Being in my forties, I remember The Virginian, 3-2-1, World Of Sport on a Saturday with wrestling from Big Daddy and Kendo Nagasaki, Giant Haystacks and Skippy washed down with a bit of Thunderbirds. I remember playing in woods and riding my bike for miles, building 'dens' from hay bales and using apples as missiles to throw at one another while you "took cover" behind a tree.
I remember getting £5 a week for helping the local farmer load bales on to a trailer, (the ride home on top of the bales was always brilliant!), I remember long hot summers where the only thoughts were the things you were going to do the next day...
We swung from trees with make-shift rope swings, we jumped in rivers, we made "tunnels" in straw ricks, we used huge knives to cut the top off a swede and throw it in the trailer as the trailer moved slowly along, the "dangers" we got ourselves in to were endless..
Or, were they?. Wasn't that just the process of growing up and learning that our next generation will never see?. The only technology I had was a small transistor radio with a rather dodgy PP3 battery that i hid under my pillow and listened to Radio Luxembourg on as it whistled and wavered around (usually more so in the middle of your favourite song)!, it was a secret pleasure that your parents didn't understand, they grew up on Frankie Valle and Jim Reeves how could they get John Lennon and Procul Harem?, in fact it was on that very same dodgy radio that i heard of the fatal shooting of John Lennon, even then i can remember shedding a tear...
The facts are that I didn't miss out on any opportunities, even though I had little or nothing in those days, some Tonka toys and a few Corgi and Dinky cars and that was me.. as it was for many in our row of council houses where i grew up. I sometimes sit and watch my 6 year old boy and 9 year old girl play with something new they have had for being excellent scholars, which indeed they are, though Lord knows who they get it from, they don't get it from their Dad! and i watch as they slowly get bored with the new arrival and hey presto they go back to reading a fun book or grabbing the Wii controller for another battle with Planet Zorg or such like.
The truth and the sad part is, we encourage our kids to see material wealth, as young as my two are they see their social standing in the class room relative to their new gadgets. What a shame, how could we as a generation that grew up with nothing be so free and easy with what we give our kids?. The answer is simple, it's BECAUSE we had nothing that we want our kids to have everything we can afford. It's like we are reliving our childhoods with money to spend, but the reality is we are wrecking our own kids lives by ignoring the very thing we always came up against... parents saying no.
The most worrying aspect in all this for me is the assumption that there are no losers, brought on by an extremely ill conceived wishy-washy liberal policy that "all children are winners", clearly they are not and indeed never can be. To induce such a theory in young minds is to set them up for the fall of a lifetime in the real world when they suddenly realise they are NOT good enough and have failed in some way, try explaining that to a rather indignant 19 year old.
So, despite my harsh upbringing and lessons in life that were learned on the hoof, somehow i survived to tell this tale, I have experience that the kids of today will never ever get the chance to see, how many 7 year old's do you know that were plonked on to a tractor seat, the tractor put into gear for them and the mower started up while being told to "drive around the field and cut the thistles but don't go too close to the river bank"..with no roll cage or safety cab and no emergency stop button ..? the answer is simple, none of them.
That little episode began my lifelong fascination with machinery that exists today, how strange a mix, a writing mechanic, I still laugh at people who talk to me in the yard at work when in my overalls, expecting a Daily Sport conversation, the fact is I can talk Daily Sport and I can talk The Times, I can witter away in French and then in broad Shropshire, quote Latin phrases yet swear like a trooper. In case you hadn't guessed I am in constant battle with who i actually am, a Grammar school educated truck driver/farmer/businessman/Technician/salesman/writer/poet... or whatever else you wish me to be. If it was needed to be done i did it, I didn't look around for help i just got on with it and if there is one thing that worries me about our next generation it is that by the time they have waited for someone to come and do it for them...life will have passed them by, what a sad state of affairs that really is.
Dave James.
I remember getting £5 a week for helping the local farmer load bales on to a trailer, (the ride home on top of the bales was always brilliant!), I remember long hot summers where the only thoughts were the things you were going to do the next day...
We swung from trees with make-shift rope swings, we jumped in rivers, we made "tunnels" in straw ricks, we used huge knives to cut the top off a swede and throw it in the trailer as the trailer moved slowly along, the "dangers" we got ourselves in to were endless..
Or, were they?. Wasn't that just the process of growing up and learning that our next generation will never see?. The only technology I had was a small transistor radio with a rather dodgy PP3 battery that i hid under my pillow and listened to Radio Luxembourg on as it whistled and wavered around (usually more so in the middle of your favourite song)!, it was a secret pleasure that your parents didn't understand, they grew up on Frankie Valle and Jim Reeves how could they get John Lennon and Procul Harem?, in fact it was on that very same dodgy radio that i heard of the fatal shooting of John Lennon, even then i can remember shedding a tear...
The facts are that I didn't miss out on any opportunities, even though I had little or nothing in those days, some Tonka toys and a few Corgi and Dinky cars and that was me.. as it was for many in our row of council houses where i grew up. I sometimes sit and watch my 6 year old boy and 9 year old girl play with something new they have had for being excellent scholars, which indeed they are, though Lord knows who they get it from, they don't get it from their Dad! and i watch as they slowly get bored with the new arrival and hey presto they go back to reading a fun book or grabbing the Wii controller for another battle with Planet Zorg or such like.
The truth and the sad part is, we encourage our kids to see material wealth, as young as my two are they see their social standing in the class room relative to their new gadgets. What a shame, how could we as a generation that grew up with nothing be so free and easy with what we give our kids?. The answer is simple, it's BECAUSE we had nothing that we want our kids to have everything we can afford. It's like we are reliving our childhoods with money to spend, but the reality is we are wrecking our own kids lives by ignoring the very thing we always came up against... parents saying no.
The most worrying aspect in all this for me is the assumption that there are no losers, brought on by an extremely ill conceived wishy-washy liberal policy that "all children are winners", clearly they are not and indeed never can be. To induce such a theory in young minds is to set them up for the fall of a lifetime in the real world when they suddenly realise they are NOT good enough and have failed in some way, try explaining that to a rather indignant 19 year old.
So, despite my harsh upbringing and lessons in life that were learned on the hoof, somehow i survived to tell this tale, I have experience that the kids of today will never ever get the chance to see, how many 7 year old's do you know that were plonked on to a tractor seat, the tractor put into gear for them and the mower started up while being told to "drive around the field and cut the thistles but don't go too close to the river bank"..with no roll cage or safety cab and no emergency stop button ..? the answer is simple, none of them.
That little episode began my lifelong fascination with machinery that exists today, how strange a mix, a writing mechanic, I still laugh at people who talk to me in the yard at work when in my overalls, expecting a Daily Sport conversation, the fact is I can talk Daily Sport and I can talk The Times, I can witter away in French and then in broad Shropshire, quote Latin phrases yet swear like a trooper. In case you hadn't guessed I am in constant battle with who i actually am, a Grammar school educated truck driver/farmer/businessman/Technician/salesman/writer/poet... or whatever else you wish me to be. If it was needed to be done i did it, I didn't look around for help i just got on with it and if there is one thing that worries me about our next generation it is that by the time they have waited for someone to come and do it for them...life will have passed them by, what a sad state of affairs that really is.
Dave James.
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