Strange things from your childhood.

MilesMorales1

I was thinking about some weird stuff from my past and this came to mind.

The amount of freedom we were all given in primary school (elementary) we are pretty much unsupervised with power tools, saws in DT (woodwork class), we were allowed to walk to the local park with no supervision for an hour every day to play football, walk to the library unsupervised twice a week, lot of the time our teacher left the classroom for long periods and left us be, once in Wales on an adventure holiday the supervising teachers disappeared for a whole day and we didn't see them again till the evening.


And the fact there was no medical issue on the planet my mum didn't think couldn't be fixed by a ham sandwich, a cup of tea, and some paracetamol.

Mint Aero

MilesMorales1 wrote: »

once in Wales on an adventure holiday the supervising teachers disappeared for a whole day and we didn't see them again till the evening.

How much sex did they have?

MilesMorales1

Mint Aero wrote: »

How much sex did they have?

Given I was only 10 years old at the time, I have no idea :pac:

PandaPoo

Ham sandwich, tea and paracetamol? Was she trying to kill you? Flat 7up is the cure for everything.

hairyslug

The absolute freedom allowed to me and my friends 25 years ago is completely different to today, we would be out of the house from after breakfast till when we where called in for dinner, all of the parents knew that another parent would sort lunch for us depending on were we where at that time.
Now whenever my eldest is outside, there is always one parent standing with them.

There was never an issue with using tools, electric lawnmower etc.


Oh, and the summers where always much better

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

I'm amazed at times how some of us are still alive, with the diet we had. Suet was melted down and the resulting lard used not just for frying but to spread on our bread.

We were actually encouraged to walk the railway line, as the shortest route in to town and this at a time when a car on the road was a source of excitement.

The_Valeyard

Local haunted house, where it was said the devil appeared. Think every town had a story like this.

Milena Low Sobriety

Milena Low Sobriety wrote: »

I'm amazed at times how some of us are still alive, with the diet we had. Suet was melted down and the resulting lard used not just for frying but to spread on our bread.

We were actually encouraged to walk the railway line, as the shortest route in to town and this at a time when a car on the road was a source of excitement.

Health & safety was somewhat lacking in those days, I remember when they demolished the outside toilets at our school.

All they dis was to put a string across the playground, we were told not to cross the line. So the lads got onto the roof and started ripping off the slates and throwing them down onto the playground, the string should have been a few metres further out.


I was having trouble with some bullies at the time so I crossed the line.
At least one slate bounced off my head, but I didn't care the bullies kept away from me.

Imaginary friends

Rubberlegs

I often wonder how did parents not crack up when we were gone from one end of the day to the other, and not contactable!
I remember not wearing seatbelts, never mind child seats. My sister who would have been about 18 mths at the time, fell off the back seat as Dad drove round a big bend. She ended up head down, legs waving in the air behind the passenger seat, and we thought this was hilarious! Also going to the dump with my friends Dad, and the excitement of sitting in the trailer all the way home. You'd be arrested on both counts these days!

Shelflife

They were doing up the lawn/green area in front of the school and got the sixth class to picks rocks for the day.

Whole class walking behind a tractor and transport box picking all the stones and throwing them into it.

Cant remember anyone dying or crippling injuries !!

Menas

Been sent to primary school with a flask of tea with my lunch (jam sandwiches anyone?). I mean what in gods name was that all about?

MilesMorales1

Menas wrote: »

Been sent to primary school with a flask of tea with my lunch (jam sandwiches anyone?). I mean what in gods name was that all about?

Sounds lovely.

NachoBusiness

Aunties saying they'd take me home with them.

Also, did anyone else ever have to get changed in front of adults and when you complained get told: "Don't be silly, there's nothing you've got which they haven't seen before?"

Just me? Right so. I'm off to the Guards.

fineso.mom

PandaPoo wrote: »

Ham sandwich, tea and paracetamol? Was she trying to kill you? Flat 7up is the cure for everything.

TCP was the cure for anything to do with blood injuries.

MilesMorales1

NachoBusiness wrote: »

Aunties saying they'd take me home with them.

