OT: For those born before 1986!

Take a couple of minutes to read this and smile,

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived, because our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked.

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 and fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags - riding in the passenger seat was a treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the same.

We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy juice with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no-one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.

After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.

We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No

99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no DVDs, no Internet chat rooms. We had friends - we went outside and found them.

We played elastics and rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt!

We fell out of trees, got cut, and broke bones but there were no law suits.

We had full on fist fights but no prosecution followed from other parents.

We played knock-the-door-run-away and were actually afraid of the owners catching us.

We walked to friends' homes.

We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls.

We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of...they actually sided with the law.

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and 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're one of them. Congratulations!

Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

For those of you who aren't old enough, thought you might like to read about us.

This my friends, is surprisingly frightening......and it might put a smile on your face:

The majority of students in universities today were born in

1986........they are called youth.

They have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and the Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel. They have never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena Cherry or Belinda Carlisle.

For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam.

AIDS has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they were born.

Michael Jackson has always been white.

To them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance.

They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are films from last year.

They can never imagine life before computers.

They'll never have pretended to be the A-Team, Red Hand Gang or the Famous Five.

They'll never have applied to be on Jim'll Fix It or Why Don't You?

They can't believe a black and white television ever existed. And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile phone.

Now let's check if we're getting old...

  1. You understand what was written above and you smile.

  1. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night out.

  2. Your friends are getting married/already married.

  1. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably with computers.

  2. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.

  1. You remember watching Dirty Den in EastEnders the first time around.

  2. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the Good Old Days, repeating again all the funny things you have experienced together.

  1. Having read this, you are thinking of forwarding it to some other friends because you think they will like it too...

Yes, you're getting old! It is better to keep quiet and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt!

Reply to
Jane Sullivan
Loading thread data ...

Jane Sullivan said the following on 27/09/2005 08:37:

Well, I didn't think I was, but I must be :-(

(PS - saw this on BBC News this morning:

formatting link
)

Reply to
Paul Boyd

Yes, political correctness gone crazy, it almost makes one want to give up on this country, at times... :~(

Reply to
:::Jerry::::

..singing "We are the mystery riders, we shoot the spiders from off the wall...." !!!!

Reply to
Enzo Matrix

I often wonder how I survived when I watch those passive smoking adverts today - babies with smoke coming from their nose and mouth etc. Both of my parents smoked in the 1950s and 60s, so I had 18 years of it until I left home.

Still, I suppose it might explain quite a lot.

Reply to
crazy_horse_12002

In article , Jane Sullivan writes

Happened to be leafing through the Punch Almanac for 1950 this morning, when I noticed a full page advertisement which featured as it's pitch:

(After boys, and girls...)

"Sugar and butter and all good things- That's what Shortbread is made of."

(With a little apologetic note from the Crawford Tartan Shortbread Company that due to austerity, it was still only a pre-war memory!)

Yes, but I don't remember rationing...

Reply to
Chris Brown

I do :-)

Sweet rationing was one of the last things to come off rationing and I remember being able to go and buy sweets as a child. Before that, all sweets had to be bought with the ration book by your mother.

Jim.

Reply to
Jim Guthrie

How did sweet shops survive? I remember there were quite a lot of them in the 1950's. They were invariably run by a little old lady and the sweets you wanted were in a huge glass jar on a top shelf so she had to fetch a set of steps and climb them to bring down the jar. Then she would unscrew the lid and weigh them out for you on a set of scales and put them in a white paper bag.

(kim)

Reply to
kim

The message from "kim" contains these words:

Ain't nostalgia grand? Not as good as it used to be though...

Reply to
David Jackson

I remember them lasting like that until the early 1970s at least- normally in close proximity to school gates. The two near my primary and secondary schools were both in what would otherwise have been the front rooms of terraced houses, and were run by elderly persons- presumably the income from the shop supplemented their retirement pension. The former was next to a level crossing on the Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr, whilst the latter backed on to the Sandy branch of the BP&GV. Many years later, I carried out some stock takes and valuations in a couple of shops like these- a veritable nightmare. There has been a certain renaissance of the small sweet shop of late, with one having opened in Canterbury for example- somewhat more up-market than of yore. Sadly, penny chews are rather more expensive than they used to be...... Brian

Reply to
BH Williams

You should try living here in the States then................ Its got pathetic Rob

Reply to
Rob Kemp

Another "traditional" sweet shop has opened on Carnforth Station and is situated between two model railway shops, one of which specialises in garden railways, which gets us rather neatly back on topic! (At least that was the situation last spring)

Dave W.

Reply to
David Westerman

In message , David Jackson scribes

Excellent.

Reply to
Ian Snowdon

The weekend after next I will be up in the Lakes taking my parents for a weekend's holiday. Guess where we'll be stopping for a cuppa?

Reply to
Enzo Matrix

Make sure you've got a clean handkerchief... Brian

Reply to
BH Williams

Is that you, mother??? :-D

Reply to
Enzo Matrix

"BH Williams" wrote

There's a belter of a small sweet shop opposit the Castle pub in Skipton - not overly expensive either.

John.

Reply to
John Turner

Snipped for brevity.

Just remember, its us, the people born before 1986 that brought in all these rules and regulations.........

Reply to
estarriol

"estarriol" wrote

Not me guv, I suspect it was those born in the namby pamby era after my generation.

John.

Reply to
John Turner

(part snipped)

And we put our model train set on the carpet, electrified at 12,000 miilvolts, fed from a transformer running off 240 volt mains, which we connected ourselves. No safety hazard notices. No worried parents.

And we behaved at school, because we saw one boy get 6 of the best, and did not want to be the next recipient.

And we were not afraid to go watching trains at night, alone, age 10.

And we left our doors unlocked, day or night, and nobody burgled the house. Yet inside, we still feel as young as ever - till our bodies won't comply with our wishes. Bevan

Reply to
Bevan Price

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.