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I had deprived childhood, but not the usual story of deprivation.
I grew up in the country in a small hamlet (no not the cigar) in a loving family, my parents both had reasonable incomes so I never went hungry, unclothed or uncared for.
Being a child in the seventies I didn't worry about mobile phones, if I wanted to talk to a friend I would visit them. I could have hung around a phone box or bus shelter for fun, the only problem with me doing that was that it involved a 4 mile cycle ride to the nearest bus shelter/phone box but that was ok as I would hardly see a single car on the country roads and the main roads were not that busy. My parents could let us out of their view and we could talk to adults as they didn't think that any adults looking at us were child molesters. I could phone my friends if they were local and only after 6pm on a weekday. The equivalent of texting was writing a letter to a friend and waiting 3 to 4 days for a reply.
If I wanted the latest music I would tape the Top 40 on Sunday remembering half way through to turn the tape over. It could only store 20 odd songs not the millions a mp3 player can store but that was enough for me anyway I could always ask mum or dad to drive me to Woolworths so I could buy a new record or tape if I had saved up enough pocket money.
Instead of watching action packed kiddies programmes on television I would listen to programmes on the radio and use my imagination to picture the stories, or watch Playschool & Jackanory. The nearest to action packed was Bagpuss or if you really wanted fun packed there was always Rentaghost, Channel 3 had Gus Hunny Bun (You would have grown up in the West country to know who he is, Imagine how Sooty would have behaved if he had drunk 5 cans of Redbull and you will have a good mental picture). My brother and I could be rebellious, my parents would let us watch Saturday SwapShop we would turn over to Tiswas when they were not in the room (well dad didn't mind watching Sally James really). Of course we had Blue Peter, but I always preferred Magpie on ITV and holidays programmes like Why Don't You all showed us how to turn rubbish around the house into something that your parents would love, but always seemed to disappear a week later into the bin.
To change the channel my family had a remote control, it was called me, I had to go to the television and actually press a button on the TV we only had a choice of three channels anyway. the nearest to a remote was using a broom handle from the chair to try to press the buttons (please don't tell my parents or Granada who we rented the TV from), our other TV was a black & white portable which we had to use a dial to tune in the channel and wiggle the aerial . Watching snooker was of course made easier on this TV by the commentators as they would tell you which balls were where "and for those of you who are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green".(Ted Lowe)
We didn't have to worry if we had set the timer right on the video recorders as VCRs were not in most homes back then, we didn't even have to schedule the time to watch the programmes we recorded.
We didn't know about recycling back then but what fruit and veg we didn't grow came loose from the shop not packed in 4 layers of plastic, fruit had seasons so strawberries were always a summer treat not all year round, Corona (or R White's if you were a secret lemonade drinker) would give you 10p back if you took back the lemonade bottle to the shop. At meal times the TV was always turned off.
It didn't matter if our clothes were last years season, football teams replica kit didn't change every year and we didn't need 7 different away kits either (If I remember right they didn't cost silly money either) trainer were only worn for playing sports and you only got a new pair when you out grew, wore out or in the case of us boys in latter years out stunk the house with them.
Flared school trousers and kipper ties were cruel but I can't blame my parents personally. I can't remember needing to have designer gear clothes as a lot of young kids get now
If we were playing army we didn't have replica weapons, we used a stick and pretend it was a gun; we would use a block of wood as a radio or a hand grenade or whatever we imagined it was
When I was older and had a pen knife I never thought it could be used as a weapon but the corkscrew attachment seemed a bit silly as I never opened wine bottles whilst out with the scouts,
So my childhood was incredibly happy, so you might ask why was I a deprived child?
Well, over 30 years ago I had fallen in love with a certain plant, I really wanted it, my parents even promised to get me it one day. As the years went by they never did.
I suppressed this memory for many years until yesterday, going round the store with my 3 young children I was at the indoor plant section and right there was the plant of my dreams, a plant that I had always wanted, suddenly the memories were back that seventies child was back with a vengeance minus the flares, I checked my pocket money and I had enough but then I thought my OH (stick with it, yes I know 10 year olds don’t have other halfs or children) might not understand why I had spent money on it, I had a simple solution I bought 3, 1 for each of my children (she doesn't need to know how I had suffered does she)
So what was the plant? My Dream plant
I bet your now thinking why did I just waste 5 minutes reading this when he could have just said he had bought a new plant,
they say a picture paints a thousand words well I thought I would do it in reverse and write the 1000+ words anyway
**Update** 19/05/2010
Well I now realise one reason my parents didn't get me a venus fly trap, so far I have killed 2 of them and number 3 is looking a bit weird, I think the problem was our tap water, I now know they don't like lime and our water is very hard, its so hard it has tatoos on both taps, (no not love and hate, it's Love and Hot) I will just see if I can keep this one alive then see if I can propagate some more later in the year. Hopefully the other people who bought plants because of this post have been luckier.
