The Kids Today…………..by Steve Wraith

The Kids today don’t know how lucky they are. Have you heard that before? You may have said it to someone in conversation. Take a look at it for a few seconds. Is that really the case. Are the children of the ‘noughties’ much better off than the kids of the forties? I don’t think they are.I was thirty this year. I’m at that age where I’m too old to be mixing with the youth of today , and just too young to be sitting in my local social club hoping for that winning line, so I feel I can play devils advocate in the constant battle between young and old.

‘I remember when this was all fields’. My granddad often tells me as we pass various Tyneside landmarks. He remembers hot sunny days, bike rides, picnics, and hours of endless fun where children played to there hearts content unsupervised.

When I was a child growing up in the back streets of Gateshead we lived and breathed football. I would join the other kids for a game of ‘cups’ or ‘pairs’ in between the goalposts on my local school field. Sundays would see 15 a side games where local pride was at stake.

The children of the ‘noughties’ have no access to fields or school football pitches after school hours. They are all fenced off. If they climb the fence they are trespassing and face prosecution. Many cannot afford to pay to play at leisure centres so they have no other option than to hang around their street corners. Many parents prefer their kids to stay within the confines of there own gardens where they know they are safe. There are too many monsters ready to snatch there loved ones.

‘I remember when we used to sneak under the turnstiles at St James every Saturday’, my granddad says proudly. He remembers the halcyon days of Milburn, Harvey, and Cowell. He recalls Wembley as Uniteds’ second home.

I remember standing outside St James clutching my programme and waiting impatiently to pay £1-50 to watch my heroes, Keegan , Waddle and Beardsley.I would spend less than a fiver on the whole match day experience in the eighties.

The youth of today have to make do with television coverage of the big match. They have been priced out of the game with the introduction of all seater stadiums and the great demand for season tickets. The nearest most of them come to seeing there heroes play is on a computer console.

‘In my day the local bobby would clip you round the ear if he caught you up to mischief, and god help you if your parents found out,’ my granddad recalls. In the forties the police lived in and were part of the local community and well respected.

My own experiences with the local constabulary in the eighties were very few and far between as a youngster. I liked to keep my nose clean. I have no memories of an officer doing a local beat. The threat of a visit from the men in black was enough to put me off a life of crime.

The ‘noughties’ are indeed very naughty. The kids of today are seen as a threat by the older generation because they hang around in gangs on street corners. The police are strangers , and represent authority , kids from any generation dislike authority. It’s a recipe for disaster. So what is the answer? It’s something the government and local councils need to discuss. Why don’t we plough the lottery money into new youth centres up and down the country, which kids can use for free, instead of wasting cash on white elephants like the millennium dome.

In a nutshell the youth of today may have more things to amuse and entertain them than the kids of the forties did, but these ‘things’ cost money. Those less fortunate children have to make do with what is available on the streets, which is very little.

The kids of today don’t know how ‘unlucky’ they are!

Steve Wraith is the author of ‘The Krays The Geordie Connection’ published by Zymurgy Publishing £6-99. Please check out www.thegeordieconnection.com.