Remember how simple the world seemed when we were children? I’m sure we all had lots more freedom in the big wide world back then. Robin was “Club Speaker” at our Probus Club recently and spoke about how different kids lives were back then – much more different than the very protected bubbles modern children live in these days.
At Probus Club
Robin’s family moved to New Plymouth when he was seven, and his Dad bought a milk run. With a growing family, and the milk truck being the only vehicle, the two older boys were seated on the back of the truck, although Dad did add boards to each side for these family excursions. Carrying children like this would be an offence these days, of course. Robin remembers family trips up to Mt Egmont in winter, where the boys filled the back of the truck with snow. Then took great delight throwing snowballs at the passing cars on the drive home.
Summer was a great time, there were streams to be explored, and afternoons spent in the salt water pool - all without adult supervision. The salt water pool was unfiltered and after a storm all sorts of debris was floating around in the water. The answer to this was for the boys to stuff their mouths with aniseed balls while they swum and fooled around in the pool, which negated the taste of all that questionable debris floating in the water.
Robin and his scouting mates did (unaccompanied by an adult) weekend tramps up the mountain, and across country, using a compass to find their way. On one trip after his pack fell into a stream he had to spend the night sleeping in a wet sleeping bag!
There was no local bus service, so the kids biked everywhere – and New Plymouth is full of hills. They biked to school, to the swimming pool, to footy practice. All that biking must have built up his stamina, as Robin took up Surf Life Saving in his teen age years. He hitch hiked to Oakura Beach where he spent the weekend at the local surf club. After a day of practice and training, the evening meals was freshly gathered mussels from the rocks on the beach, cooked up over a fire and dunked in vinegar. His parents came out to the beach on Sundays with the younger children to collect him and take home.
A little snap shot of growing up before the world went PC crazy - how many lads would have so much freedom these days, we wonder?
1 comment:
So true. How things have even changed since we were kids and I’m only in my mid 50s. I then think of the yarns my Parents told of growing up in the 20s and 30s. I doubt today’s kids would be able to handle it.
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