Teaching 'em young!

Just out of shot is a young mum with her son in some sort of fancy dress ........... yes I've just recognised it as a Traffic Warden's uniform , clearly training him early :08:
 
You know I just want to make a statement about those electric cars for kids. When we were small, we had cars that were manual pedal cars and of course, there was not a mother in sight. When you give a child an electric car something is lost. Mothers have to be present because things can happen with electric cars. So kids can only drive these cars when mothers are available to monitor the experience. And then there is the moan about children getting fat and having poor muscle tone. Of course, kids are getting fat, because they don't need to use their muscles to operate the car. So let's be very honest about what is being lost. Childhood is supposed to be a time for children to explore and experiment, in other words childhood is supposed to be a time for play; unstructured play where kids can have lots of opportunity to explore their world. Now childhood has been turned into something very different. And it is very sad.
 
In a similar vein and also shown in a couple of episodes [anyone wishing to guess those episodes all answers accepted here] you either got your Dad [if he showed any semblance of DIY skills] or you had a go yourself and if you were in difficulties you played the self pity card and got a friend ,whose Dad was top notch at DIY, to help to construct a wooden "trolley" [also known as a wooden go kart and bogey [ in Newcastle] ] . No electricity needed inertia provided either by running and jumping in the seat [similar to Bill when he jumps on a push bike but without the pain] , getting a friend to give you a push , or by using the services of a steep hill.

Wood was sometimes "acquired " from a local building site and wheels from old prams [if you had a younger brother or sister you prayed for the day that they could walk and the Pram was no longer needed and you could grab the wheels before the pram was given to the local rag n bone man in exchange for some pegs or balloons :) [a bit of poetic licence here] ]. The race between Compo and Goaty[big clue there] demonstrates the fun you could have on these home made machines .

I suppose in modern day a Lego type company would manufacture a kit which you build yourself but it would be a flawless design rather than the rustic self customised version we made and they would probably charge you £300 plus for the privilege .
 
I remember the fun (& pain!) of hurtling down a hill and having one of the front wheels fall off, building skills at 10 were not great!:08:
 
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