A nation of scallywags

The great outdoors used to be a child’s domain. These pictures show young boys and girls throwing themselves into the Thames, playing in the streets and fishing in a public park.

There is no Health and Safety in evidence, and certainly they were more likely to drown or break a limb, but there was also less obesity and loneliness. Life was lived outdoors as overworked housewives with too many children turfed them out of small houses. There were amusement parks and funfairs, but most of these pictures show kids just knocking about. Today I spend most of the time dragging mine to museums and attractions, not so in the early 20th century.

Kids made their own fun. Strangely enough, modern trends are heading back in that direction. Forest School is the new fashionable place to take your children. You drop them off in the woods (closely supervised) and let them climb trees, whittle sticks, build forts and entertain themselves.

We are slowly re-learning a lesson that these kids’ parents instinctively understood – children are happiest exploring with their friends.

YOU FIRST! Two boys cool off by diving into the River Thames in London during a spring heatwave on 8 April 1933. That month was unseasonably warm and dry for the capital, with temperatures reaching a rather exceptional 21°C

WAR GAMES A group of children armed with toy guns take aim, on 28 June 1952. After the Second World War, playing soldiers was popular with boys, many of whose fathers had fought in the conflict. Compulsory National Service for men in the armed forces, introduced in 1939, only ended in 1963WHAT A WHOPPER! Children inspect their catch in a glass jar after fishing with nets in the Serpentine lake in London’s Hyde Park, in July 1926

POTATOHEADS These young ballet students of the Italia Conti School eat potatoes from a line without using their hands, for a fun competition held in Green Park, London, on 25 July 1952

ALL THE FUN... Girls on a carousel at a funfair in Wembley, north London, June 1924