No wi-fi? The youngsters of today don’t know they’re born

The Student recently told me in shocked tones about the terrible misfortune suffered by some of her friends.

It seems they had moved into a new flat for their second year at uni and HAD NO WI-FI FOR AN ENTIRE WEEKEND.

Of course, I went into full-on mum rant about how we had to make our own entertainment during the summer holidays when I was a child blah, blah, etc… It’s such a well-worn rant that neither of us was really paying attention.

However, the renewed debate among the chattering classes lately about giving children more freedom to be outdoors and unsupervised led me to dredge up memories of those long holidays.

For anyone saying they’re bored in the summer holidays in 2018, the following is a typical day in the life of a teenager in the 1970s. Count your blessings.

8am-10am: Increasingly loud threats from my mother reaching me up the stairs, the gist of which was that I was wasting the day.

This would result in my future being blighted by unemployment, failure and quite possibly early death.

10am-6pm: Banished from the house, along with my siblings. During this period of time, we were expected to amuse ourselves, preferably without killing ourselves or anyone else.

We were fuelled in this project by breakfasts of sugary cereals with an extra spoonful of actual sugar sprinkled on top and toast with jam. We would have either fruit or small change for sweeties in our pockets for snacks later on.

If it was not lashing rain, we would round up random children similarly banished and arrange a game of rounders or cricket.

If it was lashing down, we would huddle in one of the dens we had created.

These generally involved a homemade “treehouse” or a derelict patch of land with old planks of wood stacked to form a shelter. Either option would contain a pack of cards and a box of matches.

And, er, that was it. There were a few broken limbs (those treehouses were quite easy to fall out of) but we all survived.

There. I trust that’s put the debate to rest.