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Hannah, originally uploaded by theclutterbells.

Free and Easy The joys of childhood.

The kids are off to Granny's again this week during the school holidays. They always have a good time with her free and easy lifestyle near the beach.

TRA LA LA - BANANA SPLITS

via youtube.com

Posted via web from poobumwee's posterous

Childhood Reminiscences

Browsing the intertubes last night I came across Geograph which has the goal of taking a photo of every square kilometre of the UK. It is the sort of site that you could spend hours and hours on and fitted my mood for that time. My short visit picked up many of the farms from my childhood and this photograph of Teuchats Crossroads, just down the road from where I grew up. 

Where the white building is, used to be the blacksmiths where the old man used to shoe the horses with his huge manual bellows breathing into the charcoal fire. My mum, who couldn't drive used to take us for long walks and we got to know the area very well. Later in life he used to come down the hill from his house on his bike without brakes. There was a skid mark in the verge for a good way down the hill as he used his foot to slow down. The bus also used to run between St Andrews and Leven and stopped at the corner when I used to visit my Grandmother in St Andrews. This was where I made my first bike rides to and from my house and where we went for winter walks with my mum and where people from out of the area used to come to park their cars and have some nukie. And we drove over this road to see the moon landing at Teuchats Farm on grainy black and white television in the late 60s.

So many memories for a short stretch of road. 

Thanks Geograph and Jim Bain who took the photograph. Turns out his kids went to the same High School as me in St Andrews. A few years later I think. 

My Autobiography

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE

1920’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s !!

• First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.
• They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.
• Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.
• We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
• As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
• Riding in the back of a Ute on a warm day was always a special treat.
• We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
• Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Red Rooster.
• Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn’t open on the weekends, somehow we didn’t starve to death!
• We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
• We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy fruit tingles and some crackers to blow up frogs with.
• We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because……
• WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
• We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
• No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
• We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and cubby houses and played in creek beds with matchbox cars.
• We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms………. WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
• We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents .
• Only girls had pierced ears!
• We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
• You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross buns at Easter time…….no really!
• We were given BB guns and sling shots for our 10th birthdays,
• We drank milk laced with Strontium 90 from cows that had eaten grass covered in nuclear fallout from the atomic testing at Maralinga in 1956.
• We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
• Mum didn’t have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!
• Footy had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
• Our teachers used to belt us with big sticks and leather straps and bullies always ruled the playground at school.
• The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
• Our parents got married before they had children and didn’t invent stupid names for their kids like “Kiora” and “Blade”
• This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
• The past 70 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
• We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!

PS -The big type is because your eyes are shot at your age

(Doing the rounds on email - source unknown)

Thanks Meg

I have seen a version of this before I started blogging. I am glad to have it again. Although my childhood was not Angelas Ashes, it had plenty of rough edges. Where my parents worried if we didn't turn up when it got dark, we worry if our kids disappear for 5 minutes. My kids look at me aghast when I discuss my childhood where my mother could not drive, no television, internet, computers, DVDs.... Unbelievable and just not possible in their minds.