The other day in Hove I saw a boy of about nine riding his bike along the road by himself.

There’s nothing notable about that except that it is such a rare sight these days.

When most children are wrapped in cotton wool, it takes brave parents to put their kids on bikes even if the riders are competent and the roads are quiet.

What a complete change there has been in attitudes towards children since I was a child or even since my own four daughters were young.

They were given freedom to roam about once they were about seven or so and none of them ever came to any harm.

As for my childhood, it sounds like another world today and to give details may be reminiscent of that ancient TV comedy sketch in which men boast about how poor they once were.

I learned to ride a bike when I was four and at six had a full size secondhand Hercules, built in 1933, which I still possess today.

My parents thought it was nothing unusual to let me ride along busy streets and I clearly recall cycling through Hyde Park Corner aged eight.

At 11 I rode to places like Brighton from London along main roads.

I walked two miles to school and at weekends used to go out all day, often covering about 15 miles, and taking nothing with me.

As a result I knew every side street and back alley over a vast area, useful information if you were being chased.

Occasionally I would become involved in fights, usually losing, and told my mother the wounds I sustained were as a result of falls. I don’t know whether she believed me.

Her sole warning was to beware of dirty old men – paedophiles to you and me now.

There were plenty about but they were usually obvious and easy to evade.

I played with friends on bomb sites because the nearest park was more than a mile away. As a result we became extremely sure footed.

Parks often had playgrounds with hard surfaces and heavy equipment but I never saw anyone seriously hurt in one.

I made many longer journeys on my own, travelling by train to Oxford when I was six and Plymouth aged eight to see relations. The only worry was how I was to get my unfeasibly heavy suitcase off the high rack.

Given some rare cash for a meal, I sauntered into the dining car in the Cornish Riviera express, only to stop after my soup because I was scared of not having enough for the bill.

All this seems fairly fantastic these days.

Yet my two younger brothers aged nine and seven walked around London, a distance of more than 40 miles in a day.

The youngest one, when tired of a round the world trip with his father, made his own way back by plane from New York and found his way home from Heathrow which in those days had no Tube.

I am not generally one for saying things were better in the past and indeed they were not for most children.

Life was generally grey and drab with little money and few amusements.

Grown-ups could be harsh and sadistic for no good reason.

There were few things more dispiriting than a wet winter’s Sunday afternoon with everything closed including all the shops and many minds.

But now there is much more prosperity we do not seem to have made the most off it for our children.

Many of them are never let out of their parents’ sight for a second which must be wearing for both generations.

They are often taken every weekday on the school run. Fewer children are knocked down because none of them walk but plenty are injured as car passengers.

If they are allowed on bikes, it is only for short distances in parks wearing crash helmets which are unnecessary on grass.

They spend hours each day watching TV and playing on computers while mobile phones have become an obsession.

As a result they are experts on how to acquire knowledge but with little idea of what to do with it. They can find it hard to sort out fact from fiction on the internet.

Many of them stay indoors a lot of the time and take little exercise while grazing on vast quantities of fast food.

We are in danger of becoming the first generation since the Black Death who may live longer than our children. If the trend continues, I foresee a ghastly world or huge obese youngsters living in near-Stygian darkness, often too lazy to go outside.

Maybe I am exaggerating but not by all that much.

Luckily I do see some resistance to the trend with some schools encouraging cycling and even competitive sports at which there are even a few losers.

I’d like to be able to see a boy alone on a bike and not think it remarkable.

But it may take a little time.