Nice people thread

Davesnave

That's a great post Pobby. Nowadays, they'd barricade the whole place off with fencing and razor wire, in case any child got in, fell, and the parents sued.

I think we boomers had it good, both in the cities with the bomb damage areas, and in the countryside, where you could do much as you pleased. When I switched from the former to the latter, I couldn't believe my luck. Mind you, everyone thought I was odd because at 8 or 9 I hadn't learned to drive a tractor!

lostinrates

Davesnave wrote: »

That's a great post Pobby. Nowadays, they'd barricade the whole place off with fencing and razor wire, in case any child got in, fell, and the parents sued.

I know I have shared this tale on the board before, but soething that sums up where we have got now was overhearing some English people in Venice.

''They ought to have fences/barricades up here...kiddies could fall in and drown''. They souned genuinely shocked and surprised that there were canale in Venezia. They SERIOUSLY thought that they should be fenced off.

I think my generation were already lumbered to a degree with lack of initiative and imagination, and risk evaluation....and just getting into srapes...from the adults' need to provide ''stuff'' and ''places'' for youth...but its so much worse still now.

Alan_Cross

Chocolate.

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

They SERIOUSLY thought that they should be fenced off.

There's a similar cry 2-3x every year when some drunken teen falls off the cliffs and dies at 2-4am along the coast... "they should fence the cliffs off". Yeah, right.

Here's one at random: http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/news/Teacher-calls-better-fencing-death-fall-cliff/article-1224238-detail/article.html

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

There's a similar cry 2-3x every year when some drunken teen falls off the cliffs and dies at 2-4am along the coast... "they should fence the cliffs off". Yeah, right.

Here's one at random: http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/news/Teacher-calls-better-fencing-death-fall-cliff/article-1224238-detail/article.html

Lunacy.

Perhaps they should fence each of us off from the other so no one can inflict any harm on anyone else either :rolleyes:.

Pobby

Oh we had thrills and spills OK. Like the day we took my dirt track bike out for it`s maiden flight. Andy Cox and I built and painted it pink. Boy was I pleased with it. We went off to a well know dirt track about a mile or so away.

So there we were, me being the youngest, all revved up. My turn! Off I set down the embankment, ooops, sharp bend. Bang! Hit a large hole. Bike stands still. I don`t. My first experience of flying. Head first into a bramble bush. My face looked like raspberry ripple. Hmmm, found that track a bit " senior " for me.

2 weeks later, down at the bottom of the garden I made a small bonfire. Might do a spud or something. Got this brilliant idea. Found this flat slate thing, that would make a good hob so supported with a few bricks it sat astride the fire.

Suddenly. BANG!!!!!! The darn thing had exploded. More cuts to my face. I learn`t that asbestos plaster board doesn`t make a great thing to cook on.

If anyone is interested I will tale the tell the tale of when we saw UFO`s.

carolt

Bill Bryson's memories of his youth, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - apart from being as brilliantly and wittily written as all his stuff is - show what growing up in 1950's America was really like - a bizarre paradise, in terms of kids' total freedom, due to their parents' utter naivety (thus kids making bombs in the bedrooms type-activity), yet likewise, completely hellish, in that things that we now know are really dangerous, like...um.. nuclear weapons tests, were regarded as a kind of interesting day out for all the family. (Seriously.)

A good read, both for genuine nostalgia for that kind of freedom, and a salutory lesson as to why it's not quite like that any more.

vivatifosi

lostinrates wrote: »

''They ought to have fences/barricades up here...kiddies could fall in and drown''. They souned genuinely shocked and surprised that there were canale in Venezia. They SERIOUSLY thought that they should be fenced off.

I think my generation were already lumbered to a degree with lack of initiative and imagination, and risk evaluation....and just getting into srapes...from the adults' need to provide ''stuff'' and ''places'' for youth...but its so much worse still now.

I have heard of one local authority where members of the public asked for the lower limbs to be cut off trees in parks so that their children don't climb them, fall and hurt themselves.

And another where, after 20 odd years of health and safety getting slowly more bonkers, parents are having to be taught how to play outside with their children because they never did it themselves and can't cope with their kids coming in dirty.

You couldn't make it up... (and I promise I haven't)

lostinrates

vivatifosi wrote: »

I have heard of one local authority where members of the public asked for the lower limbs to be cut off trees in parks so that their children don't climb them, fall and hurt themselves.

And another where, after 20 odd years of health and safety getting slowly more bonkers, parents are having to be taught how to play outside with their children because they never did it themselves and can't cope with their kids coming in dirty.

You couldn't make it up... (and I promise I haven't)

ROFL...

tbh I don't think my parents payed outside with me much....but as a kid you just figure out how yourself.

Spirit_2

We moved from 'slums' in birmingham to a new house in an overspill town when I was 4 (1965) the houses around us were still being built.

My mum walked home from the shops one day to witness my two year old brother and I jumping from the flat roofed bungalow at the top of the road into a pile of builders sand.

We got told off because our clothes were stained red:D

Those were the days