I have been trawling through various music papers and pop magazines lately. I found a few dozen copies of a magazine called "Number one" which seems to have run throughout most of the 80s as an alternative to "Smash Hits"

We're constantly told that the world is now a more dangerous place for children than ever (even those as young as 15 who smoke, take drugs and sleep with who they want, often repeatedly).The internet, it would appear, is the main culprit. I was astonished to find that back in the good old safe, pre-internet 1980s, "Number one" used to contain a penfriends section with children as young as 10 giving out their names and addresses. This magazine was issued fortnightly, with new "potential victims" every week. One 11 year old girl asks for "older friends" as her "classmates are all so childish" !

So putting your name, age and address in print for anyone to see (and contact, whilst pretending to be another "child" ) was far safer than the relative anonymity of the internet ?

Gosh, I remember that magazine, although I wasn't a subscriber. When I was at school back in the 1970s we were often encouraged to join pen friend clubs. We were never asked to prove we were kids, so could have been any age.

Of course, paedophiles hadn't been invented then.

Also back then, judging by archive clips, "Swap Shop" and "Saturday Superstore" used to read out letter writers addresses on screen or put their address up on captions on the screen, sometimes with their phone numbers!

Todays PC brigade would have a fit. It's OK for "them" to know who we are, where we live, what we do, what we buy etc thanks to CCTV though...

The threat is totally imaginery but I suppose the internet does make it easier for weirdos to contact other people. Writing a letter required time - was not instant - and cost a trip to a postbox.

They were times where kids were aware of "stranger dangers" but would happily play football outside until late in the summer months and would happily give out their address to anyone who asked.

What changed ?

I believe an agenda has been in place since the early 90s by Health & Safety / PC-Social Workers-Child Protection in league with the Legal System to basically criminalise as many people as possible - and to criminalise all accidents - and therefore to increase the wages of that sector.

If we applied the same rules to the Music Industry the PRS and MCPS would treble their charges to TV - Radio - Stores for the use of ALL music.......and massively fine or even close down stores/radio/tv which did not comply. Each year for the next 10 years would see the doubling of this fee. The "playing" of music rather than the "buying" of music would become the Music Industry saviour and it would then mean the industry could expand again.

Secondly, I still believe that there is a cover up by the Authorities of genuine Child Abuse. It is noticable that the big scandals of genuine Child Abuse always involve - Local Authorities - Freemasons - Police - and sometimes Judges. NORTH WALES - JERSEY are two examples of this. Organised Child Abuse seems to be run by political figures in league with the Police. My own research has linked senior figures in Political Parties.

Thirdly, the media subscribes to this. Hardly any teachers or vicars actually abuse children. Remember they are often in daily contact with kids and would be outed in many cases with the high profile of abuse these days. Yet the media covers these cases with more column inches. The "Celeb" paedo is basically a witch-hunt. This has always been the case ( Think Polanski - Wyman ) but whereas those two actually still have careers and it was generally a non issue we have the GLITTER case on the front pages week after week and his catalogue of work has been attacked ( Though how Leader of the Gang is dangerous to kids is again beyond any decent person )

The SUN should be boycotted. Whenever I meet anyone who buys the SUN I ask them to consider not buying it. In fact it is getting to the point where shops should stop stocking it because many people now find it offensive. Is that a curb on freedom of speech ? not really because the SUN seeks to undermine freedom of speech and thus loses the right as a fascist pamphlet to exist next to other published material.

Kids are remarkably decent and knowing. They are not babies in 2008 in the way we may have been in the 1970s. They now have more information to make themselves safe. They dont need the PC brigade trying to jail them and in many cases demonise them.