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Phil Robertson
There was a time, not so long ago, when
the world hadn’t gone mad with health and safety. Young children were allowed to
wander the street, play on the road and go places that nowadays would have the
busy-bodies clucking their tongues and ringing for social services. I have to
confess, as a parent, there were certain things I did as a child that I wouldn’t
be too happy about my boys doing today. On one occasion my friends and I were
the cause of having a house demolished as unsafe when one of us fell through to
the first floor and broke his leg. The risks we took as children helped form the
adults we are today. For me, living life is partly about managing risk. In a
risk free society, are we raising children who won’t be able to make sensible
decisions and calculate risk for their own offspring?
When I was at junior school, my best
friend was Brian. Both of us were mad about go-karts. These were pretty simple
affairs made from one long plank of wood, a short plank of wood, four pram
wheels, and, if we were lucky, a robust wooden box. The short plank would be
bolted to the end of the longer one so it pivoted. One of the pram axels would
then be fitted to this pivot. This was the front of the go-kart that we then
steered by pushing our feet one way or the other. The box was fitted to the
opposite end of the plank to act as a seat, and the second axel was attached
beneath. Sometimes a rope was fixed to the front to pull the thing back up the
nearest hill. There were no brakes. To slow down you planted your feet on the
tarmac and hoped for the best.
Neither Brian nor I came from wealthy
families so all these parts had to be “found.” Planks were no problem, but pram
wheels and axels were a premium find. When we were building a go-kart (or
trolley, as we sometimes called them) we went to the local tip about a mile up
the road. This was a public tip where ordinary folk could come and dump anything
they wanted. We’d scrabble about on top of the mounds of trash: old mattresses,
bags of god knows what, half a washing machine, and so on, until we found an old
pram. Often, only one set of wheels was in good enough shape, and we’d have to
continue looking until we found a second pram. No-one seemed to mind us kids
scrambling amongst the rat faeces and gone off food. In fact, it was a pretty
common sight since we weren’t the only ones who built our own go-karts.
Once construction was complete, it was
time to race.
The point is we had immense fun. No one
died. I did have to go to casualty for seven stitches once when I took a turn
too fast and fell out at full speed. We were able to make our own transport with
little, if any, interference from parents. We had to resource our own parts by
using our initiative. These karts were ours. We raced the things on the road. No
one told us to clear off or called the police. We learned about risk taking and
had the biggest adrenalin rush going. It was about being a kid in a kid’s world
and at the same time preparing ourselves for later life.
I’m not advocating go-kart racing on the
roads. We do live in a very different world now. But for god’s sake, we should
at least allow our kids some space to take risks.
Incidentally, my youngest broke his
collar bone last week. I hope he’s learned from it.