The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: Unicorn on September 04, 2009, 04:53:36 pm
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First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and may have lived in houses with asbestos in them, and lead pipes.
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 hitchhiking.
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 the weekends, 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, most TV's were black and white too.
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!
RUGBY and CRICKET had tryouts and not everyone made the 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 bully's always ruled the playground at school.
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.
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
;D ;D ;D ;D
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Love it!! ;D :love:
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Brilliant! :)
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;D ;D tooooo true!!
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funny.... even to an eighties child
(Hey hey! Baby on the way,
Eighties mothers really tried (They rambled),
"No drugs,Wrap yourself in rugs
Eat your own placenta fried
(Or scrambled)."
(thanks Victoria Wood for the lyrics!)
:dunce:
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Oh Unicorn...howtrue...how true...and we were/are all the better for it!
I remember it all and come from a time when RESPECT was something you gave willingly, usually to someone older and wiser...not a shouted demand from some young thug who thinks the world owes them a living!
Where did it all go wrong?
Farmer (feeling very nostalgic)
:farmer:
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Hi Unicorn thanks for bringing back those happy memories.
Hi Farmer, lots of thugs , young and old, back then too!
JD
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True JD...perhaps my memory is a little too selective these days...but there does seem to be more violent, drunken and loutish behavour now than there very was back then. Yes we had 'Teddy Boys' and later on Mods & Rockers...but they at least had the decency to dress in uniforms that made them easily recognisable and therefore avoidable...its hard to tell who the bad guys are these days!
farmer ::)
:farmer:
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So what was you Farmer ?
Teddy bear sorry boy
Mod
or
Rocker
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I was a MOD, left School to take over a Cafe with my mum, it was a MODS haunt, I used to run it alone on Sundays and play the top 20 that I had recored on a reel to reel tape from the week before, also had a Juke Box and as I have said before, sold Northern Soul......good times ;)
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Yeah I hanged out with the mods listening to Northern Soul too
Those were the days ::) ;D ;D
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(http://smileys.on-my-web.com/repository/Cool/cool06.gif)Wigan peer had a big fire and put a stop to that for a while, then I grew up!!!
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Good times eh?
Would you go back there?
Would you wish your experience on your kids or grand kids?
I wish they weren't victim to soooooo many adverts but I 'm really glad that they don't get vesta curries as an exotic treat.
:yum:C
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As a 60's child, I can relate to this post!! And I am still here, no ill effects.
I look at friends children, who have every gadget going, and never stir from the chair, and wonder. I wonder what they would have done if they had grown up when I did, in the 60's and 70's. They would have done what we did, coped!! We knew no different, so made our own entertainment.
I never remember any fuss about what foods were dangerous to eat, or sell by dates. We had no fridge, so stuff was kept in the pantry!!! We had no central heating, so just put more layers on, and extra blankets on the bed. The inside of the window would be iced up many winters morning - but we came to no harm!!!
I do sometimes think back to the innocence we had as kids growing up. Nowadays they seem old before their time, and miss out on the childhood fun we enjoyed.
I certainly would not want to grow up in this era. I have happy memories of my childhood, and thats what is important.
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Wholeheartedly agree Roxy.
So glad that we live half way up a mountain in the middle of nowhere and that our child is
outdoors most of the time with her animals, or playing in the woods with the dogs.
We have tried our best to make childhood as it should be, and its great to see how happy kids
can be without all the games etc - the whole generation will probably have to wear glasses by the time they are in their late 20's from all the game and tv watching, no wonder their already worrying about obesity
in children - we were always running around outside - not couch potatoes like today
Here's to the good ol days (http://smileyicons.net/s/759.gif)
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I wasn't a mod. a rocker, or anything else, I went to a Choir ;D - but I remember my Mum being very worried when I started going to CND meetings with some newly acquired friends (with hindsight I think they 'acquired' me). But I got bored with being inside and watching their propaganda films - so she needn't have worried - I was soon back outside looking for farm horses to speak to and playing with Susie my spaniel cross.
