Do You Remember? For the over 50s!
With thanks to Mike Clitheroe
If you are under the age of 50 you will probably not understand all this - it is just a reality check on how people lived and survived growing up just after World War II.
My mum used to cut chicken (when we could afford it), chop eggs and spread butter on bread on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but she was immaculately clean and careful so we did not get food poisoning ever. Of course, modern hygiene is far more scientific, but I never heard of anyone getting side effects from their mum’s food preparation or cooking in my generation so we must have been doing something right.
School sandwiches were wrapped in paper or maybe, yesterday’s newspaper or a brown paper bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I cannot remember anyone getting e. coli or other side effects.
BTW our fish and chips were also wrapped in old newspapers, again no reports of poisoning. Also, I could catch up with the news.
We all took PE, and risked permanent injury with a pair of cheap Black Plimsolls instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushioned soles and built-in light reflectors that cost as much as a small car. I cannot recall any injuries, but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now!.
We got the cane for doing something wrong at school, it hurt a bit and prompted us to avoid breaking the same rules again or at least not to get caught in future. They used to call it discipline, yet we all grew up to accept the rules and to honour & respect those older than us. No mental damage that I am aware of, as we all preferred six whacks of the cane on the hand, legs or backside than spending an hour in detention missing a kick about with our mates in the street.
There were 38 in my class at junior school BUT we all learned to read and write, do maths well, and spell almost all the words needed to write a grammatically correct letter.
DID THESE CLASS NUMBERS REALLY CAUSE A PROBLEM – I THINK NOT.
We walked to and from school, helping us to keep fit and making us used to getting up early. Did not need Mum to hold my hand at five years old.
We all said prayers and had an RE lesson in school, but now thinking back I feel that the themes made all of us a bit kinder and more respectful. We sang the National Anthem making us feel good about our country.
Staying in detention after school taught us there were penalties for not following the rules – so we were doing more schoolwork when we wanted to be out playing. Good lesson about life that one.
We also learnt our times tables by heart by reciting them every day. Now ++years later, although I cannot remember where I put my glasses 5 mins ago, I can still remember all of them up to 12 times level. Especially useful when checking the bill in a supermarket or Pub. (Pub !!!!! are you old enough to remember what a Pub is?)
I just cannot recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations. We were not! We were out and about playing football climbing trees and so many other out of the house activities. Plus, actually talking and laughing with people face to face.
Take too many liberties at home and get a quick smack on the legs from Mum and then early to bed soon reminded you not to push your luck - there were consequences.
Oh yeah ... And where was the antibiotics and sterilisation kit when you got that Bee sting?
We played “King of the Hill” on piles of gravel left on vacant building sites and when we got hurt, mum pulled out the 1/6d bottle of TCP which seemed to do the trick then by the next day show off the scars. Now it is a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of antibiotics and then mum calls the lawyer to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.
To top it off, not a single person I knew was ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that? We never needed to get into group therapy and/or anger management classes. Did we all miss out?
How did we ever survive?
The message is: remember that life's most simple pleasures are very often the best. Are there some pointers here for modern day parents? – I would say there are always things from history that are worth considering.
