Memories

Although I wasn't around in the fifties or sixties, this article in today's paper brought back memories for me.

I spent the early years of my life in a village outside Barnsley in Yorkshire. Kids there played outside (sometimes even when it was raining!) and there was no obsession with health and safety to ruin our fun. I liked finding caterpillars, dropping them into jam jars and waiting until they changed into moths (the big hairy caterpillars, known as "woolly bears", were my favourites). I liked going out on walks, my favourite was to the local pond, and I used to beg my Grandad to take me there to see what I could catch. I could name every animal which lived in a pond and had some "pet" water snails in a bucket in the back garden.

Another favourite walk was along the River Dearne, we used to spot kingfishers and water voles while our dog swam in the river.

Our toys were bikes, swings, Sindy dolls, space hoppers.

Fish and chips were a treat. My Grandad made the best chips and so we used to just get fish from the fish shop and have a chip butty with home made chips (we never, ever used frozen chips in our house).

We used to go up to the local sweet shop and get a 5p or 10p mix - gobstoppers, liquorice, bubbly, sherbet flying saucers, white mice. Another of our favourite sweets was called Space Dust which popped when you put it on your tongue. We also had sweet cigarettes, which would be discouraged now (if you can still get them, I don't know).

Kids today would probably find such a life boring without computers, games consoles, internet, chat etc, but we certainly enjoyed ourselves.