Schools are now banning Heelys , the wheeled trainers, after kids having spills galore.

The shoes are the latest activities to be banned in schools, from conkers to daisy chains, all in the interest of "Health and Safety".

Given all that, anyone over 50 must wonder how on earth they managed to survive into their teenage years.

Our baby cots and toys were covered with brightly coloured. Lead based paint which was licked and nibbled. We had no child-proof lids on medicine bottles, and rode our bikes without helmets.

No cars had seat belts or airbags, and it was a great treat to sit up front. We spent hours building carts from scrap, and only though about brakes one we were careering downhill at breakneck speed.

We ate sandwiches thick with full-fat butter and high-sugar jam, four friends shared a drink from the same bottle of fizzy, additive-laden pop, or drank water straight from the garden hose in summer, and never got sick.

We never got fat either, because we would leave home in the morning and play all day. So long as we got home before dark, no-one worried. We had real live friends, not internet chat-room chums.

We used old tennis balls or tin cans for footballs, fell out of trees, had fights, got black and blue - and no lawyer was interested. We new everyone who lived in our street and any parent could discipline, feed or ask you to run an errand.

If you got into trouble with the police or teachers, your parents would never bail you out. In fact, you'd be punished all over again for disgracing them.

You walked to school. No matter the weather,

however did we survive?
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