When I was a child of about 8, I began carrying a knife to school and continued to do so until I left Sixth Form.For most of those years, the knife I bore was one bought for me by my grandfather when I was 11.
This was an extremely common phenomenon and indeed, at break times, out came the knives.
At this point, anybody reading this under the age of 35 will be horrified and assume bloodcurdling threats, serious injuries and in some case deaths in school playgrounds.
Sorry. That is now. In my day I NEVER even heard of any injury committed by a schoolboy's pocket knife. [The knife-wielding thugs and Teds were much older and their threats seem very small beer compared to what happens today.]
How do you explain to people that life just wasn't anything like today?
There was a respect for God and authority and teachers.
You may not have liked them but the respect was there. We were not the natural rebels that teachers, the famous - and the liberal left had created; they had not at that point wreaked their social havoc.
Leg-a-stretch was a game played on grass by 2 people. The knife was thrown into the grass wide of the foot of your opponent who was facing you. The foot would then have to move to where the knife was sticking in the ground and he would then have his turn.
If the blade did not stick then no movement was required.
When you reached a point where you could not stretch any more - you lost.
Imagine that game played today by 8 year olds. The litigious and health and safety loonies would turn apoplectic.