I grew up in the country in a small hamlet (no not the cigar) in a loving family, my parents both had reasonable incomes so I never went hungry, unclothed or uncared for.
Being a child in the seventies I didn't worry about mobile phones, if I wanted to talk to a friend I would visit them. I could have hung around a phone box or bus shelter for fun, the only problem with me doing that was that it involved a 4 mile cycle ride to the nearest bus shelter/phone box but that was ok as I would hardly see a single car on the country roads and the main roads were not that busy. My parents could let us out of their view and we could talk to adults as they didn't think that any adults looking at us were child molesters. I could phone my friends if they were local and only after 6pm on a weekday. The equivalent of texting was writing a letter to a friend and waiting 3 to 4 days for a reply.
If I wanted the latest music I would tape the Top 40 on Sunday remembering half way through to turn the tape over. It could only store 20 odd songs not the millions a mp3 player can store but that was enough for me anyway I could always ask mum or dad to drive me to Woolworths so I could buy a new record or tape if I had saved up enough pocket money.
Instead of watching action packed kiddies programmes on television I would listen to programmes on the radio and use my imagination to picture the stories, or watch Playschool & Jackanory. The nearest to action packed was Bagpuss or if you really wanted fun packed there was always Rentaghost, Channel 3 had Gus Hunny Bun (You would have grown up in the West country to know who he is, Imagine how Sooty would have behaved if he had drunk 5 cans of Redbull and you will have a good mental picture). My brother and I could be rebellious, my parents would let us watch Saturday SwapShop we would turn over to Tiswas when they were not in the room (well dad didn't mind watching Sally James really). Of course we had Blue Peter, but I always preferred Magpie on ITV and holidays programmes like Why Don't You all showed us how to turn rubbish around the house into something that your parents would love, but always seemed to disappear a week later into the bin.
To change the channel my family had a remote control, it was called me, I had to go to the television and actually press a button on the TV we only had a choice of three channels anyway. the nearest to a remote was using a broom handle from the chair to try to press the buttons (please don't tell my parents or Granada who we rented the TV from), our other TV was a black & white portable which we had to use a dial to tune in the channel and wiggle the aerial . Watching snooker was of course made easier on this TV by the commentators as they would tell you which balls were where "and for those of you who are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green".(Ted Lowe)
We didn't have to worry if we had set the timer right on the video recorders as VCRs were not in most homes back then, we didn't even have to schedule the time to watch the programmes we recorded.
We didn't know about recycling back then but what fruit and veg we didn't grow came loose from the shop not packed in 4 layers of plastic, fruit had seasons so strawberries were always a summer treat not all year round, Corona (or R White's if you were a secret lemonade drinker) would give you 10p back if you took back the lemonade bottle to the shop. At meal times the TV was always turned off.
It didn't matter if our clothes were last years season, football teams replica kit didn't change every year and we didn't need 7 different away kits either (If I remember right they didn't cost silly money either) trainer were only worn for playing sports and you only got a new pair when you out grew, wore out or in the case of us boys in latter years out stunk the house with them.
Flared school trousers and kipper ties were cruel but I can't blame my parents personally. I can't remember needing to have designer gear clothes as a lot of young kids get now
If we were playing army we didn't have replica weapons, we used a stick and pretend it was a gun; we would use a block of wood as a radio or a hand grenade or whatever we imagined it was
When I was older and had a pen knife I never thought it could be used as a weapon but the corkscrew attachment seemed a bit silly as I never opened wine bottles whilst out with the scouts,
So my childhood was incredibly happy, so you might ask why was I a deprived child?
Well, over 30 years ago I had fallen in love with a certain plant, I really wanted it, my parents even promised to get me it one day. As the years went by they never did.
I suppressed this memory for many years until yesterday, going round the store with my 3 young children I was at the indoor plant section and right there was the plant of my dreams, a plant that I had always wanted, suddenly the memories were back that seventies child was back with a vengeance minus the flares, I checked my pocket money and I had enough but then I thought my OH (stick with it, yes I know 10 year olds don’t have other halfs or children) might not understand why I had spent money on it, I had a simple solution I bought 3, 1 for each of my children (she doesn't need to know how I had suffered does she)
So what was the plant? My Dream plant
I bet your now thinking why did I just waste 5 minutes reading this when he could have just said he had bought a new plant,
they say a picture paints a thousand words well I thought I would do it in reverse and write the 1000+ words anyway
**Update** 19/05/2010
Well I now realise one reason my parents didn't get me a venus fly trap, so far I have killed 2 of them and number 3 is looking a bit weird, I think the problem was our tap water, I now know they don't like lime and our water is very hard, its so hard it has tatoos on both taps, (no not love and hate, it's Love and Hot) I will just see if I can keep this one alive then see if I can propagate some more later in the year. Hopefully the other people who bought plants because of this post have been luckier.
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