Last week I was on Three Counties Radio discussing matters political. A question came up asking if we regretted the lack of mobile phones and social media in our youth.
I was alone in giving a resounding no.
I spent, or rather misspent, my youth without my parents knowing where I was half the time.
In fact when 15, my friend Vic and I told our parents each Saturday that we were staying at the other’s house and it was 12 months before they found out we were staying out.
I also wandered off to France when 17 and never bothered to contact the family once.
No more is such freedom and irresponsibility on offer.
Last Saturday night our 19-yearold was out in town with some friends and his mum, the present Mrs Lowe, was innocently texting him after midnight to see if he had a key, whether he had remembered his scarf and not to forget to lock the door when he came home. Before asking when that might be.
Being told to remember their phone is the command every time he and his brother prepare to leave the house. And all the latest gadgets also have ‘facetime’ so you can’t even lie about where you are.
There is an ad on TV at the moment, where some laddish bloke gets the pub he is in to keep quiet while he tells the girlfriend he is working late at the office.
‘Show me’, is more likely to be the response these days.
And every piece of trivia is also considered worthy of mention to the world and beyond.
Many people cannot go to the lavatory without posting it on Facebook, obviously believing all their friends care.
Even worse some believe I care about the sleeping/waking times and bowel movements of their babies. I don’t. I have spent many years living it and have no desire to relive it or any interest in others so doing.
I am grateful my mother has no computer or smart-phone or I would be getting messages through the day as she sits shaking her stick at the TV, cursing everyone to the left of Ghengis Khan and under 70 years old.
From September onwards I would get daily messages asking if it is time to put the Brussel Sprouts on a low simmer for Christmas.
And, of course, even innocent pleasures can be misconstrued by Facebook, such as a peck on the cheek of that semi-naked girl at the office party being posted up for all the world - and your wife - to see. And once it is there, it is there for eternity.
It is undoubtedly the case that some people are safer because of mobile phones, particularly those using taxis.
But that sense of freedom and splendid isolation of the pre-digital world has disappeared for ever. Going walkabout, like the Dodo, is dead.
Last week we ran a comment piece on the front page concerning the proposed development in Bedford Town centre on the riverfront.
We said that the plan drawings were depressing and dull. Many people in Bedford agree with us.
So we asked for a comment from the council, which appears in this week’s paper.
It may be me but the comment does not lift the spirits.
It does say that the developer will work with local people to produce a scheme and that there will be a full public consultation.
It also adds that the Mayor, Dave Hodgson, is looking forward to hearing local views and that we will work together. This all sounds political speak that they will listen politely to whatever anyone has to say then completely ignore them. It will be very difficult to make wholesale changes to the original design.
I feel it is akin to the old days when consultation meant that council tenants could choose the colour of their front door.
If I am being a little sceptical, what is wrong with a competition for the best design? Come on Mayor, we deserve better than platitudes.
