Just One Evening In Skegness.

We went for a pleasant tootle along Skegness sea-front. I was forced to eat an ice cream dipped in hot chocolate against my will [yum].

As usual the local loonies were revving up and racing around the big car park near the boating lake. 'Wouldn't it be great if a police car came now? That'd make them behave.' was the general consensus. Right on cue a police car did a circuit of the car park completely ignoring the loonies who were by then miraculously sitting and behaving, then it carried on along the promenade.

We were a bit speechless, well I was, madam was busy talking to her hubby on the phone, covering all the obligatory subjects -
'What's the weather like?'
'What did you have for your dinner?'
'Did you go shopping?'
'Who did you see?'
'What did they say?'
'Did they wonder where I was?'
'What time did you go to the toilet?'
[I may have imagined the last one ... but only just.]
'Ooh, it's lovely here, we've got a sea breeze, we've been out in the sunshine all day without getting hot, aren't you jealous?'
'Remember me to everyone.' blah, blah blah ...

We carried on our merry way, admiring the flowers, we'd watched the gardeners planting some earlier in the day. You can say what you like about Skeggy but they always make a big effort with the gardens. We then sat and watched some firemen playing with their big ladder on the other side of what's left of the pier. When that entertainment proved to be less than thrilling we tootled off only to be met by a gardening massacre. There are new huge tubs with a Silver Birch in each with flowers planted around them. They were fine when we passed them earlier, but in the space of an hour someone had uprooted some of the plants and thrown them on the floor to die.

Just after this between the pier and the Suncastle is a new play area, it used to be a paddling pool. It was full of adolescents, lots of them were drinking [it wasn't pop] and there were empty cans strewn around. Why don't their parents know where they are or what they're doing? If they do know, do they really care? and who is selling alcohol to children so young? [or fetching it on their behalf]. No-one dare say anything to these [very young] teenagers, there's far too many of them together. You daren't even look in their direction for fear of causing unnecessary trouble for yourself.

A few minutes later we passed the Suncastle where we stopped to watch some crumblies playing bowls, then we noticed three boys crashing through the bushes, deliberately breaking them down, they were about 10 or 11 years old. We continued on our way back muttering and moaning. We managed to get madam past her favourite chippy without resorting to too much violence.

Now I'm not suggesting that as children we were in any way perfect. We weren't [I came pretty damned close though]. It's fairly normal for a child to rebel and to see how far they can push authority. The big difference is, we as children DID recognise authority and once an adult told us off [any adult], we accepted it and went on our way suitably chastened, obviously muttering under our collective breath. What we didn't do was answer back or intimidate by our sheer numbers. We were instilled from an early age with respect for all adults. This respect for others and their property has all but vanished.

For some reason a lot of today's children believe that adults are simply a minor aggravation somewhere convenient in the background as a source of funds and an endless supply of the latest gadgets and designer gear. I blame children's television for a lot of this attitude. they nearly always portray adults as moronic, interfering, stick-in-the-mud dinosaurs and children are always, ALWAYS right and proved to be so on a daily basis.

I know these are only minor, trivial misdemeanours that I'm moaning about but where will it end, if these little vandals carry on getting away with doing what they like and not recognising right from wrong then in a few years time they'll be the one's revving up in the car parks [or worse] and racing around and nothing will be done about that until someone is tragically killed.

It's a shame that Skegness is abused by losers who think it's an achievement to get an ASBO. Skegness is just one town and I can only write about my own experiences but it's a safe bet that this abuse of communal [and private] property is occurring in every town in our country by the mindless minority who give a bad name to the rest of the youth of today ...