JUST last month, Theresa May’s education secretary, Damian Hinds, spoke of the need to encourage children to explore the world around them during the summer holidays, rather than staying indoors and playing with their phones, watching boxsets and using social media.

This urge to get children playing in the fresh air, discovering their creative talents, is one that crops up frequently.

Often, fears are expressed that this is a dying tradition: three years ago, a National Trust survey found that today’s children spent half the time their parents did on playing outside - four hours a week on average as opposed to 8.2 hours a week when the parents were themselves young.

In the summer of 1976 the Fair Play for Children Campaign highlighted the ‘desperate need’ for creative play provision. Children, it was reported, led a more restricted home life than ever before. New houses tended not to have large gardens. Fewer families lived closer together.

Loneliness, the campaign found, was a major problem, especially in the summer, when schools were closed and pupils lived a long way from each other. No-one benefited from having a generation of “stultified, bored kids.”

There were lots of play schemes running in Glasgow, but it emerged that those that were based in schools could only operate in them until 3pm, thanks to new cleaning regulations. Some groups also faced having to pay for janitors.

The two children pictured here were part of one group that operated from a local school. If it shut at 3pm, this paper reported, their summer evenings might have to be spent either at home or on a demolition site near their home in Seamore Street, Maryhill.