We would spend hours making paper kites, building things out of scraps with old pram wheels or cycle rims, inventing our own games, having pound parties, playing traditional games called hide and seek, kick the can, 'guli danda', 'seven tiles' and rounders, ride old cycles 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.
Our parents earned less, never travelled abroad. Religion was never an issue, everyone trusted and loved each other, and came to each other's aid when needed.
We never heard of or claimed our inheritance, whilst our parents were alive. We did not look for inheritance after they died too. They made sure we were alright. Never heard of pocket money!
We swam with an inflated tube which we got from somebody who was replacing their car tyres. We ran barefoot without thinking about it, if we got cut we used Iodine on it which made us jump.
Our parents ran after us, to give us castor oil, once a month!!
We did not wash our hands ten times a day. And we were OK. 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 mobile phones, no personal computers, no IPods no Internet or Internet chat rooms, no TV,.... full stop! Listening to music was a gather around!
We did not have parents who said things like 'what would you like for breakfast, lunch or dinner'.
We ate what was put in front of us and best of all, there was never any leftovers. We polished the lot!!!
WE HAD FRIENDS, great friends, whose parents we called Uncle and Aunty, and we went outside and found them! They too took care of us, when our parents were away, and without any charge!
We fell out of trees numerous times, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no compensation claims from these accidents. We never visited the Dentist! We ate fruit lying on the ground that we shook down from the tree above. And we never washed the fruit.
We had a bath using a bucket and mug and used Lifebuoy soap. We did not know what Shampoos Conditioners meant.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We rode cycles everywhere and someone sat on the carrier or across the bar to school or the pictures, or cinema, or you walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them, and their parents, never let us go without a meal or something...
Not everyone made it into the teams we wanted to.. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. 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 of ours has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!......
The past 50 years, never heard of an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
Please pass this on to others who have had the luck and good fortune to grow up as kids , before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives, ostensibly for our own good, that changed what was good into bad and what was bad in to worse.......
Those were the GOLDEN DAYS my friends of our yester years !!........
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