Shrimpsvoices

CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE WHO WAS BORN IN THE
1930's 1940's, 50's, 60's and early 70’s!

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.

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,
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.

We ate worms out of the 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!

RUGBYand 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 and there were bully's inthe 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'

this is so true but it has been around for a long time now

why do you feel it important to point out anything anyone posts that is second hand, is second hand scalehallshrimp

You make it sound so fun to be back then, for some reason all I can think of when reading that is the film 'stand by me' dont know if anyone else had it pop in their heads too

I think you can add the early 80's to that list too, I seem to remember you being a year or two below me in school so you must be an early 80's baby yourself loyalsupporter?? Times have certainly changed alot in the last 30 years! kids complain they have 'nowt to do' ?? the problem is they have no imagination! I spent hours of my summer holidays making dens, playing football, roller skating, playing cricket, making go karts and if it was raining I spend hours playing monopoly with my mates.

Kids just don't seem to have the freedom or the imagination to be able to do anything but sit in front of a pc or gaming console or hang about on street corners and cause trouble.

I know this is a massive generalisation but I really do think a time without technology was much healthier time for a childs development.

The strongest bonds I ever made with friends was back when we spent hours just digging around in dirt making dens and playing at war, as one poster says, stand by me is a reminder of times gone by when childhood was good and proper!

WOW, you remember me from school, I presume you mean secondary school, if you refering to primary school then you must have one hell of a good memory

early 80's I am indeed, 1982 to be exact

I spent my summer holidays the same as yourself, if I were not playing football or some other sport on lancaster Road field behind MFC then I was in my pedal kart pedaling like mad up and down hills and pullin skids at the bottom (wedging coke cans in my wheels to make it sound like a motor bike whilst firing my imaginary machine gun at absolutely anybody)

North Stand Shrimp wrote:I think you can add the early 80's to that list too, I seem to remember you being a year or two below me in school so you must be an early 80's baby yourself loyalsupporter?? Times have certainly changed alot in the last 30 years! kids complain they have 'nowt to do' ?? the problem is they have no imagination! I spent hours of my summer holidays making dens, playing football, roller skating, playing cricket, making go karts and if it was raining I spend hours playing monopoly with my mates.

Kids just don't seem to have the freedom or the imagination to be able to do anything but sit in front of a pc or gaming console or hang about on street corners and cause trouble.

I know this is a massive generalisation but I really do think a time without technology was much healthier time for a childs development.

The strongest bonds I ever made with friends was back when we spent hours just digging around in dirt making dens and playing at war, as one poster says, stand by me is a reminder of times gone by when childhood was good and proper!

Wasn't it great when there were no health and safety fascists

and your 6 weeks summer holidays easily felt like 6 months, and it was allways sunny everyday

Ah yes, sitting in the dark with a few white Price's table candles lit cos the electric was off again...those were the days, when the unions had real power, strikes were strikes and Maggie T hadn't yet turned much of the nation into a bunch of money-grabbing, self-centred, selfish toe-rags.

Most people knew someone who'd fought in one of the World Wars or remembered the terror of war first hand, there were the ever present threats of nuclear devastation or IRA bombings, and the Munich Olympics were targetted by ... oo... terrorists. How times change...

wedging coke cans in my wheels to make it sound like a motor bike whilst firing my imaginary machine gun at absolutely anybody

you were posh weren't ya?

back in the old land (Coventry) we used a clothes peg on the frame and a stiff bit of card on our bikes

there were the ever present threats of nuclear devastation

yeah i allways use to think that and how long would it take me to run home from school and could i make it in under 3mins

and them TV adverts telling you to put a mattress under the stair case and save loads of tinned food and water, then the jobs a good un