From the editor’s chair, by Jackie Mitchell

I’M BORED! Well, actually, I’ve not got time to be bored, but I am fairly surely that that phrase will be being uttered in my house, and thousands of other homes this summer.

We weren’t allowed to be bored when I was wee. Nope, we had to like it or lump it, and basically stay out of the house and out from under my mum’s feet for just about the six weeks of the summer holidays. Growing up near a farm meant there was always plenty of space around to climb trees, have picnics and other fondly (and probably wrongly) remember things from my childhood. In fact, the way I remember it the summer of ’76 lasted for my entire school-days and it never, ever rained in the holidays. I admit that I’m probably not remembering that entirely accurately.

However, way back in the day Monklands Council didn’t lay on dozens of youth clubs and fun activities for the summer. And I didn’t have a PS3 or an iPad to wile away a few hours either. Instead we recreated Wimbledon and the FA cup, and basically went out to play for an awful lot of the summer. And if we still dared to be bored, we weren’t given much sympathy for it. I wonder if I told my kids they had to be outdoors for six to eight hours a day and survive on a diet of pieces on jam would they call Childline - or have happy memories like I do.