"Ivan" wrote in message
news:64ld3lF2c9vlsU1@mid.individual.net...
>
> "Alang" wrote in message
> news:k1rau3dj0sb6t5qv0gjb34fpmr9qh184tc@4ax.com...
>> On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:06:08 -0000, "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?
>>>
>> nope.
>> we had jack knives hanging off the metal bits on the belts
>
>
> "and as part of the Uniform"
>
> "10. KNIVES.
> 10.1 Sheath Knives, must not be worn in public places, other than at Camp
> and as part of the Uniform."
>
>
>
>
Sheath knives were pretty common and perfectly legal to own when I was a
kid, yet despite that I can't honestly recall that there was any really
serious epidemic of teen stabbings, although because of the increasing
number of knife related incidents during the Teddy boy era, IIRC flick
knives were banned.
Just think of the thousands of guns that were floating around during the
aftermath of two world wars, yet despite all of the poverty (and after all
poverty is the major contributor to crime, or so our politicians have been
telling us for as long as I can remember) the amount of gun related
homicides didn't to appear to be much (if any) worse back then than they
have been over recent years, despite all of the recent restrictions
eventually leading to an almost total ban on the ownership of firearms by
members of the public.
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