on hols with my Mum and Dad,somewhere like Dartmoor,and running and running just for the sheer joy of it...feeling that there wasn't anything you couldn't do or achieve.All the things you were going to do/be when you finally grew up.And didn't that seem a long way away.I can still remember my Mum saying'don't be in a hurry to groe up,enjoy your childhood' that was so so true.But at the time you could scream if it was said to yoy any more times!!....
We had swimming lessons on coir mats in our playground!!..can you imagine the scrapes on the poor old skin?
I'd spend all summer on the beach, and be as black as black come the end of summer...which I'm sure were virtually non-stop sun-shine..or so it seemed.hot sultry evening... being allowed to play out until dark in the hols..big gangs of us down this unmade road..spooky houses..dens...picnics..being so grown-up when we were allowed to go on our own to the fish shop for a 1p bag of scraps.
What I'd give to be able to go back and relive some of those moments..have that endless energy..
Blimey Mark by your reckoning I have lived an awful lot. I can remember just about everything that you have mentioned. As kids we stayed out all day on our bikes and got into all kinds of scrapes and not a question asked by our parents about what we had been doing. It is a sad fact today that us parents live in endless fear for our children, but try not to hinder them too much.
I read today that doctor who is coming back. I have only one word to say on that matter - bring back Tom Baker! LOL
The football stickers in the bikes wheels made me laugh too, and you werent cool unless you rode a chopper bike. Of course being a girl I never got to ridfe one!:( sexism or what!!
Dr Who...oh no.....I used to hide behind the sofa when that came on...I was absolutely petrified of the daleks...
Strangely enoygh, years later I took the kids to see a Dr Who exhibition, not even thinking.When behind me the daleks voice suddenly spluttered 'exterminate..exterminate!'I nearly freaked..got the kids out of there so fast!!..memories can be very powerful.LOL
Big lump-in-the-throat-time there Mark.
The Beezer on Tuesday, The Topper on Friday, Desperate Dan's Cow Pie with the horns sticking out, The Bash Street Kids, Biffo the Bear and Korky the Cat.
Spangles, The first Waggon Wheels biscuits, Gobstoppers, a penny bag of scrapings (Sueone: scraps) from Jimmy McNaughton's (yer chips are rotten) chip shop.
Gran taking us down to Largs, or Gourock for the day in the holidays. Gran taking me to primary school on a pouring wet morning, and holding the umbrella only over ME!!
Saying hello to ALL of the neighbours, getting a poke of sugar and a stock of rhubarb from Mr. McKenzie while I "helped" him in his garden.
First wee girlfriend (Janet, who had more freckles tan white skin, and had bright red/orange hair).
Bogies (soap carts), made out of old prams, learning to ride a bike, learning to skate (OUCH!!!)
At the park with my Papa (Grandfather), watching him play his bools (bowls).
Wee presents from all of the neighbours at Christmas, Easter and especially Birthday (mainly selection boxes).
Sing songs with the family around the fireplace on a windy wet evening (probably in summer ... Glasgow remember??? LOL)
Seeing the highlands and thinking "I'll never get up that mountain" (I've climbed over 400 meantime).
The telephone was so heavy, that I had to pick up the reciever with both hands.
Double decker tramcars, then trolleybusses.
Getting in to a football game for a penny at the boys gate, The Lifeboys,
"Marching along with a smile and a song,
That's the Lifeboy motto here".
Flanagan & Allen, Arthur Askey, Round The Horne (Kenneth Horne), The Goon Show, Zoo Quest,(with David Attenborough), Jack Warner in Dixon of Dock Green (Evenin' All), Eamonn Andrews (This is your Life), Jimmy Edwards.
School playground football with a tennis ball, but sometimes even a marble (that's where the great footballers came from).
Playing with tar which had softened due to the sun (a seldom experience lol), a getting hell from my Mum or Gran cos I had got tar on clothes/me/sandals, or on them all.
I could go on all day .... memories are made of this!!
Thanks Mark, it's nice to travel down Memory Lane now and then.
Wintermoor
lol Barry. thanks has to go to my friend who sent it to me.
here's one I just received, not so beautifully nostalgic but along similar lines........
Mmmm the good old days!!!
We've made it!
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.
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!
Please 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.
(If you aren't old enough, thought you might like to read about us).