OT - Stuff that is (thankfully) total different nowadays

[Calimori]

It’s a niche I experienced too

Less fire with my experience and nearly arrested a few times but climbing abandoned buildings were a favourite of mine too.
We also use to make our own bangers from the pink rolls of gunpowder caps used for toy guns, used elastic bands as the wick and would set fire to it and run off.

 

[Alan Syson]

Less fire with my experience and nearly arrested a few times but climbing abandoned buildings were a favourite of mine too.
We also use to make our own bangers from the pink rolls of gunpowder caps used for toy guns, used elastic bands as the wick and would set fire to it and run off.

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Late 60s, I’d be around 12, brother 10, we’d take a train from Nottingham to Grantham , he was an avid trainspotter, travelled all over England spotting, to visit an ironmongers/farmers shop.
They sold crow scarers, think bangers on steroids.
Came on a fuse rope thingy that smouldered away until it ignited the scarer.
Length of rope dictated the time of explosion.
We’d lie in bed til 2/3 in the morning waiting for the bangs.
Didn’t need screens in them days

 

[Asiapinball]

Smog. Where I lived, practically nobody had central heating in the 70s and early 80s so the smog from the coal fires was ridiculous.
Second hand smoke. Everywhere you went. 50% + of the population were 20 a day smokers and the non-smokers were effectively 10 a day smokers. One of my mates had chain smoker parents on 40 a day each - you could hardly see the telly from the other side of the room.
One of my earliest memories (1970) is of the outside loo which was freezing in the winter and the tin bath in the kitchen for the once a week bath. Seriously - we were poor, but moved to a council house with an inside bathroom after a short time. Luxury.
Single glazed metal crittal windows that would have a layer of frost on the inside when you woke on a cold morning.
Running downstairs in my pants on a cold morning to get dressed in front of the 3 bar electric fire in the kitchen.
Power cuts. Seemed to be daily for months on end.
And my mum would say paying 15.4% interest on the mortgage in 1985 - she still has the paperwork.

But I had a wonderfully happy childhood most of which was spent outside playing footy on the road (just move the woolly jumper goalposts when a car came along), riding my bike, hanging around after dark at the park/disused gravel pits/random farmers field etc. and getting up to no good.

Life was simple back then.

 

[Marvello]

Physical punishment of students was still normal.

I was slippered (it was actually a sports pump/plimsoll) in my first year at secondary school. The thought of a grown man making a group of pre-pubescent boys in shorts bend over in line as he walked along spanking each of their bottoms is quite frankly very disturbing to say the least.

 

[Jay Walker]

The terminology here was 'having the dap', dap being a plimsoll. But one teacher (not the drinker or the gambler), openly carried the rubber tubing for a bunsen burner as a deterrent.

 

[Fenny]

A few off the top of my head:


Potato guns
Catapults
Kiss chase
British bulldog
Brook jumping
Fishing in the streams
Making coloured shapes on the school pc
Cherry knocking
Scrumping
* behind the bike sheds
Youth clubs
The slipper, belt, sideburns yanked by teachers
You actually saw the police and they dared to reprimand you

 

[Colywobbles]

Knocky nine doors.
Split the kipper always ended in someone bleeding from his foot
My fav was standing in a circle in the garden and throwing the biggest brass dart you could russle up in the air and closing your eyes.
one was buried so far into my mates skull his mum couldn’t get it out.
Smelling your mates finger

 

[DRD]

Ice cream van on the school playing field at lunchtime

 

[Judderman]

And Texan bars - really with they would bring these back.

With the attention span of kids today, they'd never finish one.

 

[Andy.S]

I remember the physics teacher at high school would throw the blackboard rubber in your direction if you weren't paying attention

I also recall the middle school (which was quite old even back then) had a pipe running around the back of the room for heating. Myself and a mate though it be a good idea to melt wax crayons on there in maths - maths teacher did not concur with this. We had to spend the rest of the lesson cleaning it of. We were gutted obviously

And Texan bars - really with they would bring these back.

