I want to be young again!

[Smee_1972]

.....I guess that's why I love this site.

Is it just me, or were things *really* better in the good old days? I can remember being a kid and wanting to be all grown up so that I could do just as I pleased.....but now I am 34, I just want to live at home with Mum and Dad, eat fish fingers, chips (home-made) and beans in front of the TV watching The Two Ronnies, then beg to be able to stay up late to watch Tales of the Unexpected at 10pm, then get sent to bed, ready for school the next day.

...no, it ain't just me, things really *were* better weren't they???

[steve edwards]

i want to be young again

:cry: yes things REALLY were better when we were young , i am now 36 and i want to go back to being 13 again , making our own bikes , playing being the professionals ( i was doyle) , go karts , no health and safety no computers , mum and dad paid for everything except my sweets .

Going out at the crack of dawn getting in for a pre made lunch which dissapeared before my football stopped bouncing and out of the door again never to be seen again until about ten at night .

oh happy days !!!!!!!!!!!

[Smee_1972]

You're my generation then! I wish I had a time machine so I could revisit those fab days. But I would want to be nine again, too!

How I resented being sent to bed at nine or ten o'clock....how I now wish to be sent to bed by Mum and Dad again, then beg to have half an hour's reading time!

[Oggy]

I remember building Go-karts thats was kool, looking for broken bikes, and wheels, and sailing down the local river on lorry inner tubes, or huge pieces of polystyrene, and Tarzan swinging, fun, and making stuff up as we went, yeah we had a gang, but had fun.

[MommaMystique]

Staying at Nan's.... curling up on her sofa in her bed sitting room( where she would make me a bed up) and watching 'Within These Walls' while scoffing supper... robably cold left over rice pudding that she had made herself for my tea...... no one makes rice pud like my Nan.
Dragging Mom's tea tray outside, over the canal, up the farmers hill beside the river on the first sign of snow to go sledging..... we thought kids who had real sledges were wussies! Nothing quite compared to the fun of skinning your knuckles which we didnt feel coz of the freezing cold!

[Wil]

There's many a time I've just ached to be 8 or 9 again and have that feeling of wonder and excitement, that went with so many things back then (just when would that free Action Man that I sent off for with 21 stars arrive), again. Losing my Mum and Dad over the past couple of years hasn't helped things, either. Selling the family home I grew up in was probably the hardest thing I've ever done.

But I can't. I'm 42 and heading in the wrong direction. I try and mix the things I liked then (comics, board games, Letraset Action Transfers and the like) into my life now whilst being a proper Dad to my little boy (he's 3 and a half). Places like this are great and IM'ing my best mates from schoodays is like we 13-14 again, anyway but as much as I'd love to be back taping Captain Kremmen by holding a microphone to the radio speaker while telling Mum to keep quiet while she made macaroni cheese on a Saturday lunchtime that stuff's going to just have to live in my memory.

Time to enjoy being my age - whatever that is at the time

[Cal]

AND........didnt the school summer holidays seem to last for ever!?!?
now i'm heading towards midlife crisis age the weeks seem to pass like days.

[Nuttybott]

Oh, for God's sake, stop it you lot...you're making me cry! :cry:

And also smile. Here was I, thinking I was the only one who felt this way, and now I find that I'm not alone in feeling that the days of my youth were better. I'm 46 now, and I find that I spend an increasing amount of my time yearning for the days of my childhood...the days of fab telly like Porridge, The Goodies, Dave Allen At Large, Morecambe & Wise, Moody & Pegg, Tiswas (the original series featuring John Asher, Peter Tomlinson and Chris Tarrant in the days when it was shown only in the Midlands), etc.

The days when I actually enjoyed watching football, seeing Kevin Keegan, Mick Channon, Trevor Francis, Charlie George and my favourite John Richards go around week after week, playing in the First Division when it was called the First Division (unlike now, when the Third Division is called the First Division), when teams comprising entirely of British players played in simple distinctive strips which didn't change every single season and didn't resemble mobile advertising hoardings!

The days when kids had proper toys to play with, and didn't have their brains and their imaginations pickled by too much time spent on computers and mobile phones (Ah, for those days of Chopper bikes, Subbuteo, Action Man, Dinky cars etc.).

The days when Top of the Pops was hosted not by the odious 'more hip than thou' wannabes of today, but by the endearingly gauche Tony Blackburn and Jimmy Saville, and featured the tacky but wonderful pop hits of Slade, Suzi Quatro, Sweet, the Glitter Band...and yes, even the Bay City Rollers.

