‘Be back in time for tea’ was a well-worn saying during my youth as the evenings followed a similar pattern come rain, hail, or shine.

Arriving home, there was a real sense of urgency to hang the school uniform up on the floor, chuck on the nearest football kit (the Liverpool FC ‘Hitachi’ being a personal favourite) before riding the Mag Burner at breakneck speed down to a mate’s house to play football until, and after, dark. One of my friends had, strangely, as it was a nondescript two-bed bungalow, a double horse stable in the back garden, the doors of which were the perfect distance for goals. We would generally have a half-time break for some salt n’ shake crisps or a Wagon Wheel before returning home with muddied knees and bramble cuts running down the length of our legs.

Occasionally, as a change and fancying a bit of variety, usually if there were girls about, we would knock the football on the head and go and set something alight in the woods, play knock down ginger or go on the search for porn pages in bushes of which there seemed to be an abundance (along with white dog poo).

But now, alas, despite society seemingly having progressed, we seem to have regressed with giving the freedom to kids that we enjoyed back ‘in the day.’ Nowadays, even if you do like to give your kids some space, as do I, other parents don’t and hence they are left with little option but to join their compatriots by spending their down time staring at a phone screen in their bedrooms as real life experience, and tales to tell, pass them by, never to return.

They have phones now and choice regarding products and paid for time-limited activity, such as bowling, but that choice has done little but restrict their experience and movement as with choice comes the watering down of content. Take TV, which kids, contrary to middle-aged opinion, rarely watch, well, certainly not terrestrial. They rave about shows on Netflix which are generally inferior quality, as their expectations have been dumbed down. Instead of three channels to choose from they now have a million and three, and YouTube and ‘influencers’ who take up their time by undertaking product reviews or videoing themselves playing computer games which is the modern-day equivalent of collecting stamps as a hobby.

As bairns, we would, despite a dearth of channels, get to enjoy, at various stages of the child life cycle, Tiswas, Grange Hill, Bagpuss, Morph, The Muppets, Grizzly Adams, Jamie and the Magic Torch, Rainbow and, a favourite of mine: The Littlest Hobo. I can still, to this day recount the theme tune (there’s a voice, keeps on calling me….) of the dog that was the Miss Marple of the K9 world, solving crime but proving a jinx on every village it chose to frequent. I always imagined the hound visiting my hometown to shake things up a bit as the body count would inevitably rise before she/he trumped off to solve a crime in Eastbourne having gotten bored with the mean streets of Hastings.

Nowadays, besides the odd classic such as Young Sheldon or the ‘Norris Nuts’, kids have little of any depth to occupy their imagination and are crying out for the modern day incarnation of Digby: the biggest dog in the world, who would, if remade, require black bin sacks in place of poo bags.

So yes, I feel as if there has been a regression as I rarely get to say ‘get home for tea’ as we instead battle to get them off their devices for ten minutes to come downstairs for a lasagne or spag bol, but at least they are generally safe, physically at least, even though the psychological effects of being wrapped in cotton wool will not become apparent until they become adults and have scant little to reminisce about…

  • Brett Ellis is a teacher