Sometimes it's good parts of the past have gone

 Slowly recovering here so with any lucky by next week i should be back on my feet again.

As might be inferred by that I'm on enforced rest here more able than usual to be decending very much in time with the rituals of Tie fastening, getting your socks on and supported neatly which is as well as in many respects I love that older, less tech driven and less planned  boyhood with play and a cheeky grin.

That said not everything from then stands critical examination today.

Today, smoking for adults is very much a taboo thing with lots of restrictions where one might while back then my family smoked around me, the parents of friends who gave me lifts smoked in the car and many places we went into like cafés, fish and chip shops and public houses reeked of smoke.

As kids we had candy shaped like cigarettes with pink tips and yes we had them in our mouths trying too look sophesticated pretending to smoke. Today they're gone.

Toys like those Hanna-Barbara cartoon characters Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and co were made to invite children to practise lighting up and enjoy watching the smoke drift.

It seems incredible really such habits known to be harmful were being encouraged in us in underhand ways - I hung out with the smokers and was only detered by the threat of a spanking if caught - and while it's fanciful to look back at things as if everything in the past was fine, the exposure to and encouragment of smoking to us a boys and girls is something I'm glad to see has gone.