THE GOOD OLD DAYS

I guess that most young people will think I’m nuts for pining after the good old days of my youth. We didn’t have a house phone never mind a mobile. There were no curling tongs or straighteners.

There was no chance of the dad buying us a car and treating us to holidays in the US of A.

For all the wild extravagance of modern day society I get the impression kids aren’t that happy.

Their parents don’t have time for them and throw money and toys and gadgets at them to make up for being absent or too busy to guide them through life.

Where are the parents of the kids who are running riot everywhere?

In my day the worst we did was knock on someone’s door and run away. Now they kick the door in and rob you blind. Kids don’t think twice about attacking elderly people or people with disabilities. How sad is that?

Our door was never locked. Nowadays we have to barricade ourselves in.

Neighbours looked out for each other and mucked in together when times were lean.

We respected the police and they were fair and square. What the hell is happening today?! It is bedlam gone mad (if that’s possible). I despair peeps.

I loved my social networking sites but now I’m thinking that perhaps going global isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Kids are using technology to launch attacks on town centres and scare the living daylights out of law abiding citizens.

I’m livid that the government have let us down and bankers have robbed us and destroyed the lives of people who worked themselves to the bone and paid into pension funds only to find it disappear into thin air. Someone has to have done well out of it. The bankers are still awarding themselves bonuses! I ask you … is that the way to make amends?

And what kid wants to go into debt to get a university education?

Back in my day you either “had the smarts” and got a free pass or your parents paid to give you one. The rest of us went out to work for the first company willing to give us a start.

I joined the civil service aged 16. As I said before, I paid tax from the get-go although I wasn’t eligible to vote. Forgive me if I’m rushing to fund someone else’s offspring to a party all night and sleep all day free ride.

The people in student areas of Portstewart are sick to death of them. 

In the 1970’s we were in a world of Troubles. Tickles and I worked in the record section of DVLCO (as it was known in those days). We did traffic censuses by pulling out dusty old files and calling out every tenth one for someone to record in five bar gates.  

We had to use the phonetic alphabet because the soldiers didn’t understand the Ulster accent.

Nowadays Tesco et al know everything about our buying preferences. The government can track our every movement via satellite. Access to credit and debit card transactions make us open books. George Orwell was a visionary when he wrote Big Brother. CCTV is everywhere … police are nowhere to be seen when needed. Our telephone conversations are recorded yet we have no right to have a copy or a transcript. That’s just wrong in anyone’s book.

If the politicians don’t get their acts together anarchy will bring us all to a bitter end.

I want to extend an offer to people who want to grow their own food but don’t have the space. I have some ground and I am more than willing to let peeps have allotments. There is no water supply but let’s face it … all you need is a bucket as it rains all year round here now. If we had sunshine I could grow rice.

Drop your contact details in with CC at Ballymoney Times and I’ll contact you. Ranting over for another week … some chance!!!