Ivan wrote:
>
> "Roger Dewhurst" wrote in message
> news:fs3ohq$olu$1@lust.ihug.co.nz...
>> abelard wrote:
>>> On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 19:25:10 +0000, Alang
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 17:03:53 -0000, "Ivan"
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> wrote in message
>>>>> news:253c6c5c-30d0-4080-b4c1-01269a3e8def@n77g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 22 Mar, 12:12, "Ivan" wrote:
>>>>>>> I grew up in a pretty rough postwar inner city area and attended
>>>>>>> a boys only
>>>>>>> Secondary Modern school which was staffed by mainly (Welsh)
>>>>>>> ex-military type
>>>>>>> teachers who maintained an iron discipline.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes your perfect classroom world chucked out such
>>>>>> delights as the Krays and Myra Hindley.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Take you nostalgic rose coloured specs off.
>>>>> LOL and of course in the last 50 odd years things have got oh so
>>>>> much better! and besides nowhere did I say life back then was
>>>>> perfect, however I don't think I'm in a minority in believing that
>>>>> since discipline was totally abandoned in favour of the soft
>>>>> options approach things in our schools haven't exactly improved, I
>>>>> mean can you name one school in the UK back then which had to
>>>>> install metal detectors to find out if kids were carrying guns or
>>>>> knives?
>>>> In those days it was quite okay to have a knife in your pocket. The
>>>> kids hadn't been brainwashed into thinking the only use for a knife
>>>> was a weapon. Indeed the boy scout motto was 'be prepared' and every
>>>> scout usually carried a pocket knife with a blade and a spike for
>>>> taking the stones out of the hoof of any disabled horse he came
>>>> across. I don't think there was a single boy at my secondary school
>>>> who didn't have a pocket knife. I never heard of one being used as a
>>>> weapon either. Chairs or school desks maybe but never a knife.
>>>
>>> yes, that's all very well....but did you ever hear of one of them
>>> taking a stone out of the hoof of a disabled horse...?
>>> probably they didn't know what the knife was due to lack of
>>> education and initiative
>>
>> Actually the spike in a scout knife is a small marlin spike for use on
>> rope!
>>
>> But yes, in those days all schoolboys had knives which they used for
>> sharpening pencils, cutting holes in school desks, cutting hazel forks
>> to make catapults and cutting their fingers from time to time.
>> Cutting other children with them was unknown. My father gave me a
>> penknife in 1940 when I was six. I still have it.
>>
>
> I was in the boy scouts and had a really wicked looking sheath knife on
> my belt.. IIRC wasn't that part of the boyscout uniform?
I believe it was too! But I was thinking of those black handled knives
with a blade on one side and a spike on the other. They were very common.
R |