WHERE WILL CHILDREN PLAY?

"Switch on summer from a slot machine."

To Orwell Today,

Hi Jackie,

In Britain and throughout the world there is a huge debate about Children's Play or lack of it at the moment and how during the last two decades this has affected this generation of children and young people. All the main child authorities now recognise that due to our interference in what is and has been a natural activity, childhood has been grossly affected. Because of laws like Health and Safety legislations, the fear of Stranger Dangers etc, fear has made a huge impact on our children's lives. So much so that children have become insular, spending very little time in physical activity outside of their homes, not mixing with their peers and enjoying all the benefits of fresh air, exercise and community life which they should. Thus we have generations of young people obese and fearful of life's challenges.

Play of children was at one time recognised as being paramount - the child needed to take risks, to stretch themselves, to seek adventure. They played games on the streets and alleyways, school playgrounds, climbed trees, built dens on wastelands or in secret places. They had a huge repertoire of games, verses and rhymes, many handed down from generation to generation. Thus they had traditions and customs or roots. They grew up healthy and strong, fit and agile. Play was and is a natural instinct children can't help but do for it's in their nature.

However due to FEAR, as ORWELL and folks like William Barnes warned us, we now have real problems of unhealthy overweight children who are fearful of community life and all its challenges.

I am, as you know, a retired play manager and am at present developing a new website to bring the benefits of child's play to the world at large with intensive studies into this very important subject. I ask if you can please add my site as a link to ORWELL TODAY. My site is THE GYPSY POET at "www.thegypsypoet.co.uk".

Take good care,
Ray Wills

Greetings Ray,

Speaking of "children playing" reminds me of one of my favourite Cat Stevens' songs (and I love them all) - WHERE DO THE CHILDREN PLAY?

Thanks for your continued contributions to ORWELL TODAY and yes, I'll definitely add a link to your GYPSY POET - JOURNEY INTO THE LAND OF FREEDOM website.

All the best,
Jackie Jura

30.Love Instinct & Family (...The only recognized purpose of marriage was to get children for the service of the Party. For Party members all children were to be begotten by artificial insemination (artsem, it was called in Newspeak) and brought up in public institutions. "Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their parents at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen...)

35.The Brotherhood (...Members of the Brotherhood are prepared to...corrupt the minds of children...distribute habit-forming drugs...do anything which is likely to cause demoralization of society...)

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

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