I have embellished the basic message with a few anecdotes of my own. I'm sure you'll get the message!

CONGRATULATIONS to all the kids who were born in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a tin and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with brightly- coloured, lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets, not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking ...

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a van – loose – was always great fun.

We drank water from the garden hosepipe and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this. We picked our ice cream off the floor, flicked off the stones and blades of grass and carried on eating.

We shared gobstoppers – three slurps each, then pass it on – we all lived to tell the tale.

We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because...

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were OK.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendos, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no text messaging, no personal computers, no internet or internet chat rooms ... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We played with worms (well most boys did) and mud pies made from dirt and the worms did not live in us forever.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out any eyes.

We played conkers and suffered a few bruised knuckles, but we survived the battle.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Local teams had try-outs and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!

I was often the last to be picked for the team, but I coped.