Good Old Days?
 

Residents living near Gatty Park, Church, sent a petition to Hynburn Council appealing for help against teenage yobs running riot in the park. Gangs of boys and girls, aged between 15 and 18, had been congregating in the park and their insolent antics, bad language, and general anti-social behaviour was so unbearable that councillors attempting to remonstrate with them were threatened with physical violence.



This was taken from the Observer's 50 years ago this week column. Though I think they are wrong about which council the residents wrote to, as Hyndburn Council wasn't formed until 1974.

It just shows you though, that all the bad press some young people get nowadays, is nothing new.

I wonder if these children grew up to be good, upstanding members of society? Perhaps some of them are members on here, and will perhaps tell us.;)

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50 years ago? well they aint solved the problem yet,there is still gangs of teenagers who congregate in the summer evenings there -some no problems some a damn nuisence.

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Gangs of boys and girls....? there were probably three of them!

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We still have problems with anti-social yobs, but I thought it is quite funny that people go on all the time how things aren't as good as 'the old days'. Looks like in this case they weren't.

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your eyes must be going margret;bamber gascoine i'm not,but i can count:)

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Who said times have changed? To think they were doing what we all have done at some point. As to weather they are now upstanding and members here would they admit it?:eek:

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:eek: Are you speaking from personal knowledge there Margaret? .... Was it you causing mahem in the park? ;) :D

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What 50 years ago......you were around then? I was but I was only little.
Then, three kids would be called a gang.

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No Tinks......not Gatty Park. Now if you'd said Bullough Park, well I WAS only 8......so I didn't know any bad language......and yes we did run around, but for goodness sake I thought that is what you did in the park.

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The gang must have been at least four strong, as it said boys and girls, both in the plural.;)

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I'll let you all know whether people become upstanding members when I have given up playing on parks ;)

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I'll remind you of that the next time I see you being pushed on the swings, lol. [Baby swings.;)]

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People forget the mischief and reputations that they had as children. I never liked Gatty and it was before my time, but if you read some of the comments that I have made in these reflective threads you will see I and others who will be nameless where never angles. Pig stealing, cow and chicken kidnapping, wilful damage, gang raids was amongst our childhood trades. I was a child, foolish and without fear of consequence. The only time we would come to heel is when PC Ball caught us and hit us hard, then our victims would kick our backsides if they got us, and our greatest fear our parents. But it would only last a few days and we would be at it again. I am not proud of my childhood actions, but I was a child seeing the world through a child’s eyes. I remember street fights between the big boy’s; the sky would be thick with sticks and stones at times. Times haven’t really change, we have. The media is much more intuitive, much keener to report the things that we as a society would want to keep hidden back then. What I don’t understand is when we were a kids we had nothing, no money, no high value toys, video games, TVs, record players. We had each other, pram wheels and cardboard boxes.

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There would be around ten of us, about seven lads and three girls, there where others but they were good.

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Can I have the wheels back you took from my pram please?

Mr Bad Boy.

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It wasn't your pram.......But if it was left unattended it was game.....:)

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It was a coach built Silver Cross pram with a navy hood, and Nanny saw you take it!

It would be nice after all these years if you could admit your guilt, and I could once again get Nanny to push me in my pram.

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Yes. See, I knew you were the little ruffian that pram jacked Nanny and myself.

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pc ball clocked me around the lughole a few times doug, he lived for a time in that house next to the old graveyard across from the slaughterhouse, he certainly packed a mean swipe (deserved) lol

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Wasn’t us…………must have been my cousin Boo.

We could get 30 mph out of a big wheeler down the hill, the only problem was the high mounted hand brake, you’d kick it and go A .O.T and end up in A&E having the gravel picked out of your wounds..

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That's it in't it. it was always deserved. I was part and parcil of growing up. :). We never really come to arm did we. I remember having an hand mark across the top of my leg and my mum clocked it. She forced me to say were I had got it from, I told her, then I got a matching one on the other side....:)

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know what you mean-got the teashirt lolll

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So the reputation that today's kids are worse than in the past is wrong?

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No, in reality there's no difference. What is different is there’s no check in place to stop the kids of today going to far. If we told some old fart to pee off the old fart would come after us and one of us would always get a slap. That was a shared punishment and we would show that person more respect. Today the kids would beat the old fart senseless because no one can touch them. If you do you’re the one in trouble. The all system as gone to far and if we don’t pull it back soon, more people will suffer from ever younger offenders.

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therein lies the answer doug.

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50 years ago threats of violence from kids was probably sticking their tongues out or waving a fist

present day kids will smash a bottle of WKD in your face or jump you from behind and mug you

infact the only thing that you can say positive about todays scumbags is that they have got better at violence

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Try weegieville they knife you for fun

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Speaking of you thugs, last October (2004) I was woken at one in the morning by someone in the front garden! I went out to see what was going on and caught some sod trying to break into my car. When I confronted him he ran at me my with a Stanley knife!!!!!!!

Anyway, to cut a long story short I clobbered him! Next morning I was arrested for assault!!!

He goes for me with a knife in my garden having tried to break into my car and I am the one who gets done!!!!!

Granted he was only 16, but at one in the morning if a 6ft yob goes for you with a knife what you going to do? Well apparently we have to let him stab you!

I obviously was not around 50 years ago but I should imagine 16 year olds were not attacking people in their homes with knives!

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know what you mean bad-wolf, yobs were frightening my late mother-in-law,in her bungalow during dark nights,i went to the police station reported it,and they said they were too busy to send anyone up ossy,so i said i would stay with her and sort em myself if they returned,to this i was told if i laid a finger on em- i would be prosecuted. the point is you can't win! the law is now on the side of this scum- far as i'm concerned.

