Remember when You were a kid? Long hot summer school holidays....?

Question

Playing out straight after breakfast, riding a bike, going fishing for tadpoles or frogs.....climbing trees...playing cops and robbers...just hanging with your mates....teasing the girlies or playing kiss-chase (my favourite!) taking a 'picnic' of jam sandwiches and biscuits...bottle of pop.....and not having a care in the world - where has the innocence gone?

Answer 1

Rachy....you give them breakfast.....then you kick the little blighters out the door , with the injuction.."Don't come back 'til tea-time!"

below is copied from a web blog (sorry can't remember where I found it)




According to today's bureaucrats and regulators, those of us who were kids in the 50s, 60s and 70s probably shouldn't have survived...
# We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.
# When we rode our bikes we wore no helmets, just flip flops, shorts and brightly coloured clackers on our wheels.
# As kids, if our family had a car, we would travel without seatbelts or airbags. Travelling in the front was a treat
# We drank water from the garden hose and public fountains - not from a bottle. It tasted exactly the same!
# We ate dripping sandwiches, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy juice with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always playing outside.
# We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or one can and nobody ever got ill as a result.
# We would spend hours building go karts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we had forgotten about brakes. After running into stinging nettles and bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem.
# We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us all day and no one minded.
# We did not have Playstations and X Boxes - no video games at all. No 99 TV channels, no videos, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no internet chat rooms. We had friends. -We went outside and found them.
# We played football, elastics and street rounders -and sometimes that ball really hurt!
# We fell out of trees, got cuts and grazes, broken bones and broken teeth and there were no lawsuits. They were accidents. We learned not to do the same things again.
# We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue. We did not get assaulted -we simply lost a fight. We learned to get over it.
# We walked to each others homes and school.
# We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live things, and although we were told it would happen, we did not have our eyes fall out and nor did live stuff grow inside us.
# We rode our bike in packs of seven and wore our coats only by the hood.
# Our actions were our own and the consequences were expected.
# The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!

Answer 2

I'm back well before WW2, when summers seem to last forever. I just loved those days, there was a calm over the country, although a lot of unemployment and people had nothing of any value, but they were happy with their lot, but I hated school, it was rigid, but the education was first class with the same teacher for all subjects. I will never kick that, and really althouigh the world right now seems to be in turmoil, I wouldn't wish to return to the "good old days"

Answer 3

yes there was still rationing after the war but we used to get 3p worth of broken biscuits a 1p loaf(about as big as a box of matches). then walk 6 or 7 miles to the beach have a swim play about talk to girls then walk half way home and catch a bus for the last couple of miles for a penny fare.innocence has gone out of the window as kids hang about on street corners.nothing 4 them 2 do.

Answer 4

True mate the world is a much worse place for Children these days. We made out own entertainment, Hide and seek,British Bulldog,building camps in the woods etc etc. Long hot days and the freedom to explore! the kids have no immagination these days

Answer 5

Actually,we must have been in the same gang.what about............using sicks to pick melted tar from between the cobble stones,going paddling in the river to cool off,getting sunburned and nobody bothering about it,going to the park for most of the day, coming home for tea absolutely shattered,the out to play again for a couple of hours, then we had to go to bed while it was still light,terrible that was,me and the lad across the road signalling each other with torches,camping out in my mates garden,yes as you say,good innocent times,thank you for setting me off with these memories

Answer 6

In the Nort-West of England where I grew up, hot didn't exist and still doesn't. Warm exists but not hot

Answer 7

You just summed up my childhood summers. Now I'm a mum it seems they just go in days and I hardly have time to see my daughter. She does play out with her friends, but there isn't that easy carefree feeling, she and her friends often pop back in to see me, when I get talking they have either been picked on by older kids or seen someone hanging around that made them nervous. And we have to have a set of procedures on what to do "if" situations so they feel safe, or they just don't want to go out. I wouldn't mind, but we live in a pretty nice and safe place.

Answer 8

well hopefully the innocence of life lives on in our kids!! i remember there being more freedom in my childhood, playing out with loads of kids. all different ages and hating our parents calling us in for our tea or bedtime!
i have to say my kids dont play out in the area, only at home or the garden. they go to parks, and sometimes i make jam sarnies... but looking at them now, yes their childhood is much more structured and repressive i suppose!
in society now, we are all obsessed with keeping them safe more than them having fun!

Answer 9

Those were the days. Kids today dont know how to entertain themselves get bored too easily. I remember doing those things and more in the school hols and me and my mates were never bored.

Answer 10

oh yes i remember it all.long summer days playing with my best mate kerry on the park with our bikes,lol we used to be obsessed with horses and pretended that our bikes were ponies.the sun was shining and we ran around after her dog without a care in the world.Those were the days apart from when you had to go back to school!