the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke

The Berkshire Belle has been trawling the myriad of channels looking for something to watch instead of the dross that TV serves up, and she has found the old series of Soldier Soldier. It was the theme tune for that that has prompted this train of thought.

We have a lot of violence amongst the current youth of this country. Knife crime, in particular, seems to be rife, and I read that the blame lies in the access that kids have to the internet, social media and violent films. Are they really that influential? I don’t know; I have had no experience of dealing with children for thirty years or so, but I know a little of what goes on in my neighbourhood, and it worries the heck out of me.

In my childhood we had no internet, social media or anything like them. We lived in a community that was fairly closed, and where almost everyone knew everyone else. It was largely self-policing in that, if you got up to mischief, someone would have seen you and your parents would soon know too.

But we were exposed to violence in some ways. Books may not have been too graphic, and broadcast media, films, TV, radio, were subject to censorship. However, some of the content of songs would raise eyebrows now, and that is where Soldier, Soldier kicks me off this week.

The song tells the tale of a young lady infatuated by a soldier who she desires to marry, but he tells her that he needs clothes which she buys, asking after each item if he will marry her. In the end, with a new outfit, he admits to already being married. Shocking behaviour, but just a con-man.

We also had “Tom Dooley”, telling of a man about to hang, “Don’t Jump off the Rood, Dad”, about a suicide attempt, “The Hole in the Ground” about a workman who kills an annoying member of the public, “Oh, My Darling Clementine” about a drowning, “El Paso”, and “Delilah”, both murders. “Folsom Prison Blues” contains on of the most chilling lines in any song: “I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die”.

These songs were regularly played on the radio in programmes aimed at children, often in response to requests for them to be played. OK, some of them are comedy songs, but the themes are dark, and not only did we listen to them on the radio, but we would also sing some of them at school, in lessons. Yes, we were taught them.

These things might offend sensibilities these days, but did they corrupt us? certainly not the majority of us, and if any of us did commit violent acts in later life, I doubt that singing a song in childhood was behind it, and nor was any of the violence that we saw on TV or in films, even if it was less graphic than now. As boys, some of us had knives; I had a sheath knife from about the age of 10, and I know of a couple of my schoolmates towards the end of my schooldays who had flick knives. I know that I did not use mine for any form of violence, and I am not aware that any of the others did either.

I used my brother-in-law’s air rifle, also from around the age of 10, and by the time that I was 13 I had used various shotguns. Living out in the country it was a rite-of-passage to learn how to handle these things, and earning the trust of the adults in one’s life was an important part of the transition from boy to man. To betray that trust, to lose it, was unthinkable, for it was part of being taught to accept responsibility and the value of that, to me, was incalculable. I would not take the risk.

I was brought up, by parents and schools, to understand that there were consequences to my actions, and these included punishment as well as reward. The same applied when I went to work, and it was left to me to decide which I preferred. It was a different time then, I understand that, and we can’t go back to it, but, as supposedly civilised society, can we not get back to the sort of values that I grew up amongst?

It is the children of the current generation that we need to convince.