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You are quite right, the thing that is worrying is that so long as this remains the status quo, people will start to take the law into their own hands as they will be left with no other option!

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It all comes down to what they as in the CPS consider reasonable force when defending yourself. Its never the same even in identical cases.

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In this week's Observer murder charges were dropped after a man got a young man in a headlock, after he entered the detained man's house, and subsequently died.

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Perfect example of why the law on defending yourself needs to be seen to define reasonable force. One man dies at the hands of another and the "killer" goes free yet I could punch a guy invading my house leaving him with a black eye and dented ego and be jailed for it. What happened to commen sense?

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the P.C. brigade got hold of common sense spug.;)

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Its about time we claimed it back. :o

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PC brigade got hold of common sense? ........No.

They got hold of the government!

Common sense was proven non existent when the country voted for Blair!

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No......Garinda trust me, there would only be three (although I do like your reasoning).....the general public always exaggerate when they feel aggrieved!

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And as for the chap who was let off for killing a teenager who had broken into his house.......he was protecting his property and if the teenager had not been in the house in the first place than he would have come to no harm.....so in effect he sealed his own fate. However, I do think that 'reasonable force' is subjective and therefore difficult to define.

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The nail has been well hand tuely hit on the head there willow.

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I would really like to use the word “Liberated” as against stolen Willow, although that’s what it was. There was about six of us at the time, regrettably I was the one to pick it up and walk it out the yard, I would like to make it clear the from the age of nine I have suffered from the guilt of this action and when I reflect on the incident I still do. The animal was released further down Priestly Clough. One expects that it was recovered by the farmer although I have no proof of that.

You are quite right in that if there's no effective punishment things will get worse and it is likely to take a major outrage before the system wakes up and acts in the interest of society.

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As willow said, string on door knockers, 3d to get in the sat. afternoon pics, 3d for a mixture at the chippy, take your own basin. A pair of clogs cause I'd kicked the front out of my shoes (had to wear them to church).......... getting a back hander from the local bobby,a second hand bike for christmas, my dad's Austin 7,...... ah yes those were the good old days :)
Oh the 3d is old money pre 74

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Pre 7/72 parky.

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Oh shut up please, the memories aren’t always good ones when you start to reflect. I remember coming down stairs one night and catching my mum struggling to finish off a restored three wheeler that had seen better days. She was so upset that I had seen it in the state it was in. I got a slap for coming down and sent back to bed, I could hear her crying for the next hour, I heard my dad coming from work and work started again and went on until the early hours of Christmas morning. The next day I pulled away the paper to find a gleaming Corporation Red painted bike, they had worked so hard to get it ready for me and you could smell that the paint had yet to go off. “It was the same red colour that Accrington Corporation used on the buses”. I was so proud of it, yet so hurt when my so called mates took the **** out of my second hand bike….. The good old days? Pollock’s, they where riddled with regrets, disappointment and hardship. I wish I could go back there and change so much. But the people we where then, are not people we are now. There’s a life time of change between us and not always for the better………..

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I didn’t get a Brand New Bike until I was 22 years old

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Thanks Park, now I'm crying........:o

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I never had a bike.:(

I found a wheelchair at the tip, painted it beige with black spots, and got my friend big Shirley, to push me up and down the lane.:)

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Could she not find a cliff then?

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She did use to push me up to Kemp Delph, but was always too knackered by the time we got there, to push me over the edge.:)

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Now is that lucky for us or what her being knackerd? ;)

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Fancy letting me having a push then? :D :D :D

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wonder if big shirley is a member? if so the poor lass has probably topped herself,lol

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Are you out there Big Shirley, step forward and expose yourself and tell us what sort of things he made you do up Delph.

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Now do we really want to know the details of that part of G,s past? :)

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Doug......the past is part of who we are.....it made us, even the bad times and the hard times.

Your story of the Christmas bike brought back some very poignant memories for me.
We were very poor and from about September my Mum would trawl the jumble sales for cheap second hand toys.....dinky toys, metal pans.....you know the kind of stuff. My dad would disappear up into the attic for hours at a time.......he was putting new paint on these old tired toys. He made a garage for one of my brothers with his name stencilled on the top.....it had a ramp that lifted the cars and petrol pumps. He made a fort for one of my other brothers......and a cooker for me. During the half term holidays when my parents were out of the house for a short while I managed to get the key to the attic and we all went up and saw the work that was being done so that we could have a good Christmas......our eyes must have lit up. We started to play with these toys and lost track of the time. Before we knew it my mother was stood at the top of the attic stairs surveying the scene. She was absolutely livid and told us that there would be NO presents for us at Christmas. Well it seemed a long time until Christmas to us and by the time Christmas came along we had forgotten about the threats. Christmas morning we all got up and there were 4 brown paper bags.....one for each of us. Inside each one was a pile of cinders. I can't tell you how much we cried.It was a terrible week for all of us, but we were reminded that we had done something we were not supposed to do..... and this was the punishment. My mother held back our toys until New years day.....we were not expecting any toys so it was a surprise to us. You may think our parents were cruel to do this to us, but I valued the lessons learnt by such things.
It taught us that we have to take responsibility for our actions.....and that in life all things are paid for, one way or another.

Re: Good Old Days?
 

Margaret todays kids could learn a thing or two from the things their grandparents and to some extent their parents endured.

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Being my handmaiden certainly helped her. She married well, and still lives locally.;)

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We weren't sweethearts, she just adored me, a bit like you do now.

I'll give you a shout if I need a push.:)

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Woof.:)

Has the spell checker been at the cooking sherry?;)