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before the PC. BRIGADE

  • Thread starter Thread starter jake
  • Start date Start date
J

jake

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TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE

1 930'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.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs 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, not to mention, the risks we took
hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE
actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop 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. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell
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 and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and althoug h we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to 'get over it'

Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 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!
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.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!


 
Jake
How right you are, dont you just marvel how we survived it all. I often marvel how my ancestors survived in the nineteenth century factories and founderies or the children that worked the mines.

Yes we had rules and regulations in our day but they were common sense ones and not the 'nannying' we have today. I for one am very grateful for the education I had in the 'school of life, in the 50's and it has stood me in great stead in todays world and it has helped my children who learned much from me.

In my day from an early age we learnt to think for ourselves, had lots of common sense and learned to be self sufficient. We had a strong survival instinct and taking the example from our parents learned to care for our neighbours who equally cared for us in times of trouble or joy and we learned to survive on very little money.

In todays world you can have everything now and there is no joy in saving up for an item or joining the local 20 week club like we did and saving a shilling a week and looking forward with excited anticipation for your 'turn' to come when you could go to the shop and get your 20 shillings worth of goods all at one go. I suppose we could have saved our own shilling a week but we would never have kept up with it and it would have been spent, the 20 week club at Bullivants on Nechells park road gave you the chance of spending more money at one go that you could ever hope to save up.

The thrill of your first weeks wages and the freedom and joy of frivolously buying the latest record and then the guilt of 'wasting so much money' later in the week when you had run out of spending money until the next pay day.

When you look back you find out we were doing everything right without knowing it.

Everyone walked everywhere and this kept them healthier. Every morning we had porridge because it was cheap and filled you up until dinner time. Now we find out it is very good for you especially in lowering cholestrol and helping diabetic patients.

At school we had a healthy freshly cooked dinner made from local good quality produce in the school canteen, strictly overlooked by the teachers who ate the same food as us. There was little thought to the profitability of the meals only to the nutritional goodness contained in them especially for poorer children for whom it was often the only cooked meal they had.
Schools cared in those days and they knew which pupils that had a hard home life and did their best to help them, well my school at Charles Arthur Street did anyway.

School lessons were not only academic but also had practical lessons to prepare us for life and I wonder how much grounding the pupils of today are given. You dont need too many lessons to open a tin or microwave a meal but could the modern generations cook a meal from fresh local ingredients.

In the cookery lessons we learned how to shop for the best quality food, how to recognise the best cuts of meat, pick the ripest fruit and learned when each food was in season. We baked bread, prepared, cooked and costed out a wholesome meal, made jam and marmalade when fruit was in season.

We leant how to clean a house properly, starting at the top and working our way down, how to top and tail a bed, the correct way to polish furniture, apply mansion polish correctly and polish it off without streaks and going with the grain of the wood.

We also had sewing lessons, how to darn a sock, embroider a table cloth or chair cushion, repair a tear, sew a dress etc . If a child could not afford to buy the materials needed the teacher would ask them to make something for them and they provided what was needed from their own pocket. Such poorer children were made to feel special in making something for the teacher and not left out. I never remember bullying in school, if there was out headmaster Mr Mullins would not have stood for it.

We went to the Onion fair with other children, played hop scotch, whip and top, skipping games and ball games. Some mothers used to send their kids out to play while they did the weekly wash and no one even thought that any harm would come to them. Children tended to congregate and if there was any trouble someone would always run home for their dad or mom.

Children felt safer with guidelines and consiquences for bad behaviour. We would never have back chatted our parents (only under our breath) and most of us respected the teachers.

There is so much we have to be greatful for and we sometimes forget that in the rush of the modern day world. How many of us would like to be young in todays world armed without the life experiences we have.

Happy days:)
 
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