BRIGG 'SNOWFLAKES' HAVE EXISTED FOR GENERATIONS

Walking home after a news-gathering trek around Brigg the other Sunday afternoon, we were struck by the total absence of youngsters on the Davy Memorial Playing Field between Bigby Road and Kings Avenue.
During several recent strolls along York Road over recent weeks, we've failed to spot a single game of football under way on the vast expanse of 'public open space.'
Back in the 1960s and early 1970s, youngsters played football and cricket on any available expanse of grass during daylight hours.
These days there's a term in use for young folk who are felt to be less hardy than those of previous eras. They have been dubbed the Snowflake Generation.
Brigg Blog feels this is unfair.
Every successive generation has had life easier than the previous one.
Yes, during the late 1960s at Brigg Grammar School we had an unheated swimming pool, "warmed" only by the rays of a typical British summer. And in winter the first year pupils were made to wear short trousers, meaning they trudged home through the snow with chapped, red raw legs to homes, in many cases, without the benefit of central heating.
Cross-country runs had to be endured over the fields to Wrawby and along Brickyard Lane. No fun if a north wind was blowing.
But the generation before ours had all that to contend with and also faced two years' national service.
The one before them fought in the Second World War, while their fathers had been in 'the first lot' and endured the horrors of the trenches.
The sons and daughters of today's Brigg's "Snowflakes" may never need to drive a car; vehicles will do the steering and braking themselves.
And the way things are going in amateur sport, not too many years ahead there may be few, if any,  adult teams to join or leagues for them to play in - even if, as youngsters, the next generation is prepared to practise on local parks as we used to do decades ago.

PICTURED ABOVE: A February view across an empty York Road field, Brigg.