Children and tools

Our grandchildren love grandads shed. He showed them how to weld. They were absolutely fascinated how you could join metal together.

My grandchildren have all been taught to use tools from an early age. They are so good with knives and saws that my 7 yr old can cut slices of bread beautifully. I used to worry, but no longer. That Nursery looks wonderful.

My father gave me tools so that I could copy him. He used to work in his shed and I would go and work beside him. I think he would have liked a son.

When I was little, my father used to mend the family’s shoes and I would often keep him company in the cellar. He would give me an old last, a piece of leather and an old shoe and let me knock nails in with a toffee hammer! I never knocked one in straight and often ended up with sore fingers, but if I had to mend a shoe now, I could do it if it involved a piece of leather. I begged him constantly for a carpentry set like the one he bought for my nephew but my mother vetoed it so it never happened. I don’t think my grandson has ever had a hammer or a saw in his hands or, for that matter, a kitchen knife except when he has been here and helped me to cut up vegetables.

DD has always been the DIYer. She does everything from fine needlework to fitting kitchens and laying drives. DS's preferred option is to get someone in to do it.

I arrived to pick up my eldest dd from nursery one day, around 1974, to be told by the teacher that said 4 year old had insisted on joining an activity which had been set out "for the boys" i.e. hammering nails into blocks of wood. The teacher, who had never known such a thing thought it was hilarious while dd was still fuming at the injustice of it all. How the world has changed since then, btw she's a dab hand with a Black Decker these days!

Oh my gosh - I'd like to have a couple more children just to send them to this nursery/school. Brilliant! My children played out of doors in all weathers and all had real tools to make things with - they occupied themselves for hours and are all now hands-on DIYers.
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