Another look back at some times past compared with the present this week, starting with my experiences as a boy in the 1960s.

We would all build soapbox carts to race downhill.

The best place to get old pram wheels to construct our carts in Douglas was near where the National Sports Centre is built now.

It was a site where all sorts of domestic cast-offs were dumped, but you had to be quick or the Pully lads would get them first!

Other such sites included Ballahott in Malew, where I remember seeing fires, and Poyll Dooey at Ramsey, which is now a nice recreational area returned to nature.

These days, the civic amenity sites around the island are available for recycling, but I haven’t seen any carts around recently! Perhaps young people are preoccupied with tech or online games?

Recycling is not a new thing - families would make do and mend; clothes would be handed down.

There were no plastic carrier bags or milk cartons, and every family had wicker or other baskets.

Milk came in reusable bottles, even the little ones we had at school breaks. Knitted items were reused.

Groceries or butcher’s goods were delivered by boys on bicycles, and the products would be wrapped in greaseproof paper or placed in paper bags.

I really liked the original concept of Shoprite on Victoria Road; as you walked around, tinned goods were in partially opened cardboard boxes stacked one on top of each other. Who remembers the rag-and-bone man with his horse-drawn cart collecting for old-fashioned recycling?

Dustbins were heavy steel objects that the dustbin men had to manhandle on their backs.

Not directly related, but I also recall the man and cart shouting ’Fresh herring!’ as he tried to sell his catch around the streets.

And nothing to do with recycling, but my mother always ensured I ate my meat and returned a clean plate - probably a hangover from times of food supply scarcity.

Playgrounds are usually better managed these days and, on that note, it is really pleasing that Douglas City Council, who for years did not have a maintenance and refurbishment budget, have reinstated this important provision.

Many will remember the big slides by the Crescent Leisure Centre, and I certainly had the scars to prove it, with friction burns from the plastic.

Playgrounds used to be full of risky plastic and metal objects with concrete, not rubberised, playing surfaces.

Some of the toys were no better… ever been cracked by clackers?

My wish for Christmas was a chemistry set, but I remember concerns being expressed about the nature of some of the contents and, whilst they are still available, they are generally bland and single-experiment based for the current generation.

Before my time, lead-painted soldiers were a thing. There were, of course, a range of toys available.

Do you recall Etch A Sketch, Spirograph, View-Master and projectors being focused on a wall?

Scalextric was a favourite, and I also went to the slot-car track in the old Royalty Cinema most weeks.

How about Slinky or Super Balls that bounced right up in the air?

Mr Potato Head, Play-Doh, yo-yos and hula hoops with some really skilled operators, Lego or Meccano… and die-cast cars by Corgi and Dinky - I still have some!

A number of these vintage toys continue to be successful and are developed for today’s tastes. Skipping ropes and hopscotch were popular in the playground, and boys wore caps and girls berets to school.

With my simple taste, a torch that showed different colours, a pen that could be clicked to change colour, or crayons that were two-sided with different colours were really desirable.

How about kids’ parties? You went with a small present and would play party games such as blind man’s buff, musical chairs, pin the tail on the donkey, pass the parcel or the excitement of spin the bottle or plate.

You would have sandwiches, jelly and birthday cake and, if you were lucky, crisps - but only one flavour was available - and you didn’t get a party bag to go home with!

Like most of my generation, during the summer holidays - didn’t they seem to go on forever? - my mother would see me off mid-morning and I would be gone until teatime, either on my bike or on foot to meet friends at Noble’s Park to play cricket or football, or down to Douglas beach.

I loved seeing the donkeys that had walked down from Noble’s Park to give happy holidaymakers rides along the packed beach. I remember walking along in the shallow water near the shore and feeling lots of tiny flat fish under my feet as they raced about in the tide.

I would wander around the rock pools looking for bullheads, and I had a cheap wooden contraption with line on it that I got from Frenchie’s on Duke Street to try to catch, and then release, crabs - with some success.

When I was a bit older, my dad would take me to Peel, where I would meet a boy called Taylor. I can’t remember his first name, but he knew where to get the stinkiest bait and we would land mackerel for fun off the end of the breakwater.

A particular favourite spot for me was the Majestic Hotel on King Edward Road in Onchan.

Looking back, I must have been perhaps nine or 10, and that was quite a trek.

However, the hotel had an outdoor pool with a slide going into it and I am almost certain I sneaked in, pretending to be a guest, and spent many happy hours there.

This was a time before all the flumes at waterparks, and this basic slide kept me amused for ages.

Even in the summer there was far less traffic than today, particularly on a Sunday, so looking back I guess it was all relatively safe.

During school term, I would walk to school from Tennis Road to Murray’s Road School.

On one occasion, aged seven, I was going over the zebra crossing on Woodbourne Road by the Masonic and was hit by a motorcycle. The rider was fined, but thinking about it now, I wonder if I was really paying attention, despite it being drilled into me.

Referring back to my trip over the cliff at Marine Drive, which I mentioned last week, when I was hitchhiking with my then girlfriend Janet after a night at the Port Soderick… does anyone hitchhike these days?

We made dens on vacant sites around Douglas and raced our bikes down the Gooseneck behind Ballakermeen School.

Do kids still get recorder lessons at school? I could just about play ’Three Blind Mice’ and was usually relegated to being in charge of the triangle!

Did you have a blood brother or sister? And if you needed to go to the loo… remember the super-soft (not!) paper?

Not everything was safe either, with mercury thermometers, X-ray machines in shoe shops, the use of asbestos in houses and ironing board covers, or DDT sprays… not always the good old days!