Anyone under the age of 30 will probably not 'get this', nor will they even care.

As kids, we played on concrete.  There wasn't any of that weird black spongy stuff, or those strange wooden chippings to fall on.  When we fell, we crunched... we got winded, we went blue, we managed to finally inhale again and then we got up, dusted ourselves off and continued to play.  Unless there were copious amounts of blood spouting forth like a beautiful red version of "Old Faithful" and/or a bone or two sticking through the skin, we carried on.

How many of you remember running in front of, or behind the swings, only to get either the back of the swing seat or the feet on the person on the swing smack you squarely in the face/head??    If there was any length of unconsciousness, then it was always suggested that the individual with the giant ostrich-sized egg on their head and/or swollen eye (which would develop into a beautiful shiner!), did at least go home and tell Mum/Dad/Guardian what had happened.

We had weird competitions that would have turned our parent's/guardian's hair grey overnight.  You would swing as high as you could and at the highest point of the forward swing-motion, you would let go of the bars and launch yourself out of the seat. Then, for a few fleeting moments, you were airborne and hurtling towards the ground at speed. The reason behind this?  To see who could go the furthest.  Sounds insane, was prety much insane, but by god it was fun!  That's the nearest we ever got to being adrenaline junkies!

We played on metal climbing frames that would give the Health and Safety Executive a bloody coronary.  We pretended to be gymnasts and swung into the bars below with our stomachs and if we fell... yes, you guessed it, we hit concrete.  We swung upside down on these metal frames, goading one another until you did this from the highest bars! We walked UP the DOWN part of the slide and walked DOWN (and often fell down) the UP steps of the slide! 

Kids  like to do stupid and mildly dangerous things, okay sometimes not so mildly dangerous, sometimes it's bordering on the 'you do that and you could die' sort of activity, but how the hell can you learn what's a good idea and what's a bad idea??  Poking wasps nests with sticks, that was NEVER a good idea, but I bet you know at least one idiot who actually DID this!  That idiot might even be you.

Roundabouts... the ones where you stuck your legs through the bars and hoped to hell that you had the upper body strength not to get flung off due the the centrifugal force that these things produced!  Think spin cycle on a washing machine!  These were also known as the shoe-wreckers, because you had to use your feet as breaks.  The other sort that had the wooden boards, and you'd find yourself slowly drifting outwards because of the same force!!  We were learning physics!!! We were developing muscles, good lung capacity, we were bloody fitter than the kids who sit around playing Wii, PS3, Nintendo DS these days.

See-saws (or as some call them, Teeter-Totters) - these were fraught with danger and you hoped to god that the person never bailed on you if they were heavier and in the down position.  You were at their mercy, dangling in mid-air and by god did you plummet to the ground at such a speed!  Your backside hurt, your feet and knees hurt... yet you continued to use the equipment, because it was still fun.

We played conkers without 'protective eye wear'.  If we played games and we were on the losing side, the score stayed the same at half time - the other team didn't suddenly lose their points so that the losers wouldn't feel bad!!  For crying out loud, children need to learn that they can't always win and it's alright not to win.  Whatever happened to, "as long as you try your best"?

If we injured ourselves at some friends house, i.e. fell over and 'grazed' your knee/s, did our parents immediately reach for the phone and call those "hurt in an accident and it wasn't your fault?" type solicitors that you see advertising every-sodding-where now?  Did anyone run home screaming to their parents to sue the council, the park owners, the school after a fall, an altercation with a swing, a splinter from the desk??  NO!  When did we turn into a litigation-nation, a suing-society??  It's just so sad that kids can't have the same kind of fun that we did.

I used to walk to school on my own when I was about 8 or 9 years old onwards, in fact, right up until I went to Secondary school.  Then I walked to the bus stop.  I feel sorry for kids today, they don't seem to have that kind of freedom and/or independence building that we had.  I don't honestly think that the amount of perverts has increased exponentially, any incident is now so widely reported that it just appears that way.  However, I can truly understand a parent not really wanting to take the chance.

I have a niece and nephew who are 8 and if I lose sight of them whilst shopping, my heart misses a beat!  Yet we used to wander away from parents all the time when out shopping.  You just have to hope that they have the sense to remember not to talk to strangers (which, thankfully, they do).

I don't want to end this on a bleak thought, as this started out as a small fun journey back to my youth.

How would kids today manage without mobile phones?  The same way we did back then, you actually met up with your mates and SPOKE to them.  You had conversations that weren't stunted to text speak... you knew whole words and how to spell those words, should the need ever arise for a letter to be written!

The first mobile phones back in the early 80's were the size of a brick...literally.  Who would've thought that one day they would be able to reduce them to the size of a credit card?  Thus making it far more easier for them to be misplaced somewhere.

Quick question... Do you know your mobile phone number?

I don't, as I never have to ring myself.  Saddo, I know! :o)