Popular at the Time

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Taken from "The Boy Mechanic" Popular Mechanics, 1920's


I was just musing on how life has changed in the past century - my sister and cousin have been posting numerous old family photos on Facebook lately, including one of my great-grandmother Malpas with my mother and two brothers, Edgar and Godfrey as children. My grandmother and grandfather Southall were married around the time the kind of strip above used to run regularly in the American magazine 'Popular Mechanics'. Some of the projects featured in these articles would be well beyond the capabilities of most adults these days, let alone today's children. Not least of which the HSE considerations - some of the 'builds' look positively lethal to modern eyes and would probably lead to arrest or at least a strong caution.

I used to have a 'Boys' Annual' - itself anachronistic [hopefully] in today's world, I can't remember which one, but it was a treasure trove of activities and projects for the young boy that would make modern parents blench. The thought of their little darlings disappearing into the countryside for the weekend on their own: building 'bender' tents, camp ovens out of biscuit-tins; snaring, killing, skinning, cooking and eating rabbits and other such things - wielding large knives and setting fire to stuff: the kids would be taken into care and the parents arrested for neglect.

But, the essence of books like this was as much about the learning of useful skills and using tools, as it was about filling the long school holidays with something to do. There's common-sense lurking in the apparently dangerous waters of such a childhood.

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