I was born in 1954.... the year all food rationing was ended after WWII.

My mum wasn't at home and worked a full day yet she still cooked us a meal every night using fresh meat and vegetables. We never had pizzas, burgers or KFC and drank water, not fizzy pop or cola.

As a kid I was hardly in the house during daylight hours.... only going indoors pretty much to eat, go to toilet, wash and sleep and do my homework.

The rest of the time when I wasn't at school I was out playing footy, on a bike, climbing trees, running races, playing french cricket etc etc with all the boys and girls in my neighbourhood. When I was at school we had plenty of games/PE lessons but also ran around the playground at lunch and breaktimes playing footy or tag games. We never stopped running all day.

As I got older I helped the milkman on Saturdays and Sundays doing a full day. Then joined athletic/sports clubs to play the usual sports and/or snooker, table tennis, badminton, judo etc.

I then went to work for L&G at Kingswood, which provided a whole host of activities from sport to amateur dramatics. Every night after work I would have plenty of options to exercise or broaden my mind by taking up chess for example.

Thank you for having the patience to read through my memoirs..... the point is....

Up and till I was fifty years old I kept myself fit and active and could eat/drink whatever I wanted because I burned off the calories.

Now I am ill with Parkinson's I cannot exercise very much at all and have to watch what I eat and drink to limit any fat build up which is not nice but essential. I try to have my 5 a day. I don't drink alcohol any more and I have never smoked. Without the good foundation I gave my body I doubt that I would have long to live.

Kids today, or so it seems to me, don't exercise as much as I did in my early years or get involved in any other activities or do paper rounds or milk rounds?

If I see a kid in the street these days, he will be walking along looking at his phone, with his ear plugs in carrying a tin/bottle of coke. Ironically he will be wearing a track suit/trainers and football shirt.

Judging from my walking around this area with the dog on recycling day - most households have pizza boxes, coke tins, beer cans, wine bottles, cornetto boxes etc etc in their bins. None of them suggest the occupants have a healthy eating or drinking regime?

My conclusion is:-

Kids aren't getting enough exercise these day
Kids are eating/drinking stuff not good for them
Kids are mostly fat/obese
When kids get to age 50 they will be dead or a big strain on the NHS.

I'm generalising obviously, because some parents are responsible but the general trend is to be lazy and go for fast food rather than wholesome food options and allowing kids to be lazy.

Sugar Tax?

Just another way of generating government revenue but not much else - education on keeping fit/active and eating right/healthy would be a better solution.

My parents didn't have a car either.

So a trip to Palace meant the 157 bus and a walk.

If we went to the shops in Sutton, we had to get the train.

We only went on holiday once - Butlitz at Boggers... all 7 of us on the train with a few suitcases.

The two excuses most frequently trotted out are firstly that "good food" is too expensive and secondly that modern day people with their busy lifestyles don't have the time to spend cooking.

I'm an oldie like you Mr Hoof (older in fact) and I would never think of having a roast chicken without boiling the carcass afterwards to make stock which then forms the basis of another meal.

Most people who talk about their busy lifestyles seem to spend most of their evenings watching TV and the ironical thing is that they watch cookery programs like Masterchef and that cake baking competition.

I have long suspected that it may have something to do with the growth hormones that they feed to chickens.

Seriously, a friend who rescues battery hens once showed a photo of a ten week old chick that was the size and development of a 6 month old hen - i.e. it had been 'overgrown' to bring it to laying eggs sooner. Poor thing still tweeted like a small chick.

They do exactly the same to mass produce cheap chicken for the table.....which we then eat, along with the hormones that it has consumed.

A stairway to Heaven and a Highway to Hell give some indication of expected traffic numbers

I used to enjoy every spare second as a kid over the park playing football. Parents have been so frightened to death about paedophiles by the media that they'd rather shove an iPad in their mitts and turn them into the fat walking dead.
Easier to keep tabs on them is the reasoning I suppose.

South East London Born And Bred.
Red And Blue Til I'm Dead.

Furthermore - although the sugary drinks tax is not a bad thing in itself, I can't help but feel that it is another of those sops to the masses, doled out every now and again when rearguard action needs to be taken.

With Jamie Oliver taking the White Knight role - is it pucka?

We are the goon squad and we're going to town. Beep Beep!