When I was 11...

Astonished to read this story about 11 year old girls being on the pill.

When I was 11, the summer holidays were amazing. The weather was generally pretty good. Mum & dad both worked, but I had a Raleigh Grifter and some great pals and grew up in the sort of town where a lot of you probably went on your holidays anyway, so life was safe and fun.

At the start of the summer holidays during Wimbledon and for a few weeks beyond, Brent and I would head off to the tennis courts straight after breakfast and try to emulate the amazing Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors. McEnroe won Wimbledon that year, but I don't think either of us really took to him in the way that we did to the long haired swede or the enigmatic Connors. I can remember preferring Chris Evert-Loyd to Martina Navratilova, but was never really sure why.

If I wasn't playing tennis or riding my bike, then I was over at Kenny's really long back garden where we dreamt of being like Ian Botham. 1981 was the year of the Botham ashes, but it's not like beating Australia was such a great feat when we all knew that the West Indies would wipe the floor with either of them anyway. Still, it was lots of fun. I still maintain he was something of a 'chucker' with ball in hand.

If I wasn't riding my bike, playing tennis with Brent or taking part in an 'electric wickets' game of cricket over at Kenny's then I was almost certainly in Alastair's back garden, where his mothers washing line and poles were about perfect for a goal. The neighbours fence at the back prevented most of our headies and crosses going out of bounds. The only problem with playing football at Alastairs was that he was a mad Rangers fan and left footed, so he always got to be Davie Cooper and I had to be Dundee United... very tiresome for a tim, you know!

One thing that I absolutely know that I was not doing was shagging. I enjoyed at least another 7 blissful summers before all that yucky stuff starting getting in the way of my childhood fun. How worry I am for the daughters of today.