Come ‘ere, or you’ll get one in the face!

OVERHEARD along the street, in a tense conversation between a father and his five-year-old son: “Come here! Now, or you’ll get one in the face!”

Clearly we are an advanced species. Happily, what with peak oil and climate change, we won’t be a species at all for too much longer, which will at least save a few young children from being punched in the face.

Or am I worrying too much?

He is, after all, an odious little turd (the five-year-old, that is) who may not be game to tell his father to eff off, but that doesn’t stop him telling me.

In the north of England it was common to hear mothers threatening their children with: “Come indoors Albert, or I’ll tear off yer arm and belt yer wit’ soggy end.”

My own mother threatened on a regular basis to skin us alive. She bore no resemblance to Hannibal Lecter at all. She used to wrap us in large and soap-smelling breasts that were warm and cuddlesome and I never once remember thinking: “Uh-oh, this is where she gets the knife out.”

But I don’t know, “…get one in the face…” somehow has a different ring to it.

So does, “eff of, granddad” and on that score I can assure you, there were no 1950 equivalents.

Indeed, it was not uncommon to hear of someone appearing before the magistrate for using obscene language. But even the newspapers wouldn’t dare print what was actually said. (I suppose it might have been “Crikey!” but I doubt it).

I hear you say, “See, it wasn’t uncommon.” And I take your point.

But my point is that at least no-one approved of it. No one condoned it. It was punishable. Now it’s more common than full stops in The Bible.

So what’s changed?

We all used to do it. Even when I was at school we swore, but not in the hearing of our parents – indeed not in the hearing of anyone other than our mates.

Now the f-word is the language of families. It has replaced “er” in the lexicon of space fillers while you think what to say next. And in some families those spaces are, necessarily, very frequent.

But they are families!

I am certain this father and his little boy are very close. I have seen them in the park, kicking a football about (“Get up, you effin’ wooss!”) and clearly having fun.

If I so much as slapped his wrist for the insults he throws at me I’m certain I’d be getting several in the face from his father.

So what changed? More important – how do we get back to the 1950s?

Well, we don’t. That was then and this is now. The past is another country. They do things differently there. Incomprehensible as it may seem, when this revolting five-year-old is 65 he’ll be whinging about the appalling drop in social standards since he was a lad.

My case rests.

Clearly, before our standards have sunk that low we’ll be wiped out by plague, war, famine or from constantly being punched in the face by our parents.