Would you believe it ….?

Sorry for sounding pessimistic, but not all kids from my era have it easy.

Do you think I want to go out and get stabbed?
Do I like being called names and looked at school for being the fat one?
Do I like having to put up with social pressure from the media telling us all that it’s our fault that there is so much crime and that every kid needs an ASBO?

” Us older types ” !! Look, I told you already,my HUSBAND is an older type.People who like Nightwish and Linkin Park are Forever Young.Who am I kidding ? When I went to get my senior’s ticket at the aviation fair where I got my flying boat books yesterday I certainly wasn’t asked to prove my age.But they did let me in free because I’m a lady and I thought that only happened in nightclubs ! Anyway I’d much rather be thought cynical than naïve .

And if democratic elections would actually change anything they would be banned immediately. Some call us older types cynical-I just call us realistic. You really don’t need many brain cells to see how the politicians are taking us for a ride ( regardless of party and nationality)

You seriously think politicians were once altruistic ?I can’t think of many from my youth that I’d describe as a person of honesty and integrity.Ian McLeod perhaps ? ( See,I really AM that old ).They’ve mostly all just been out for what they can get since forever.

Even I can’t remember that far back.

😀 In that case youare either a) not as old as you would have us believe. Or b) have a short memory.:D:D
I have to say I wholeheartedly agree with Steve about the way we grew up. That was the kind of childhood I had and I loved it. Actually it seems the harder the lifestyle the better it is for you., My dad was a lad in the ’20s and he’s still aroound to tell his great grandchildren about it.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1920’s, 30’s 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 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, 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 colored 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 some of us took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a car on a warm day was always a special treat.

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.

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 sweets and some fire crackers to blow up frogs and lizards 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 scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and cubby houses and played in creek beds with matchbox cars.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no videogames at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape or DVD movies, no surround sound, 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…….no really!

We were given BB guns and sling shots for our 10th birthdays,

We drank milk laced with Strontium 90 from cows that had eaten grass covered in nuclear fallout from the atomic testing sites in 1956.

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 belt us with big sticks and leather straps 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 got married before they had children and didn’t invent stupid names for their kids like ‘Kiora’ and ‘Blade’….

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 70 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

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.

Glad I was a 60’s kid.:D What fun we had.

Thanks for the post Steve.It’s sometimes difficult to remember how different life was when we were kids. That’s not to say many things aren’t a lot better now – for instance,my daughter and I communicate a lot better than my Mum and I ever did.Things changed enormously in the sixties and I think that’s largely what’s shaped us today. When I was clanging my hippie bells discipline and particularly self-discipline were to be avoided at all costs.Parents began raising kids accustoned to putting number one first and blow anyone else,and that attitude has carried over to the next generation.

I think the answer to that is – The day politicians put the priority on serving their pockets rather than the nation. How long ago was that?

Even I can’t remember that far back.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1920’s, 30’s 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 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, 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 colored 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 some of us took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a car on a warm day was always a special treat.

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.

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 sweets and some fire crackers to blow up frogs and lizards 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 scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and cubby houses and played in creek beds with matchbox cars.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no videogames at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape or DVD movies, no surround sound, 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…….no really!

We were given BB guns and sling shots for our 10th birthdays,

We drank milk laced with Strontium 90 from cows that had eaten grass covered in nuclear fallout from the atomic testing sites in 1956.

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 belt us with big sticks and leather straps 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 got married before they had children and didn’t invent stupid names for their kids like ‘Kiora’ and ‘Blade’….

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 70 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

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.

I think the answer to that is – The day politicians put the priority on serving their pockets rather than the nation. How long ago was that?

I should think well before Oliver Cromwells time Mike 😀

Think you did Paul 😀 My question is when did the UK start going wrong ?

I think the answer to that is – The day politicians put the priority on serving their pockets rather than the nation. How long ago was that?

As you see ,the final shreds of my own sanity have finally waved goodbye.Sod it ,where’s the chocolate.

I’ve actually been living in the real world for a good deal longer than most people on here,which is why I don’t just meekly accept this sort of thing as ” progress “.I grew up all right without the government worrying its pretty little head about what I was up to 24 hours a day.Oh,and it also managed not to squander my hard-earned taxes on puerile adverts telling me to give children smaller portions,use a hanky if I’ve got a cold,and not to eat my Christmas turkey if it’s still coughing up blood.And the Wagon Wheels WERE bigger.I’m now off to start reading the 3 books I’ve just bought about flying boats,which were around when this country still retained a few shreds of sanity .

Think you did Paul 😀 My question is when did the UK start going wrong ?

It’s not that I care as such, and I can’t really answer your question as to when it started going wrong. I started realising what a sad, paranoid nation we are when I started spending a lot of time abroad around 5 years ago. I’ve never seen the same level of parnoia and ‘prying eyes’ anywhere else I’ve ever been, but my problem with the UK runs deeper than that. I’ve also never come across such an apathetic, ignorant bunch of people as the British public (that may sound harsh, but I really do believe it to be true). There are many wonderful, genuine and caring people in this country; of course there are, but travelling as much as I do and going to the variety of places I go, I see generally far more helpful and welcoming attitudes out of the UK than I see in it. I hear people talk of how patriotic and proud to be British they are, and I’m just left in puzzled confusion contemplating what exactly we have to be proud of. We were at the centre of the industrial revolution and lead the world in many aspects of engineering; George Stephenson was building the most advanced railways in the world; Isambard Kingdom Brunel was building the biggest ships that ever sailed the seas and designing the most impressive bridges the world had ever seen, but all this happened a century and a half ago and it seems we’ve been on the decline ever since. You really can’t blame visitors to our nation for seeing us as an ostensibly loud mouthed, ignorant, beer swilling bunch of apathetic louts with a liking for casual violence, because that’s exactly how we appear, even to me.

Cynical? Perhaps, but every time I leave the UK (on average around 30 times a year) I’m left wondering why I never see the same attitudes elsewhere. That kinda says something to me!

Well better enter the real world! Progress will never stop.;)

That depends on your definition of progress, don’t you think? 😉

Hoookay… Rant over. I’ll crawl back into my hole now! 😀

Paul

I’ll spare you the whole 10 minute rant – it’s just that my Mum and Dad didn’t join up at thd age of 17 to fight for the right of some jobsworth to see how often I log on to the QVC website.Plus I definitely didn’t sign up to GoogleEarth photographing my garden gnomes for the world and his dog to gawp at .

Well better enter the real world! Progress will never stop.;)

I really hate the UK! Everything is monitored and controlled. They tell you what you should be eating, want us all to work all the hours under the sun with little rest and treat you like dirt when you’re ill, watch our movements on CCTV, monitor calls, emails and even what website we visit.. next thing they’ll be installing cameras in our houses and watching what we do – sit down for 5mins and you’ll get a fine.

I’ll spare you the whole 10 minute rant – it’s just that my Mum and Dad didn’t join up at thd age of 17 to fight for the right of some jobsworth to see how often I log on to the QVC website.Plus I definitely didn’t sign up to GoogleEarth photographing my garden gnomes for the world and his dog to gawp at .

well good for you guys that its only your own government that get to snuff there…our E-mail and phone records alledgly are beeing recorded by Swedish military authorities:eek:

Think you did Paul 😀 My question is when did the UK start going wrong ?

Is this not similar to CCTV tracking your movements and monitoring you? If so, my view still stands: if you’re not doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about. And if someone attempts to do something wrong, or DOES something wrong, then the aids are there to prevent them or catch them.