Forgive  a tendency on mypart to be enamoured of what I think of as the good old days, the 1950’s and 60’s, when my childhood and teenage years were spent in carefree abandon, bereft of anything that might interfere with life’s important lessons, like computers, or internet, or even, for most of my childhood, a television set! We lived in a small house, where six kids running around would send our poor mother mad with frustration.

What could the poor woman do, about this insoluble problem of a lively brood that had no desire to read books or listen to the radio?  Get rid of them by, shoch, horror, pushing them all bodily out of the door, telling them to not stray too far, an instruction that gave wide scope for any destination within three or four miles, and further ordering that none of them come back to the house for at least four hours, as he had work to do.

Now I do fully appreciate that, in these days of political correctness, which would be more aptly dubbed idiocy, such apparently callous behaviour from any mother would be unthinkable, but guess what? The kids in question loved every minute of it, being outside almost all the time, climbing trees, getting scrapes, bumps and bruises, that were worn proudly, as badges of honour, and best of all, usually getting completely filthy in the process.

This was not bad, or dangerous, or medically irresponsible on the part of parents, not in any way. Young animals in nature learn by experimentation and play. What means young human beings different, if indeed anything could. We need, as kids, to be eating a bit of dirt, or trying things we shouldn’t, because thjaty is how children build up immunity to things. If a child never gets exposed to such things, how much more sickly might they be?

How do the qualities of leadership, or self-reliance, or even confidence come to grow without being developed through the learning curve of experience in the big, wide world beyond the house door?  Our mum knew, as surely as she breathed, that her elder children would be highly protective of thier siblings, and that the eldest would lead them safely through whatever adventures they chose to embark upon.

The thing was, and still should be, that kids really ned to interact with the natural world, learn for themselves what they can, or cannot do if they want to avoid getting hurt, and be allowed to wallow sometimes in the gloriously filthy muck that will help them develop into happy, healthy adults.  In my childhood, when life was far less complicated, and you had to make your own amusement, kids were happier, healthier and much more respectful of thier elders than most are today.

The question is, quite simply, how did we lose that simplicity, forgoing it in favourof the uncaring, impersonal world that we all inhabit today. When I was a primary school pupil, the three R’s, reading, writing and arithmetics, were seen as vital to any child’s future, and these subjects were drummed into kids mrecilessly. Yet, back then, a very small percentage left school as illiterates, unlike the modern age, which is dreadful by comparison. Let us, for heaven’s sake, re-think our prorities, because dirty, playful, outdoor kids make much more balanced adults. Time perhaps to go backwards foe a brighter future?