How not to get murdered

IS IT just me or does everyone my age wonder if we had angels on our shoulders as we lived our childhoods in the 1970s and 80s?

When I was eight or nine, I walked to school and back again every day of the week.

I’ve just measured the distance on Google maps and it was 2.8 kilometres.

It felt like the 20 kilometres I’ve been telling my kids, so let’s keep that little nugget between us.

Sometimes I walked with my brother, other times with friends.

I walked alone too and when that happened, I avoided walking too close to the edge of paths that were bordered by bushland.

We were given tips on how to ‘stay alive’ in the 70s and 80s.

There’d be little kids walking home alone trying not to die or they’d be punished for not listening.

“Stay out of isolated areas.”

“Vary your route so stalkers can’t track you.”

“Cross the road if someone scary is walking towards you.”

“If someone approaches go into a safe house’.”

In those days, most kids walked to school and back again.

Schools had systems called ‘safe houses’, if a child felt unsafe, they were to go to one of these houses.

There were signs on the gate letting us know which ones were part of the program.

I remember walking home one day, trying my best not to get killed, when a man on a motorbike started following me.

I was about 800 metres from my house so instead of going into a safe house, I hot footed it home.

He followed.

I reached my driveway and turned around.

He’d stopped and had his trousers undone, exposing himself.

I was 10. It was shocking.

I ran inside and locked the door.

It wasn’t the first time something like that happened.

When I was five or six, Saturday mornings started with a knock at the door.

The neighbourhood rounds started, we’d go from house to house collecting waifs like something out of Oliver Twist.

Soon a motley crew of children were discarding their bicycles and exploring bushland.

There were adventures to be had. Some were like Lord of the Flies, but we had fun.

There were big papyrus bushes growing and we’d pull off the long stalks using them as spears, pretending to be Zulu warriors.

Slides were metal and in summer we’d burn our bottoms.

Climbing frames were called jungle gyms and we’d climb up high. I never saw anyone fall.

There were no crash helmets. I’d roller-skate in shopping centre carparks wearing knee pads and that’s about it.

I fell often and hard.

I’d return home with road rash, red raw skin with pieces of bitumen stuck inside.

And you know what my mum did?

She dabbed cotton wool in mercurochrome, a red disinfectant liquid that really burned.

I’d return to school with bright red stains covering broken skin all over my legs and arms.

No one asked what happened.

If anything, the markings were like tribal warpaint worn with pride.

Besides, every second kid had the same.

When school returned after the holidays at least one in five students had a broken arm or leg, some even did in their collarbones.

I’d say broken arms were most common.

Kids showed off their cast like a badge of honour.

We’d swarm around them angling for the best patch of plaster to write our name.

Nowadays seeing children in plaster casts is rare.

Walking to and from school is rare too.

Yes, there are those who walk but it’s not like it was 40 years ago.

In today’s world children have mobile phones so parents can check in if they take too long to get home.

When I was a kid there were only landlines.

They talk of a ‘golden hour’ when a child is abducted, as the clock ticks on there is less chance of being found alive.

In the 70s and 80s, you’d only realise your child was missing when night fell.

Sometimes we went to friend’s homes, sometimes we spent an hour or two playing in a park.

No one bothered worrying about us.

Perhaps that’s because we’d been taught how not to get murdered.