Give kids fun our oldies' way

In the end, the two trips to the pool shop, the endless backwashing and the hundreds of rands in chemicals were worth it – just to see the joy of the two children who splashed around for hours in our swimming pool.

- BRENDAN SEERY

It reminded me of simpler times – before the internet, before social media and before the pervasiveness of electronic gadgets – when we as kids made our own entertainment.

We jumped about in rivers, our mothers’ warnings about catching bilharzia forgotten as soon as our feet hit the pedals of our bikes to go exploring. We rolled around atop 44-gallon drums, pretending we were tanks in the Battle of the Bulge, our balance becoming so good we rarely fell off.

TV wasn’t great and our parents rationed it, so we read books and listened to the cricket on the radio, as we learned how to “play” it with paper, pencil and dice.