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Think my kids had the best of both worlds
surrounded by hills fields rivers etc but also choices and parents with cars to go to the cinema
Their granny lived near here as a girl on a farm. Her dad was the ploughman. She hates the countryside now and refuses to visit in case she sees a mouse. She loves her centrally heated bungalow and Asda. She cannot understand why we would choose to live in a field and keep hens (which are muddy and smelly)
I don't knkow which way my kids will go but I am really glad that they are negotiating the maze of modern life and are becoming lovely young women. My eldest daughter leaves home this week and I just look at her and am so proud. She is sensible, grounded, good company and independent. Growing up in the naughties has not been too bad for her.
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"Growing up in the naughties"
That's a very good quote, hope you don't mind if I use it myself now. ;)
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Sad to say Unicorn I was very much a Rocker, Triumph Bonnevile motor bike, Elvis Presley hair cut and leathers...never got into any trouble though, just liked the style!
God...those were the days...long trips on the bike with my friends and lots of girls wanting a ride (on my bike)...now its just a memory! :( :(
Farmer
:farmer:
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Secretly I used to fancy some of the Rockers, went out with
oneor two eventulay, but remember being very embaressed getting onto the back of an old Scooter when all the Rockers rumbled buy on their large Bikes, just did not like all that Black leather!!!!!! When I grew up I don't remember children having designer outfits or other status symbles, maybe a Parker Pen was all I aspired to? Sad had we have ALL been drawn into the advertisers laps, even though we think we may have not.....I must add, I feel I have had 2 youths!!!!!! (not men but moments in life!!!) ;D ;D
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hehe i was born in the early 80's an didn't have much so don't tar every one with the same brush ;)
Linz
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Hey Linz...how are things? Just wait till the bump grows up and becomes a TAS member so he/she can read all this stuff...be the only kid in Britain with so many Uncles and Aunties!
Best wishes
Farmer ;D
:farmer:
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ooh I can remember watching all the rockers clad in their leathers, and admiring all their nice bikes. I did eventually go out with a young Elivis look alike, clad in his leather jacket. He used to take me for a spin on his Triumph Bonneville ...........goodness, that must be more years ago than I care to remember. Saw him a while back, and the lovely black quiff is now replaced by a very bald head, but never mind, still have my memories, don't I!!!
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Do I feel a new thread coming on? Past loves - what are they like 10, 20, 30 years on?
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(http://smileys.on-my-web.com/repository/Battle/slicer.gif)(http://smileys.on-my-web.com/repository/Others/zombie-302.gif)(http://smileys.on-my-web.com/repository/Others/prison-102.gif)(http://smileys.on-my-web.com/repository/TV_and_Movies/superman-239.gif)
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Oh dear - I think I'm going to fess up.. I was a biker. I cringe at the thought of those jeans that I tried to get so dirty they would stand up on their own. I am soooooo glad that my kids like clean jeans.
Do you remeber how much people used to smell? Not just bikers with dirty jeans but women with hairspray - people who didn't bath much....grannies of powder and oldness... milk seemed to go off in a couple of days. Mind you that probably showed it was unprocessed. Cigarettes - buses and telephone boxes stank.
Carbolic soap.... somethings have definitely changed for the better
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We were smelly, no one worn deoderant as far as I was aware!!!!! a bath once a week, IZAL toilet paper and we had no elastic, socks, pants and eventualy tights fell down(http://smileys.on-my-web.com/repository/Surprise/surprised-021.gif) itchy home made jumpers and trousers and I had some lovley national health specs that made behind my ears itch so I had rubber around them!!! NICE
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yup! knickers that were half an inch thick and came up to your rib cage. Tasted apple juice for the first time when I was about 8 and thought I had died and gone to heaven. Talk about itchy jumpers....they were hell and damp sheets that never really warmed up in the winter and then the new improved bri nylon sheets that sparked when you rolled over. Rubbish waterproof clothing. Yep I love the naughties. Please do use the expression, I filched it from somewhere else.
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I remember clearly when I was about 8 wearing a vest and on top of it, a liberty bodice - similar to my vest but it had buttons. When us kids had a cold, my mum used to light something in the bedroom, to help us breathe...help us breathe? The smell was enough to leave you gasping. Cannot remember what it was called, though.