I remember a time when...

Maybe its me just getting older, but whatever happened to just having simple fun?

So many changes have taken place, so many things that people seem to have to worry about. Yet, so many of these things and worries were never a problem in the past. Most kids walked to school with their mates. Some kids qualified for a bus pass but you had to live more than two miles from the school.

I remember a time when, the worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "nits." Plus the attentions of "Nitty Norah" the school nurse.  I remember some of the kids in my infants school with the little purple heads. In fact your parents would hear on the grapevine that some child or other had measles and you would be sent out to play with them. Now, if some child has measles today, its a reflection on the parents.

I remember a time when it was magic when your dad would "remove" his thumb. Plus card tricks that made you smile. Well apart from the one when dad asked me to think of a card and to remember what the card was. After dealing out the pack of cards and placing one card to one side. He asked me the name of the card. He was flummoxed when I said "Mr Bun the Baker."

I remember a time when carrying a weapon in school meant being caught with a peashooter. The teacher was a crack shot with a bit of chalk. If anyone was being difficult, the ultimate weapon of choice was a water filled balloon or your bigger brother.


I remember a time when taking drugs meant a flavoured chewable aspirin. When a visit to the doctor had him looking in your ears, eyes and throat cause that's where all our illnesses seemed to be. Now he has an unhealthy interest in my prostate, you'll never guess where he looked for that!

I remember a time, when it was safe to play games on the street. No one worried about a car coming and rat runs were a thing for the future. You played hide and seek all day or until it was to dark to find anybody. And being a muggle was being mixed up!


I remember a time when a bottle of water and a couple of jam sandwiches were our pack-up lunch for a full day out at play. If you needed to make a phone call, you went to the phonebox at the end of the street. Now its a mobile phone top-up and five pounds for a MacDonald on a day out. 



I remember a time when nobody owned a purebred dog. Girls wore nylons that came in two pieces. We made paper-chain decorations at Christmas.  With all this so called progress, don't you just wish, that just once, you could slip back in time and enjoy once again the pre-progress pace. Especially, for the nylons!




Later.....