The Old Days

Congratulations to all my friends and family who were born between the 1930s and 1960s.

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 hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags and we went round the streets on Go-carts made from old pram wheels & bits of wood. 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, or Subway. Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on Sundays, 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 okay. 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...

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 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. 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. A burly policeman would clip you round the ear and our parents actually sided with the law...

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.