These are the days I look back to with increasing frequency, a warm glow of fondness...and a growing sense of desperation. And in my own small way, I've actually started doing something about recapturing it...I have begun collecting as many of the books, comics, football programmes, toys, TV shows and other memorabilia of this era as I can lay my hands on. For example, this year (much to my wife's chagrin) thanks to the wonder of eBay, I have once again taken up collecting and playing Subbuteo...and concentrating exclusively on collecting vintage playing equipment like I had in the 70's. But what wouldn't I give to be able to return to the days when instead of paying 15 - 20 quid for a classic 1970's team in a grubby box with writing on it, I could simply stroll into my local sports store and take my pick of hundreds of the things - brand new - for the bargain price of 52 1/2p each!

Yes...things WERE better back then. No doubt about it, they WERE !!!

[Aidan]

Up 'til I was 17 there was a festival in my home village, every Fri. & Sun. evening during July. It'd kick off 7.30pm with a hurling match between two local teams, there were tents with a wheel-of-fortune, Pongo ( Bingo with colours ), a tea-tent, chairplanes, chip-vans & ice-cream-vans. These would wind down about 11ish when there'd be a disco in the Parish hall. There'd be bands playing in the pubs. Something for everybody of all ages, the place would be filled with people from a 10-mile radius 7 there'd be a great atmosphere. As a kid it'd be perfectly safe to walk the 2 miles home at 11pm. Invariably, it'd be a lovely summer evening.
Then, mid-80s it all stopped as times got tough. On July weekends the village was now a rainswept ghosttown ( even the good summers were gone ). Luckily I could go for a pint but I really felt for my younger brothers or anyone else whose only social outlet had been the festival. Now they had nothing. Progress me eye.
The economy is far better now than it was in the 70s but insurance issues and a lack of commitment, volunteers or community spirit ( we used to laugh at the great people who made things happen back then ) have ruled out a return to those times. Basically, if you're elderly, very young, non-drinker, family man/woman or you can't go clubbing'n'pubbing every weekend : tough.
We're inclined to remember our childhoods with more affection than our adulthoods, no matter when it was. I'd go more for this :
no matter what your age, the 60s& 70s rocked. The 80s sucked.

[Nuttybott]

I'd go more for this :
no matter what your age, the 60s& 70s rocked. The 80s sucked.

Agree 100% Aidan ...no, 1000%!!! Loved the 60s (early childhood ) and 70s (late childhood/teens ). Hated the 80s. There will never be a nostalgia-driven reappraisal of that decade from me...never, never!!! I remember it too well for that...and it sucked!

[steve edwards]

sadly i was never around in the 60,s and am tooyoung to remember the 70,s but i do remember the 80,s , and i think the same applies to one degree or another , we used to find and fix bikes , make go karts , slide down the side of hills on old cardboard boxes and go to the local disco , and dance to the latest hits like the can can by bad manners as well as other great tracks , as i have said i am 36 but would give my right arm to be able to go back to another place and time to when you could get a bag of sweets for twenty p , and they seemed to last for ever what with the half p gummy bears and all .

But all the time we have these sites they will live for ever in our memories

[culnara]

oh!! 2 b young again

oh!! 2 b young again
when your young everyone tells you "they're the best days of your life" and you always replied " no they're not !! "
then you get older, and you think back, Hey !! THEY WERE the best days of your life !!! no commitments, Bills, Mortgages, no Worry's, food on the table, all your friends, grandparents, doing really crazy things and getting away with it because your a kid.
Then you leave school and start your own life, commitments, Bills, Mortgages, heaps of Worry's, your friends start dropping like fly's, suicide, motor vehicle crashes, lost at sea. etc.etc. your grandparents, your pets, the ups and downs of relationships. the list goes on...............
But its not all Doom n Gloom !! 37yo Happily married, no kids life is good !! but I have been reminiscing a lot recently, and thats why I like this site, meeting Sad like minded PPl, like myself
should be at work just now, but going to yet another funeral, for yet another Friend

God that all sounds depressing...!!!!
to end on a happy note, I dont act my age, and PPL r always telling me I act like a teenager, mind over matter thing I suppose.

so remember Folks, YOUR ONLY AS YOUNG AS YOU FEEL !!!!

[Oggy]

Think a reason to have kids is to play with most of their toys, i loved lego as a kid get to play with it again. The joys of youth, better telly, games music more so too.

[Grackle]

Re: I want to be young again!

Life was simpler, I guess because all the big decisions were made for you. No worry about jobs, mortgage, overdrafts, office politics, etc. I can remember when I was about six, being totally unable to understand why anyone would worry about money. If you had an argument with a friend, you'd call each other names, maybe go home in a huff, and by the next day it was all forgotten and you were friends again. So simple.

[Nicky321]

Re: I want to be young again!

I remember my parents saying, "I wish i was a kid again" and now, over 20 years later, i find myself saying the same to my kids :S. Its true, summer holidays, went on for ever, out at the crack of dawn and stayed there till late at night. There didnt seem to be violence and trouble, kidnappers, chavs, scum n stuff, just harmless children and older folk who would talk to you and share their memories. I find myself wishing to be a child again, years seem to pass so quick now and I find myself thinking......... oh to be a child again.