For Those Born Before 1986

 

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According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived, because our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans. When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip-flops and Fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags - riding in the passenger seat was a treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the same. We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy juice with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no-one actually died from this.

 

 

 

We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

 

We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.

 

We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all.

 

No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no DVDs, no Internet chat rooms.

 

We had friends - we went outside and found them.

 

We played elastics and rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt!

 

We fell out of trees, got cut, and broke bones but there were no law suits.

 

We had full on fist fights but no prosecution followed from other parents.

 

We played knock a door run and were actually afraid of the owners catching us.

 

We walked to friends' homes.

 

We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner.

 

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls.

 

We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.

 

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of...They actually sided with the law.

 

 

 

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 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're one of them. Congratulations!

 

 

 

Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those of you who aren't old enough, thought you might like to read about us. This my friends, is surprisingly frightening......and it might put a smile on your face:

 

 

 

The majority of students in universities today were born in 1986........They are called youth.

 

 

 

They have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and the Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel. They have never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena Cherry or Belinda Carlisle.

 

 

 

For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam. AIDS has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they were born. Michael Jackson has always been white. To them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance. They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are films from last year. They can never imagine life before computers. They'll never have pretended to be the A Team, RedHand Gang or the Famous Five. They'll never have applied to be on Jim'll Fix It or Why Don't You. They can't believe a black and white television ever existed. And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile phone.

 

 

 

 

Now let's check if we're getting old...

 

1. You understand what was written above and you smile.

2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night out.

3. Your friends are getting married/already married.

4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably with computers.

5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.

6. You remember watching Dirty Den in EastEnders the first time around.

7. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the good Old days, repeating again all the funny things you have experienced together.

8. Having read this mail, you are thinking of forwarding it to someone. ;)

Spangles, Opal Fruits, Marathon - when sweets were sweets

10p a week pocket money, Black and White telly (in between the power cuts)

Princess Anne's wedding, summers, autumns, winters and springs (proper seasons!!)

Catching stickleback's in the local stream, getting clipped around the ear by the local bobby - ahhh those were the days.

Building dams ...

IIRC those grifters were well heavy .. GOD only knows how anyone got round on them .. LMAO

 

You're damn right! 20+ years on and I still have calf muscles like Lance Armstrong :rofl:

buying 20+ cans of shandy hoping to get pissed with your mates because ther was no way in helL you were going to get serverd at the off licence... LMFAO

buying 20+ cans of shandy hoping to get pissed with your mates because ther was no way in helL you were going to get serverd at the off licence... LMFAO

 

 

Shandy Bass and those Top Deck drinks you used to get

 

Oh and weren't Curly Wurlies a lot, lot bigger back then?? and Wagon Wheels WERE as big as wagon wheels :D

 

And Britain had a car industry (and I don't mean British Leyland :rofl: :rofl: )

lol, spectrum 48 and 128k, opal fruits and marathons - now ur talking! buying sweets by the quarter - cant beleive thats gone too!

 

shandy! yay!

Pacers remember them? Remember school giving us charles and di wedding cups LOL

LMFAO .. Camping in the woods with you mates.. too many spirits and @ 3.00 am lots of puke liquid running down the tent, because you camped on a slope (lucky) not be able to hear a tap stream in the morning because of too much too drink .. PRICELESS

 

Never forget that ....

Elite on the BBC Micro :bow:

 

Not seen much to touch it since really. (or was it really crap and I just thought it was good cos I was 13?)

Elite on the BBC Micro :bow:

 

Not seen much to touch it since really. (or was it really crap and I just thought it was good cos I was 13?)

 

Apart from X-Beyond the frontier or Xtension which is elite 4 or 5 i think lol

Pacers remember them? Remember school giving us charles and di wedding cups LOL

 

I got my cup at school for the Queen's Silver Jubilee:-

 

God Save The Queen,

The Fascist Regime

They made you a moron

Potential H-bomb.........etc etc

 

By the time Charles and Di were tying the knot I'd joined the RAF and was doing basic training at Swinderby.

Elite on the BBC Micro :bow:

 

Not seen much to touch it since really. (or was it really crap and I just thought it was good cos I was 13?)

bloody great .. I had it on the Com

 

The hours I spent on that game .. bloody brilliant ... I had it on the C64 though ..

bloody great .. I had it on the Com

 

The hours I spent on that game .. bloody brilliant ... I had it on the C64 though ..

 

I only had a Commodore 16 :cry:

 

Used to go round my mates to play Elite - think he got bored of me and that game after a few weeks! :rofl:

I remember playing it for weekends at a time ... fantastic game ...

 

I need to play again .. have to hunt around in the loft tomorrow

God .. I am going to mention the atari soon :x:

defender . hmmmm

LOL - we couldn't afford a BBC B so I had to play Elite on the Speccy. Still great though - the only game I've ever played all through the night! Went to bed just before my parents woke up ;)

 

Steve :)

Top Deck shandy fook in hell, this was the best drink you could get, and i still have an atari 2600. :rofl: :rofl:

we had vic20 ,, remember them,, poor mans commodore 64,,

also .. jumpers for goal posts, lol, knock down ginger,, and dont forget the digital age of the 80s, the tennis game , bleep bloop. bleep bloop bloop.,

Have elite (x-tension) if anybody really wants a fix lol

had a budgie first then a chopper then a grifter or the other way round cant remember

 

LOL! I remembered the Chipper, the Chopper and the Tomahawk but I totally forgot the Budgie!! The Mongoose BMX was the nuts but no-one I knew had one, just grifters or basic BMX's! I had a racer which came out of a skip and got nicked a week later :shock:

:cry:

 

I'm sooooooooooooo old!! LOL

 

That certainly got the old memory working!! :D:D

i had a chipper. had me name on the front of it,, lol ,,

had scooby doo tassels hanging from it , the first time round that is "scooby doos"

and dont forget the digital age of the 80s, the tennis game , bleep bloop. bleep bloop bloop.,

 

lol...we had the Binatone console as well...That blip blip tennis and the tank game was by far the best.

It was like the Ps2 back then.

 

The 16k speccy...then 64k and then the 128k with built in tape player...WWWOOOOOOOOOOO i hear you say

 

Moving on...what about at the arcades....

Space Invaders

PacMan

Golden Axe

Chase HQ

 

This is when F1 drivers raced each other and would expire quicker than your milk which was delivered by a milkman.

The MKI escort Mexaco was the eveloution of motorsport followed by the Sierra cozie with a spoiler bigger than a plane.

 

Thats all a bit later but sh1t its gone quick :cry: