IT’S hard to imagine now but it wasn’t always computer games, DVDs and television around the clock. Yes, there will be many young people out there who will think I’m talking about a time before the dawn of pre-history. And to some extent they would be right.

But those of us of a certain age will certainly be able to recall an all-too-brief period after the Second World War when the only limit to a child’s play was the extent of youthful thought processes.

As we know only too well, it is the electronic pulse of the computer screen that now dictates the rhythm of recreation. But in the days when children were allowed a mere hour of TV entertainment, the onus was very much on the resourceful youngster to make the most of his or her spare time.

I was brought up in a small community and there was no shortage of games to play, even if there was hardly a surplus of companions in a village of two streets. My first excursion into the land of make-believe was probably in the playground of Churchover Parochial School, an unforgiving square of skin-shredding asphalt that could mince your knees with the ease of a cheese-grater.

Here we would play soldiers and nurses or re-enact the air battles of a decade earlier by racing around making engine noises with arms outstretched to mimic wings.

Birthday parties often featured postman’s knock or kiss-chase, two forms of recreation that held little appeal for this particular eight-year-old. There was also hopscotch, marbles and snail races, in which numbers would be inscribed on the molluscs’ shells with poster paint.

In the spring and summer months, most of us congregated around the village green for endless games of kick-can, when only the advancing twilight might call a halt to activities.

In some ways, children were only following the lead set by the adults, who would while away many a leisure hour in pub or village hall, playing whist, bagatelle, dominoes or quoits.

And so the question remains.

Were we any happier back then?

Yes, I think we were. Before the hi-tech age, the sky was the limit… but children are now trapped in a world in which there is little room for improvisation or dreams.