THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

Call me an old curmudgeon but I noted some of the 'flash ads' last night for ghoulish disguises for Halloween and I reflected that these people could sell snow to Eskimos..... What is going on in parent's heads, is it simply a matter of complete capitulation to pester power? A powerful advertising industry has transformed public tastes over the last fifty years and not all of it has been an improvement.

[Tizer]

They major on the pester power of kids and then the parents say "Other kids have got them so I've got to let my kids have them.

[Stanley]

They tell me that the playground at school can be a nightmare if you haven't got the latest brands or smart phone..... Brave New World?

[Tizer]

I mentioned earlier that one of our relatives has a child who is now scared of going out because of the clown craze. They live in High Wycombe. We now learn that one of our friends in a small town here in Somerset also has a child who has been frightened by all the publicity about clowns. When mum tried to assure her it wasn't dangerous she said "But they kill people!" Both of the mothers are very caring and look after their kids well but it's become impossible to protect them from the stuff that's on social media. Even if they don't have a smartphone the other kids will show them videos on their phones. How did we ever let ourselves get into this situation where `undesirables' anywhere in the world can put fear into the hearts of children in small British towns?

[Stanley]

I think it's fairly well recognised that there has always been a small proportion of the audience who are badly affected by clowns, Punch and Judy and some specifically national phenomena like the German 'Peter' figure. Grimm's original fairy tales were very gory. I think there are two factors, one is the vastly increased size of the audience via modern technology and a gradual change in society where the depiction of violence on screen has become acceptable. Look at the way attitudes to women are portrayed. Look at the trade in violently pornographic images of small children has stoked paedophilia.
It's a terribly complicated subject but at the root I think is a general erosion of what used to be the built-in 'moral compass' that young people absorbed in their formative years by exposure to religion and a modest society. Modesty seems to be such an old-fashioned concept these days. That's too simplistic I know but what was taboo to me is now in many cases quite acceptable.
This is probably an indication of my age and upbringing but that is my point, mistaken though it often was, there were some built in safeguards in the process and I'm afraid I see very little evidence of their existence today. Ponder on the recent case of the two 14 year old murderers. Perhaps what we are looking at is the 'new reality'. Include me out!

[Tizer]

These are not like the clowns we know from circuses. They are being called `killer clowns' and are people who dress as clowns but go out on the streets with the objective of frightening folk. They'll jump out of dark alleys at night and chase kids. One in Britain was rushing about in broad daylight with a chain saw but at least the police have had a word with him. Real, professional clowns are very upset and it's putting them out of work; some have been told to get bodyguards because of the backlash.

[Stanley]

It makes you wonder what the attraction is in frightening people. I can understand it in a voluntary activity like watching a horror film or reading a ghost story but forcing terror on people and children is different. Can anyone remember that late night programme on the BBC, 'Appointment with Fear'? very scary stories read by Valentine Dyall, the Man In Black. My parents let me stay up to listen to them, I think it was Friday night.

[Tizer]

I think this love of scaring people has increased along with the general trend towards nastiness, which itself has been boosted here by the Brexiteers and in the US by the Trumpeteers. `Social media' has a lot to do with it, providing an ideal vehicle for the nasty people to vent their feelings.

[Stanley]

And of course they get the publicity. No news value in good news......

[Stanley]

At one time, Arthur Mee, he of 'The Children's Newspaper' published a paper that had nothing in it but good news. It failed miserably. I remember the CN well, my mother got it for me each week..... No wonder we were good readers!

[Stanley]

Despite the fact that we had no TV or electronic gizmo's we were not deprived almost 80 years ago. One wonderful memory is the appointment with the wireless at 05:00 to 06:00 every weekday evening to listen to Children's Hour'. (LINK) Uncle Mac, Auntie Vi and Wilfred Pickles were in our heads every night. Stories ranged from 'Toytown' with Mr Groucher and Larry the Lamb to really frightening serials like John Masefield's 'The Box of Delights'. The programme ran from 1922 to the 1960s and was part of the fabric of my childhood. Hopelessly old-fashioned now of course but at the time it was a delight!
"Goodnight Children, everywhere".

[Stanley]

Can anyone remember Norman and Henry Bones, the boy detectives?

[chinatyke]

Despite the fact that we had no TV or electronic gizmo's we were not deprived almost 80 years ago.

We were deprived by today's standards, we just didn't know it because most people were the same. Going to bed hungry was a regular thing in our house. There were no fat kids at our school. Waking up to frost on the inside of the window panes showed how cold it was in the bedrooms. I have plenty of happy memories but I don't kid myself: times were very hard then.

