David G me old pal me old beauty – saw your bit about railway stations! This got me thinking. Can you remember when kids used to play in the street, there used to be a thing called a whip and top; kept the girls happy for hours.
Then the female of the species had these other things – round spherical objects that they used to throw at walls with a high degree of hand and eye coordination. Now if memory serves me correctly I think they were called BALLS. Don’t see many of them around these days; kids don’t play with things that are devoid of a screen and buttons.
I seem to recall making bows and arrows as well, god the health and safety people would have a fit if they saw a kid walking around with a lethal weapon like that. The armed response would be called with alacrity if that was found wandering the streets.
Then there was marbles – don’t even know if they sell them anymore. Of course I am going back several decades, back long before your average five year old had to be IT literate. As my lad said to me about twenty five years ago “What was it like in the olden days” Felt like saying “Well once I put on my suit of armour and climbed upon my trusty steed, I used to go shopping in Camelot.”
But I can remember going to school and learning to write. This was achieved by means of a lump of slate and a thing to scratch with. The teacher’s pets used a slate with a posh wooden edge to it, not me I was just a miner’s son. Not for me the posh slates, I was lucky to be allowed into school.
There used to be a game that was always played in the street, hide and seek. The only thing kids play hide and seek with now is the remote for the TV.
Then there was my favourite Postman’s Knock; god what a game that was. But you had to be of a certain age to play that!
It just shows how old I am now, when one prefers the past to the present then there is something wrong.
