The good and the bad of the old days

No, of course, it's 49, the Accession and the Coronation coming in different years - years that are now bathed in a golden glow of loyalty and nostalgia.

Fair enough. But as we look back down the years to a time when the Great British family was at one of its peaks, let's not get too carried away.

There were, of course, many good things about the 1950s - low crime rates, matrons, bus conductors, walking to school. Railway station waiting rooms with coal fires, leather benches, and flower beds outside the window.

But there are other things we would prefer to forget:

* Blotchy legs from sitting too close to coal fires.

* The regular pong of unwashed bodies in unwashed clothes.

* Signs saying "No Blacks. No Irish, No Tinkers."

* Scratchy clothes.

* Ice inside the window on winter mornings.

* A woman's place being firmly in the home.

* Impetigo and purple-daubed faces.

* Longing for rhubarb as the fruity highlight of spring.

* Dentists who always hurt.

* The mentally subnormal labelled as lunatics and locked away as a shameful secret.

* Likewise many physically disabled.

l Overseas phone calls had to be booked in advance.

* The 11 Plus.

* Cross country travel before motorways, dual carriageways and bypasses.

* Sundays

There were lots more things that have changed for the better and the worse. No doubt you have your own list. But if you're tempted to get too misty eyed about the good old days, you could just think how many people now live a lot longer. Modern life can't be all bad.

And how did I give the entire road chickenpox? Easy - only one of our neighbours had a television set. So when we all piled in to watch the Coronation it provided ideal conditions for me to share my developing germs. I always was generous.

TEN-year-old Max Palmer died when he jumped into a pool by a waterfall on a day when a flood alert was in force. His mother, who was in the pool with him, clearly didn't realise the danger.

We have grown used to a sanitised world - everything is safe and supervised and subject to rules and regulations. We have done our best to take any danger and sense of risk out of our children's lives.

Then we go out into the countryside. Nature hasn't read the training manuals. Despite all our efforts, the world is still a dangerous place and cannot be tamed by a rule book.

Sadly, it needs something like this awful accident to remind us to treat the natural world with respect.

INTERVIEWED on television and radio, Patricia Amos, the first mother to be jailed for not sending her children to school, came over as intelligent, articulate and reasonable and in a state of shock that she had let her life slide to such a state.

Her daughters too, especially the 11-year-old, seemed bright and lively and ready to make something of their lives. Meanwhile, all over the country, truants are turning up in droves at schools who can barely remember ever seeing them in the classroom.

For once, a drastic punishment seems to have worked. Good.

But let's hope it doesn't go to the government's head or what would be next - ten penalty points, your licence taken away and you could be transported to the colonies?

THE new Big Brother contestants have been deemed to be too foul-mouthed for daytime viewing as they try very hard to shock us and keep our attention - a bit like show-off toddlers really.

And they still lost in the ratings battle to Have I Got News For you.

It's coming to something when sex, cocaine and sneers seem the more wholesome option.