THE other Sunday afternoon we decided to go for a bit of a run, but where to go?

The valley, the coast, flea market, shopping? We ended up just meandering down to Dunsop Bridge.

We are so lucky with all this wonderful countryside so close at hand. The rain has made the fields lush, the trees are in full splendour, and the cakes we ate in Dunsop Village Hall were out of this world -- slices of Sad cake thick with currants and topped with enough butter to leave your teeth marks in, homemade chocolate cake, ham sandwiches, and served by lovely ladies, all of them doing it, making it, serving it, for their love of their village and its way of life.

So I thought stuff the diet, (I've been dieting since 1971) and I really enjoyed myself.

I bought some extra so that I can continue feasting at home. A little further into the village there was a book sale so I had a bit of a nosey and among all the different types on offer was a small well-worn paperback -- The Adventures of Maria Martin. The title took me right back to when I was about 12 or 13 and everyone was talking about it.

It was the same time as Lady Chatterley's Lover. All us girls wanted to read those forbidden books but couldn't get hold of them -- they were about sex and babies and men -- all that secret, undercover stuff that we didn't know, but were desperate to find out. Sadly now young girls are encouraged to dress and act in a very provocative way and all this starts at a very early age. Look at the outfits in the children's dress shops. Quite a lot of them are deliberately sexy. Little girls of five and six are encouraged to 'try' make up, to ape pop stars and they speak knowingly of lads.

It's just the same with the young boys -- designer clothes, trainers, computers, and access to the internet. No conkers, no marbles, it's up to their rooms with the TV and computer games. Are we robbing them of an innocent childhood? I think so.

I haven't seen the familiar chalking on the pavement. Perhaps they still play hopscotch, whip and top and bounce two balls against the gable end. But I can't see in today's fear-ridden climate the girls tucking their gymslips into their knickers like we did so that they could do handstands against the wall.

It's funny but when I look back, it seems that games had a lifecycle, I don't know who decided it was time for you to buy your whip and top, cadge a tin box for your chalks, or who said this is the time to swap fag cards, but whenever it started we would all follow suit.

The crazes would last only a short while and then we would all be playing statues or truth or dare.

You, I remember it so well when my friend and I were whispering secrets. She told me about IT, about sex. I was stunned. "Your mum and dad might do that', I said, 'but not mine, definitely not mine."

Mind you we didn't have TV then.

See you next week.

Do you agree with Margo? Send you comments to Letters to the Editor, Lancashire Evening Telegraph, High Street, Blackburn, BB1 1HT.