SEnine
Herbaceous has always held the younger generation in high esteem.
Goody-two-shoes. Rather
unexpectedly for an Old Grump,
An incident recently, however, has caused him to have doubts, his main worry being that we seem to be producing a generation of goody-two- shoes.
Have they lost their mojo, he wonders, using a term he is given to believe they might understand?
Re-tracing his childhood steps recently, he came upon the point where, at about this time of year, he and his gang undertook the annual ritual of ‘scrumping’.
This polite term would go down on the charge sheet as breaking and entering a household’s garden, picking a large quantity of apples, eating minor mouthfuls and spending a considerable time lobbying them at each other and anything else that moved.
The whole concept seems to have been lost. He’s heard reports of some particularly juicy apricots overhanging a public path gaining full maturity without so much as being fi ngered by an adolescent, never mind being
splattered against a car windscreen.
He blames the parents. Always wanting to know where their children are all the time. In his day it was ‘be back for tea-time and don’t get that shirt mucky’. No questions asked.
There is also too much for children to do these days. If it’s not Facebook, Twitter, texting, multi-channel TV, video games then it’s all those worthy clubs that parents seem to bully their off spring to attend. Gym, ballet, swimming, sports teams, you name it.
In his day, the summer holidays just stretched out into infi nity. A time for tear-arsing up and down the pavements on bikes and fi nding fun things to do. These often involved re-arranging the street furniture, swapping everybody’s gates around and lighting fi res on bits of waste ground.
No doubt all these things would show The Family Business that still off ers a personal service W. UDEN & SONS LTD
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Never stop trying 39
HERBACEOUS
up these days on CCTV and Herbs’ childhood features would be pinned to the police station counter.
Rumour had it that PC Kilvington, his village bobby, only apprehended one villain during 30 years of endeavour. And as for a clip round the ear, it was often several months between even the hairdresser managed that.
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