"And we never had a whole Mars bar until 1993"!!!

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL WHO WERE BORN BEFORE THE 70's.

First, we survived being born to mothers who lived in houses made of asbestos and who smoked and/or drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat whilst pregnant.

Having survived that, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints, which we chewed. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, no child locks on doors or cabinets and no stairgates.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. We would get crammed in the back seat... with extra kids in the boot of an estate.

We shared a drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We even drank water from the garden hose!

Although all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on Sundays, somehow we didn't starve to death!

Take away food was limited to fish and chips wrapped in Newspaper and you could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time....

We collected old drink bottles and cashed them in at the corner shop to buy Gob stoppers, Bubble Gum, Sweet Cigarettes and some Bangers to throw at our friends. We ate biscuits, white bread and real butter, drank tea with sugar in it, dipped our bread in the bacon fat, but we weren't overweight because......

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii or X-boxes. There were only two channels on TV, no videos or DVDs, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet ........... most of us didn't even have a phone at home........

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day and we were OK. We would spend hours building go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds and on swings hung from branches. When we rode our bikes we had no helmets, no gloves and, quite often, no shoes.

We fell out of trees, cut ourselves, broke bones and teeth and there were no Lawsuits.

RUGBY and CRICKET had try outs and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes, and our parents backed them up. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of!

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL !

We had the luck to grow up before grownups regulated our lives for our own good.

So if YOU are one of us CONGRATULATIONS!