Remembering your youth with fondness

BillDL

@DrCornelius
@stufisher
@AK99
@pigface

I've just read my own comments from earlier and realise not only how idyllic I portrayed my childhood experiences, but also how I inferred that the way of life I experienced overseas was "better" than life in the UK.  I did not mean this to be patronising or insulting in any way and was just reminiscing about how fortunate I felt to have been raised in a country where I believe kids (and adults to an extent) had what I think of retrospectively as a much less constrained lives.

Unfortunately thinking back to childhood often makes you forget some of the less wonderful aspects and you tend to recall things through rose-tinted filters.  Things were not perfect by a long chalk. It was a landlocked country enduring economic sanctions and international trade embargoes, and when you left school you were called up to do 18 months or 2 years of military service in a country that was fighting a guerilla bush war.  Adults also had to do a military stint of about 3 or 4 weeks a year while they were fit enough to do so.  Every week we heard the headmaster at school announcing the death in military action of former pupils, many of whom we knew personally, and there were national TV broadcasts many nights of the week that began with "We regret to announce the death in action of ...".  Travelling between towns through rural areas always left you open to the possibility of being shot by bush terrorists.  We had frequent petrol rationing, could hardly get new electronic goods, watches, LP records, etc, and (with particular context to this thread) we never got to see any international touring musicians and bands.  We had to make do with LPs recorded by local session musicians doing cover versions of international top 20 hits unless you knew somebody that had been out of the country and brought back some records, and the out-of-town drive-in movies only showed old movies.  Living in a warm and comparatively dry climate with a lot of outdoor living and home-grown entertainment somehow made these aspects of life there more tolerable to most adults, and almost invisible to younger kids that didn't have the same worries to contend with.

I believe that up until a certain age kids are fairly immune to bad weather or congested inner city living and (unless they had turbulent family environments) make their own entertainment and have fun, and I'm sure most look back on those years as having been good times.  My Mum was a kid when WWII ended.  She remembers being more excited than scared when the air raid sirens went off and they had to scurry to the bomb shelters, and she remembers the Summers being much longer than the Winters that gave them chilblains and left them chittering in cold classrooms.  She only remembers the filthy air pollution of a mining town that almost merged into the city; the horrible Winters with dirty slush and fog; and some of the much less idyllic aspects from the years when she started working in her late teens and had to travel to work in buses and trams.  I think there is a turning point age-wise in any country where life becomes less rosy in our memories, and crappy weather has a huge bearing on how we remember some of our formative years.

AK99

^ I didn't read it as patronising in any way Bill - just enjoyed reading about teenage kids having fun.  Did resonate with a lot of my own teenage years, managing to have a bit of craic despite all the other sh1te going on around us

I have a couple of friends who had to return to Europe and one to Australia who grew up in your place btw , and know how difficult things were for them as things panned out. Just glad to hear you had some great memories of growing up there.

DrCornelius

AK99 said:

^ I didn't read it as patronising in any way Bill - just enjoyed reading about teenage kids having fun.
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Me too, I enjoyed reading the post and it made me envious but not in a negative way , just nice to read about a different slice of life to mine.

Its easy to think if you grew up in London that you are at the centre of everything - the older I get the more I appreciate things away from the big city

Shrews

I'm 56 but loved music from a very early age. My parents were big Elvis and Johnny Cash fans so from ever since I can remember there was always music playing, whether it be rock 'n roll (Mum) or country (Dad). If I went to my friends' houses, they always seemed so quiet in comparison!

I have two sisters, one now 58, the other 60. They sort of took over the 'coolness' of music in our house, because as I approached age double-figures and punk hit the airwaves, I realised my parents choice of music was completely square, and this punk/new wave stuff my sisters were playing was much more cool.

But the whole glam rock thing was huge with them. My eldest sister would've been 12 in 1974, so it was all Bay City Rollers, Mud, Glitter and David Essex. Then they had a disco phase when Saturday Night Fever came on the scene. But whilst I kinda liked all that stuff (y'know, it's a country fckin mile away from where music is today), it was probably turning age 11 and the new wave/mod/ska era which woke me up.

Life was just incredibly exciting for a pre-teen and teenager back in the Seventies.

First record I think I remember: If Paradise is Half as Nice
First record I definitely remember: Coz I Luv You - I was sneakily looking for the toy crane my parents had bought me for Christmas and it was playing on the radio downstairs. For the record, the crane was on top of their bedroom wardrobe. But although the song was realised in October, it will always live in my memory as a Christmas song. I was 5 years old!