Haha my maths teacher had a solid rubber duck with string around its neck and would swing this around and throw it at you if you were not paying attention
also he would make you stand on the desk and stand like a tea pot if you were trying to be the class clown so everyone could see you and get a good laugh

 

[Jmac]

 

[Paul]

Split the kipper always ended in someone bleeding from his foot

I have to admit Col, i needed to look this one up. Dont remember playing it - maybe before my time....

Split the Kipper, incredibly, was a popular game played by children in the 1970’s.
All that is required to play is soft ground, stout shoes, a knife and large amounts of stupidity. That’s right, a game for children involving knives.
Players stand facing each other a distance of 1 or 2 meters apart with their legs together. The leading player, the one with the knife, then aims and throws his weapon so that it lands outside his opponents feet. That is to the right of his right foot or left of his left foot. The knife must stick into the ground blade first and must be within 30cm of said foot. If it is further away or if it doesn't stick in the ground at all then it is a ‘no-throw’ and doesn’t count. If it is within 30cm then that player has to move his nearest foot to where the knife landed. He now pulls the knife out of the ground and it is his turn to throw back in the same way.
The game continues with each player taking turns to throw whilst all the time trying to remain standing, their legs getting further and further apart. If a player falls over or gives up, he loses.

When one player feels he can’t take it any longer he may decide to ‘split the kipper’. Here he aims the knife between his opponents feet and if he throws it there successfully may now close his own legs to the starting position. Obviously, the number of times you are allowed to ‘split the kipper’ should be decided before starting otherwise games can continue a long time.

**** me that was brutal!

 

[AndyB]

Climbing up ridiculously high unstable old trees to make a rope swing. Actually a lot of climbing - everything was eyed up as a climbing challenge for reasons unknown

As I remember the swings were always made with blue rope, don't see blue rope around anymore either.

We used to play a game where you would swing out of a tree, knife in hand, and stick it into the furthest part of the tree you could find. The next person would then try and get the knife and stick it back into the tree, or wait until the momentum had slowed and stick it into the ground, the next person getting it and doing the same.

I remember my cousin pushing off from the tree, knife in hand just as one of our mates was walking across the 'target area', and him getting a nice gash across the leg. 5 minutes later he was back outside taking his turn .

Also, going out to play at 8am with your bike/football, and not coming home until teatime. Nobody having a clue where you were, either playing footy all day, or covering miles on your bike. Stopping off at a mates house for a jam sarnie at some point during the day to keep you going.

 

[Calimori]

My mum always seemed to know where I went or where pretty close. The mums would call each other and say they had spotted you head down a street or into a woods.
These days, with the ease of WhatsApp groups, it is a wonder anything happens without your parents knowing but less people do the community look out thing.

 

[C&C]

Also, going out to play at 8am with your bike/football, and not coming home until teatime. Nobody having a clue where you were, either playing footy all day, or covering miles on your bike. Stopping off at a mates house for a jam sarnie at some point during the day to keep you going.

Used to do this all through the summer holidays. As well as playing footie, we used to go riding across the spoil heaps from a local coal mine that had closed down making our own "bmx tracks", but before bmx bikes became a thing.

Climbing the disused railway bankings and across the top of the tunnel entrance, and riding through the old tunnel, which led to the disused coal mine.

Making bike jumps from old bits of wood, then seeing how far you could jump your bike, often over your mates that would lie on the floor near the ramp, and sometimes coming up short and landing on them.

Climbing trees, and occasionally falling out of them, often as a result of daring each other to go further and further out along a shakey branch.

Conkers were a big thing at school, often getting wrapped on the knuckles when someone wasn't very accurate.

Playing "pegs" where you'd prop up 2 wooden clothes pegs with a 3rd across the top against a wall, then throwing a ball to knock them down and running around trying to get back to put the pegs back up without getting hit by the ball. It was reasonably safe with a tennis ball, but we soon increased the risk/consequences of getting hit by replacing the tennis ball with a solid rubber dog ball.