MODERN children play outdoors just half as much as their parents did.

After watching It was Alright in the 1970s (where on so many levels things were mostly all wrong), I am not surprised at all.

The Teen and I snuggled up and watched the programme that harks back four decades.

The Teen’s mouth was wide open for much of it in between snorts of laughter – particularly entertained by those creepy public information films. I don’t know what parents were up to but warning youngsters about life’s dangers was left to the BBC, which filmed the most disturbing clips possible to be shown repeatedly throughout the day.

One of my earliest memories was of the Grim Reaper wandering through a forest in the mist, watching over a group of children playing near a pit of slurry before one fell to his doom.

And I can still remember the recurring nightmares of that time, seeing a dancing Grim Reaper at my bedroom window.

Another showed a boy who had been playing on a railway line before getting stuck on one of the rails. The train, of course, didn’t stop and the lad was left limbless.

And then there was the girl who drank poisonous liquids and the boy who drove a runaway tractor.

These eerie and menacing films were worse than Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Death was always around the corner, particularly if you did not do as you were told.

The Teen looked at me after watching the railway advert.

“You know you don’t like crossing the railway lines in a car and never believe that the gates and lights are going to work? Well that is because you watched that horrible clip when you were little.

“And you used to have to make sure there were no pylons within a mile radius when we flew the kite. That was because of that horrible advert.

“And you never let me play outside with my friends when I was five. That was because of that stranger advert you saw when you were little.

“You are a cotton wool mother because of those 1970s adverts.”

It’s not surprising really that a generation is so anxiety-ridden. Those pesky British public information films continue to haunt the memories of those who saw them.

Brilliant.