What is it with the morons ..

.. starting fires, throwing rocks, fireworks and aiming rockets at emergency services? . You can't even blame austerity/poverty if they can afford to buy the damn things in the first place.

Antisocial behaviour has always existed (my brother in law and sister came home to a 'living fire' on mischief night when some cretin had posted a lit firework through the letterbox in their terraced house which rolled under the sofa and set fire to it resulting in everything in the house either burnt or smoke damaged beyond repair). That was in the 80's.

Nevertheless, is it me or have things got worse over the years? I don't remember back then Fire crews and Police being lured to incidents and then attacked. Youths seem to get more 'feral' year on year.

You can't blame the education system or successive Governments. Behaving like a human being does not require an education or Government policies, rather some basic parenting to teach respect for other people and property. Sadly lacking in some quarters nowadays. Rights over responsibilities!

Rant over.

 

It's disgusting you're right. I don't know what goes through anyone's head to want to do anything like that. But no I don't think it's getting any worse, I just think it's more widely shared and publicised. People were doing idiotic things like this when I was a kid too.

You also say that basic parenting to teach respect is sadly lacking 'nowadays' but to that I'd like to point out that back in the 50s and 60s parents did such a good job of teaching their sons respect that by the time they were grown up in the 70s they were smashing football stadiums up and behaving so badly that literal cages were needed to control then

 

It's this 'do what we want' bravado/false empowerment, which has been particularly amplified since the Brexit vote. The warning signs were there, we can't pretend they weren't..

 

National Service, Borstal.

 

Barnsley Police Station was attacked with fireworks every year when I was a kid in 70’s

 

I find it very strange that anyone thinks things are worse now than 30 years ago.
Much more things are unacceptable in todays society, but kids today don’t get up to half the trouble I did when I was a teenager.
And I was well behaved by comparison to most of my peers.

 

Bring back the Cat

 

Two words.........social media.

 

We didn't have the fireworks they have today.

 

No we had Chinese bangers and Airbombs which we used to throw out of the window of the school bus on the way to school… and we used to make home made “bombs” and flamethrowers out of cans of deodorant… I remember firing rockets and air rifles at the LMB on Sky dishes so the posh people had to watch council telly like the rest of us…
We set the woods/farmer’s field alight a couple of times a year…
We used to use that little hammer to smash the back window of the school bus a couple of times a year or try and smash the glass in the bus shelter with 2ps from 20 yards away.
We used to nick orange juice off the milk float and let his handbrake off on Vernon Road…
We used to use our fancy Tv remote digital watches to go round the estate turning people’s tvs off while they were watching antiques roadshow…
And that was just the mid 90s.
My kids today at 12-14 have never even been reported by a neighbour for ASB, never mind got in serious trouble.
This generation, while socially awkward, is much more conscientious of the environment and other people than I ever was.

 

Seems some parts of Barnsley were worse than ours Mr C lol. Re fireworks. Throwing bangers towards thi mates was as bad as it got. And mischievous neet was tying dustbin lids to doors. Or doors together. And bullroar were the thing of the time.

 

Christ. Proper nobs in your day your way then.
Off wi thi ed. Get down tut cop shop and hand thi sen in.
By the way I came from a council estate wi some rough uns. But we had our limits of what was deemed acceptable.
By the same token I don't tar all young uns today with the same brush. More good than bad.

 

Lock them up for many years.

 

I'm here. What's your problem?

 

Well, it stopped us doing drugs or joining a gang. Like I say, we lived in a relatively affluent bit of Barnsley and we’re never in bother at school etc. Didn’t dare walk down through Dorcroft Estate though. Used to get chased by Older kids with baseball bats. My mate got his wrist broken when they caught him.
All I’m saying is it was a lot rougher and criminal back in the day in my opinion.

 

Dorcroft. ?

 

Im probably around the same age as you. We would call someone like you a knobhead. Hated to see smashed up phone boxes and bus shelters. Any particular reason you thought that was a fun thing to do?

 

Sorry I wasn’t saying that I did all those things, just my generation. The kids where I lived when I grew up. I was lumping myself in with them. I was in a group of friends where a couple of the things happened, but it was more a commentary on the behaviour of my generation. it just makes me laugh when people talk about their youth as though they were saints and talk about“the youth of today” and “kids these days”.

 

Fair dos. Your original post suggested you were a bit of a vandal. As you say, there has always been problems with youths. Battles between Bank Enders and Kendrayers was a big thing when I was a lad. Mischief Night seems to have all but disappeared but it was a big thing in our day. I never got the wanton vandalism but its not something new which is probably what you were getting at .