[Stanley]

Glasses half full and half empty China. We must have been hungry at times but I can't remember it. We even made a hobby out of collecting shrapnel.....
Main thing is that we survived and came out of it all tougher, and in many cases, in better health than today's kids.....

[Stanley]

I know I have touched on this before but I can't help wondering how the modern generation who live hand to mouth and rely sometimes exclusively on take away food would fare if there was any disruption to the immensely complicated and knife-edge system of food distribution we rely on today. Those of us who were reared in the old-fashioned way to always have food stocks in the house would be fine but I worry about the others. Computers have allowed the system to work on the 'Just in time' principle and occasionally we see instances where some unexpected happenstance disrupts factories. I remember one where essential road works outside a car factory stopped the production lines. Think what a winter like 1947 or 1963 could do.....

[Tizer]

There was a lot of disruption here during the last week - the councils all decided to do their road works during the half-term holiday. It seems that they haven't realised that now it's just as busy as any other week in the year. Diversions everywhere. The good people of Yeovil found it so difficult to get about that they made a protest to the council.

[Stanley]

There is so much traffic these days isn't there. I can remember 15 years ago when I was in Cambridge for a few days being amazed by the density of traffic. We don't see anything like that in Barlick. Then I wonder how many of the journeys are actually essential or even necessary. I see people driving large cars to get a loaf of bread from the supermarket when I know they only live five minutes walk away. I watch cars cruising round in the town centre looking for a parking space close to the shop they are aiming for. There are plenty of car parks in Barlick only five minutes from the shops but even that is seen as too far. There must be people who never walk more than a few yards in their life!

[Stanley]

That reminds me that my mother thought nothing of pushing the pram seven miles to Dukinfield so we could visit the relations there. Can you imagine that happening today?

[Tizer]

I agree with you about people not walking but there is another side to it. Even people who are keen to keep fit and walk instead of use the car can be put off because they have nowhere within easy reach that is suitable for walking. That might sound ridiculous to those of you living in towns and near common land such as the moors but out here in the sticks on lanes with no pavement or verge you take a risk due to the number of speeding vehicles. The land is private, footpaths have often been closed or become unfit for use and you're left with a few muddy dirt tracks.

[Stanley]

I can understand that Tiz and it's a shame. We are so lucky here in Barlick, open country and shops all in walking distance......

[Tizer]

A new set of guidelines has been issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics telling parents how much screen time is healthy for kids. This made me think back to how in the 1950s I was being encouraged by my parents to watch more TV rather than less. We were lucky to have a TV from 1953 because my dad worked for Philips and all their employees could have a TV and it was paid for automatically from their weekly wage packet. Of course there was only one channel and not so many programmes then, and broadcasting ended at night leaving you with only the test card. As we began to receive other channels and more programming my dad spent more time in front of the screen. At first I watched a lot because of the novelty aspect but then Coronation Street and similar programmes came along and I began to lose interest. I preferred to read books or make models of aeroplanes and ships and, in the lighter evenings, go out on my bike.. My dad regarded this as me being anti-social when I went off instead of sitting with him and my mum in front of the telly. We should have had some guidelines then telling parents how much screen time was healthy for adults!

[Stanley]

I think we were lucky because we couldn't afford a TV until the late 60s by which time it wasn't so much of a novelty. I can't ever remember worrying about the kids watching too much because we never switched it on until after 6PM and they were always early in bed.

[Stanley]

I noticed in Newtown yesterday that there were Xmas lights in one of the shop windows. My mind went back to the days when our version was actual wax candles on the artificial tree which was made largely of paper. It's quite amazing to me that it survived all through the war and long after but we stopped using candles after it caught fire one Xmas. A quick trim, ditch the candles and we were still using it in the early 1960s at Hey Farm!

[Stanley]

I know I often hark back to the way we were shaped during my childhood during the war but the older I get the more I realise what a powerful agent the world we had to live in was on us. I think that anyone who had the same experience is well qualified to withstand the pressures of today. We had to accept reality and get on with it. A valuable lesson which of course I am employing to the full these days.....

[Stanley]

On a morning like this when there is a cold NW wind and the wind chill is below freezing I look at my energy monitor and see I have used £1.47 worth of energy already today. Not happy about that obviously but then I think back to a similar morning at Norris Avenue when I was a young lad in the 1940s and getting out of bed onto the cold linoleum of the floor in a bedroom with ice on the inside of the windows. Then I think back even earlier to cottages with gaps round the windows and under the doors and reflect that they must never have been as warm as I am sat here in my kitchen. There is much to be said for modern amenities!