This is something I have just wrote about growing up in the Rylands in the 1940s Born in the 1930’s, brought up in the 1940’s life was so different then:- We survived being born to mothers who smoked and drank wine; they gave birth to us at home usually with the help of a midwife or neighbour, a doctor being the last resort because they had to be paid for. After that trauma we were put to bed in cots that would have been painted with paint that contained lead, most of the paint used throughout the house would have been the same. We suffered, measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever, rickets, whooping cough, and many other ailments all sent along to prevent us from reaching ripe old ages and sadly for a few these ailments did just that but doctors were expensive and were only called if necessary, most people would use herbal remedies or off the shelf treatments. We didn’t have childproof lids on bottles of dangerous household liquids or medicine bottles. We could go out on our bikes without helmets and travel for miles away from home without fear. We could go swimming in the local canal, river or pond, get changed on the bank without fear, leave our clothes for hours and still find them where we had left them when we returned Take away food was limited to fish & chips from the Chippie, McDonalds, and the like didn’t exist. We would go out for the day on our own with a packed lunch of bread and dripping with a bottle of water which we would share around with our mates, no worry about cholesterol or diabetes. We would play out in the street without fear of cars or being run over for the whole day without parents worrying as long as you were in when your parents told you to be. We would spend hours building out trolleys these being made from old bits of timber and a set of wheels from an old pram. These were raced a great speed around the streets and of course there were tumbles that resulted in grazed knees, elbows etc. but not sufficient to prevent you from getting back on and continuing as though nothing happened. We climbed and fell out of trees, we got stung with nettles, we got severely scratched when blackberry picking. We went scrumping, but woes betide us if you were caught because that usually resulted in a clip around the ears from the local policeman who would then take you home and demand that you had another from your parents. All our entertainment was home made, no laptops, play station, Xbox or even a telly, we had Tin Can lurky, Rum-Stika-Bun (Rusty bum) snobs, Cigarette cards which we would flick and try to cover your opponent’s card and many more usually self made. We would tie ropes onto lamp posts and/or trees and swing about pretending to be Tarzan. We would go to the pictures once a week to the Saturday afternoon matinee (known as the tanner rush) and we would re-enact part of what we had seen when walking home like pretending to be Tom Mix riding his horse. We could receive corporal punishment (cane, slipper or a well aimed board rubber) at school for misbehaviour and poor performance, but we learned how to spell, how to have proper conversations and how to add up & subtract without calculators because of a good sound three Rs education. Shops only opened six days a week between 9am & 6pm and we didn’t starve. We had to go to Sunday school in our best clothes and woes betide you if you returned with them dirty or scuffed your shoes playing football. All of this at a time when a large number of men were away at war, sadly many of them never to return, we were short of food, but we had freedom and freedom of spirit and we learned how to deal with success and/or failure, we were kids and allowed to grow up as proper kids.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 18:50:27 +0000
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