Thought for today:
" Those were the days during the 1950's when working class children made their own fun from the sheer pleasure of each other's company and the power of their combined ingenuity and imagination; making up games and activities that did not require anything that cost a lot of money and which could be found from the usual contents of every home in the land. What times we spent between the hours of five o'clock and bedtime; armed with little more than a bat and ball, a length of string, a dustbin lid, a piece of chalk and a few small pebbles, a lamp post, a conker, a spinning top, a marble etc. Other games involved little more than use of our bodies and what agility and movement we naturally possessed. Our ability to hear, see, touch, run and jump enabled us to play tag, hide and seek, kick can and hook it, leap frog, etc. For the teenagers between 13-15 years, the facts of life were never told to us by our parents, teachers, mentors or clergy. What we learnt, we learnt through word of mouth, conversations behind the bicycle shed, reading banned adult books, looking at fashion catalogues, along with games like 'Postman's knock' and 'I will if you will.'
While there wasn't anything to be advanced in favour of the biological ignorance that then existed and, which has rightly been largely eradicated today, such biological textbook ignorance never stopped the children growing up into responsible adults. Generally speaking, children grew up retaining a clear sense of right and wrong that isn't as evident today, along with a moral compass that steered them along the path of general goodness. Such were the qualities that brought Great Britain through two world wars ; qualities that were built on little more than a bat, ball, old stick, conker, spinning top, marble, pebble, dustbin lid, length of string or a piece of chalk. Surely there is a good economic lesson to be learnt here by the current politicians. When fun can be had for free and character-building established without paying the cost of an arm and a leg, we can all get by without the need of this national debt mountain which shows little sign of diminishing before the next war, which could be a civil one of mass social unrest!" William Forde: April 5th, 2013.
" Those were the days during the 1950's when working class children made their own fun from the sheer pleasure of each other's company and the power of their combined ingenuity and imagination; making up games and activities that did not require anything that cost a lot of money and which could be found from the usual contents of every home in the land. What times we spent between the hours of five o'clock and bedtime; armed with little more than a bat and ball, a length of string, a dustbin lid, a piece of chalk and a few small pebbles, a lamp post, a conker, a spinning top, a marble etc. Other games involved little more than use of our bodies and what agility and movement we naturally possessed. Our ability to hear, see, touch, run and jump enabled us to play tag, hide and seek, kick can and hook it, leap frog, etc. For the teenagers between 13-15 years, the facts of life were never told to us by our parents, teachers, mentors or clergy. What we learnt, we learnt through word of mouth, conversations behind the bicycle shed, reading banned adult books, looking at fashion catalogues, along with games like 'Postman's knock' and 'I will if you will.'
While there wasn't anything to be advanced in favour of the biological ignorance that then existed and, which has rightly been largely eradicated today, such biological textbook ignorance never stopped the children growing up into responsible adults. Generally speaking, children grew up retaining a clear sense of right and wrong that isn't as evident today, along with a moral compass that steered them along the path of general goodness. Such were the qualities that brought Great Britain through two world wars ; qualities that were built on little more than a bat, ball, old stick, conker, spinning top, marble, pebble, dustbin lid, length of string or a piece of chalk. Surely there is a good economic lesson to be learnt here by the current politicians. When fun can be had for free and character-building established without paying the cost of an arm and a leg, we can all get by without the need of this national debt mountain which shows little sign of diminishing before the next war, which could be a civil one of mass social unrest!" William Forde: April 5th, 2013.