Also, did anyone else ever have to get changed in front of adults and when you complained get told: "Don't be silly, there's nothing you've got which they haven't seen before?"

Just me? Right so. I'm off to the Guards.

No I think it was pretty common. Even in school like, I have a distinct memory of us doing this play thing, we all got changed in the one classroom, boys and girls together, with about 3 teachers in the room, parents coming in and out all the time, open door.

kfallon

73Cat wrote: »

I often wonder how did parents not crack up when we were gone from one end of the day to the other, and not contactable!
I remember not wearing seatbelts, never mind child seats. My sister who would have been about 18 mths at the time, fell off the back seat as Dad drove round a big bend. She ended up head down, legs waving in the air behind the passenger seat, and we thought this was hilarious! Also going to the dump with my friends Dad, and the excitement of sitting in the trailer all the way home. You'd be arrested on both counts these days!

Amazing how a trip to the 'dump' could bring about such excitement

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Being taken out of class to help a farmer move cattle.


Teacher sending you to the shop to get cigarettes for him.

Sitting the Primary Cert.

ElleEm

We had to wear slippers in school in case we ruined the good carpet!

Rubberlegs

Little shrines in every room at my Grandparents, and framed pictures of the Pope and JFK on the walls.

kowloon

My friends and I used to make 'inventions' out of pallet wood, barrels, old ladders and other stuff we would find. The day usually ended when someone got a splinter, hit themselves with a hammer or got a smack from a flying brick (the projectile of choice for the homemade catapult). These days the kids don't seem to be allowed do anything even remotely dangerous, and certainly not before they're in secondary school.

Free (school) milk every day, then one day it suddenly vanished!
And a disused railway station as a playground.

Paddy Cow

73Cat wrote: »

I often wonder how did parents not crack up when we were gone from one end of the day to the other, and not contactable!
I remember not wearing seatbelts, never mind child seats. My sister who would have been about 18 mths at the time, fell off the back seat as Dad drove round a big bend. She ended up head down, legs waving in the air behind the passenger seat, and we thought this was hilarious! Also going to the dump with my friends Dad, and the excitement of sitting in the trailer all the way home. You'd be arrested on both counts these days!

There was no internet and very few tv channels, so the media hadn't stirred up the stranger danger frenzy we have today, where every man on his own is a potential kidnapping paedophile.

Paddy Cow

73Cat wrote: »

Little shrines in every room at my Grandparents, and framed pictures of the Pope and JFK on the walls.

Any don't forget about Red Light Jesus above the door :pac:

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Throwing a sledge hammer in the back garden by rotating quickly like we saw the hammer throwers do at the Olympics. Climbing up to the chimney pot on the house to rain down arrows on the cowboys attacking from the house next door. Buying biscuits loose and by weight.
No television.

heldel00

Having to have manners. This just isn't seen as important anymore.

deseil

School books covered in flowery wallpaper.

I used to be miles from home all the time from about the age of 5 playing in streams, woods, building sites and rivers but was always home for dinner.

Being sent out of the kitchen when anyone called because it was adult talk.

Lying on the sitting room floor with my toe on the tv channel button so I didnt have to get up to change the channel.

Being forced to drink a disgusting purple concoction supposedly for worms every couple of months, still makes me gag thinking of it.

Thinking tennis "2 lines and a ball" played on tv was the best thing ever invented.

Youngblood.III

Been allowed and encouraged to climb 60ft into a tree..
Allowed to burn anything in the back garden.....

Coopaloop

Had such fun growing up, before the town got built up there was tonnes of fields around our housing estate, at the end of every summer the farmer would come to cut the hay, and our whole estate (who all played together no matter what age) wound collect up the left over hay (and some of the not left over hay which could earn a chase off the farmer)and built a kick ass hay hut in the trees and a damn in the stream which you would take a running somersault into, so much fun. Stuff like that will never happen these days, partly because those fields are now housing estates and roads and because it's too 'dangerous'.

One eyed Jack

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Local haunted house, where it was said the devil appeared. Think every town had a story like this.

Yeah, that was our house, where all the windows were always broken or cardboarded up, because my parents got sick of fixing them every time myself and my brothers played hurling outside and put the sliotar through a window. People used suggest all the broken windows were because our house was built on a fairy fort and we'd upset the fairies...

