These changing times.
Watching the little children walking into their school today with their mobile phones held to their ears, their skate-boards and their bicycles, I couldn’t help but wonder just how radically the lives of our youngsters have changed.
But have they changed for the better?
When I was a young boy, about six years old, we never had to go to school laden down with huge back-packs filled with things that we might not even need that day. We just went.
The teacher had our school workbooks in a cupboard, along with pencils, rulers and erasers.
Today’s children need to be really strong to carry those huge back-packs to school and back home at the end of each school day.
After arriving home it is back to the mobile phone or onto the computer to play games, or to swap e-mails and SMS’s.
What a far cry from our two empty tins and a long string to relay message to one another!.
We played in the streets until bedtime.
We played “hide and seek” and “kick the tin”, running like the clappers to find hiding places from the seeker.
We dreamed of getting roller-skates for Xmas, but few were blessed with such luxuries.
A bogie, or a bike made from scrap parts, were real show-pieces to make our friends envious, and the girls would make chips using a cardboard box, two tin lids and a couple of small candles for a source of heat.
Saturday mornings saw us trooping into the local cinema to watch cartoons and serials with Buster Crabbe or Roy Rogers, or the Lone Ranger. No DVD’s for us.
Saturday afternoons were for swimming.
No Speedo’s for us.
A jersey with the sleeves cut off and the neck-opening stitched up were our fashion, all held up with a “snake belt”.
Happy days eh Alan?.
After swimming we would head off to the Park with a bottle of water and some jam sandwiches.
We’d fish for sticklebacks, and maybe someone with a net would collect frog-spawn, and we would troop back hoem to proudly display our catches to our parents.
All too soon bed-time would roll around, and it was off to bed, 7.30 p.m.not midnight!
We had respect for our parents, the police, and our neighbours too. Everybody was in charge of our conduct, no doubts about that!
We had next to nothing, but I think we had more than today’s children.
Kitos.