WE MAY OFTEN romanticise the past and yearn for simpler times, but looking on back on some of the stuff that people got up to gives us pause.
Simpler times call for simpler measures, we know, but sometimes when we gaze backwards without our rose-tinted glasses on we just shake our heads at what were generally accepted practices.
What were they thinking?
Of course, ignorance is bliss and all that, but we’re pretty glad these seven ridiculously unsafe things people used to do have gone the way of the dodo.
Now this just brings back painful memories.
As seldom as the sun shows its face in Ireland, we’re fairly sure almost everyone in Ireland has at least one ‘epic sunburn’ story to tell.
To add insult to injury – you can get wind burn. Wind burn? There’s no cream for that.
For longer than we would care to acknowledge, wearing seatbelts wasn’t mandatory. In fact for a long time, cars didn’t even have seatbelts. And, boy did we take advantage of that – who else remembers fitting five kids in the back seat and three (with a dog if you had one) in the boot?
All to get a lift to the swimming pool.
Madness.
Standing on the side of the road with your thumb out and then getting into the car with complete strangers – sounds like a totally safe legit plan, right?
Right…
Even if you had a phone on you this wouldn’t be the smartest of moves, but hitching back in the 70s when it was all the rage – and there wasn’t a phone to be seen… we shudder at the thought.
There was a time when cigarettes were advocated as being good for your health, believe it or not. Whether it was to calm you or to help with relaxing the throat among other benefits, even doctors advocated smoking.
They advocated it so much, in fact, they were often featured in the advertisements.
And as Hollywood glamourised the fags and doctors recommended them, there were very few places that you wouldn’t have been allowed light up in.
‘Smoking area’? What is that of which you speak?
Yep, if kids managed to hit adolescence without some serious damage, they were doing pretty well it seems.
There they’d go, heading off on their bikes, or skates, or skateboards or whatever other wheeled contraption they had their hands on and no protective head gear in sight.
No thought to falling off these devices at high speed and knocking into a kerb or wall or other handy hard surface.
Wouldn’t happen now, oh no.
Remember those days? Do you? Because they are long gone.
While we don’t expect things to descend into a Lord of the Flies style scenario if the kids run off for the day, it’s hard enough to let them out of your sight with a mobile phone firmly attached to their hand, let alone head off into the (relative) wilderness unsupervised for a few hours.
It’s not that you can’t let your kids out of your sight ever ever again of course, just that we’re all a little more safety conscious than back in the day.
Back in the day your dad thought nothing about doing a bit of sawing or painting or sanding with nary a thought for what he’s breathing in.
He had his painting trousers and jumper, and that was good enough ‘protective gear’.
Nowadays, we’re somewhat more savvy and know that what we breathe in, or spill on us, or drop on our toes can affect us adversely so it’s all about protective masks, gloves and steel-capped shoes – just to grab a ladder from the shed.
No harm.
No harm at all.
Those were dangerous times we lived through – but we’re all okay now. One thing you never want to mess with, though, is electricity – so make sure to use a Registered Electrical Contractor when getting any electrical work done. It’s illegal for anyone other than a Registered Electrical Contractor (REC) to do most electric works in your home and they must issue a certificate to show the work is of an approved standard. Head over to Safe Electric to find out more about safe electricity practices and make sure your electrical contractor is registered.
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