Well you try keeping a straight face while making them none the wiser :pac:

Summers spent making cow pies, using cow dung and clay and water and a wheelbarrow for a mixing bowl. Get hit with one of them frisbees and you'd know all about it!

Fcuking off over the moors on your own for a few days on "adventures", turning up three days later with armfuls of apples hoping you'd appease the parents and they wouldn't be too pissed off at your disappearance (did that ever, work for anyone?)

Was there ever anything a good fist fight with your brothers couldn't solve?

Fcuking metal hospital beds, because they were cheap! Great for playing "turbo boost" though, catapulting your brothers across the room where they'd collide with each other in mid-air. The one who got up first was the "winner" :pac:

Capt'n Midnight

fineso.mom wrote: »

TCP was the cure for anything to do with blood injuries.

and for gargalling

kfallon wrote: »

Amazing how a trip to the 'dump' could bring about such excitement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwILD1BjbQs

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

fineso.mom wrote: »

TCP was the cure for anything to do with blood injuries.

That modern stuff! We always used Mercurochrome. Pink knees and elbows all round.

force eleven

We used to play cricket with hurleys and upside down sandcastle bucket as wickets. And a tennis ball. Thinking back, I wondered why we played that. We never saw cricket on television, not on the two channels we had nor ever played it in school.

Duff

My siblings and myself knocking seven shades of shíte out of each other on the parents bed as Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior and Macho Man.

Setting fire. To everything.

Getting busted in the face with the white and orange world cup balls that would leave a hexagon shape for days.

Getting a can of mineral, two packets of crisps, ten jelly sweets and a chocolate bar with a pound and still having change.

Getting chases from the farmer out by my cousins house for robbing apples from his garden and throwing them at his cows.

Boring username

I was called into action to retrieve a drunken parent or American cousin on more than one occasion, and drive their car home from the pub or hotel. I think I made my debut back in 6th class, I suppose I was 12 or so. Some people might consider that a tad unusual but to give them credit, they knew they were too hammered to get behind the wheel.

Youngblood.III

Jumping on haystacks.....no haystacks anymore :-(

FelineOverLord

Deleted User wrote: »

Imaginary friends

Apparently I had an imaginary friend called Trudy. I've no memory of her but the tales my mother has told me about my refusal to go anywhere without her and insistence on them turning the car around and going back to the house to get her sound bloody terrifying.:eek:

Cold War Kid

Fairy stories and stories in girls' comics like Mandy, Bunty et al being really really ****ing dark! :eek:

Summer wind

Every summer in our town there was always a huge lump of aeroboard in the river. About 10 of us would be on top of the aeroboard with 2 big sticks navigating the river like gondoliers. We were all good swimmers and always had great fun diving off it into the river and getting back on again.

donegaLroad

On Christmas Eve, the 'Mummers' used to go from house to house and recite a few verses.. they were usually dressed up and wearing masks, sometimes stuffed with straw. You would still occasionally see them but only in the pubs now.

At Halloween it was customary to have your gate stolen from the front of the house and thrown in the hedge or the local river if you were unlucky.

MadDog76

Boring username wrote: »

I was called into action to retrieve a drunken parent or American cousin on more than one occasion, and drive their car home from the pub or hotel. I think I made my debut back in 6th class, I suppose I was 12 or so. Some people might consider that a tad unusual but to give them credit, they knew they were too hammered to get behind the wheel.

That is the most disturbing post I've ever read on Boards .........

Hammer89

I remember being in the Beavers when I was, say, seven or eight. Is this Beaver age? Anywho, I was very young. We had an outing to Killiney beach one Saturday or Sunday morning, and I made the mistake of picking up a syringe. The instructor went bezerk at me, and so did the other kids, as if they knew what f*cking AIDS was. One of them looked like he already had it. Anyways, that's the first thing that popped into my mind.

Keane2baMused

Going out all day in the summer and coming back when it was dark, when I was like 10!

diomed

We used to know everything about the people in every house on out road, about eighty houses. And we had them classified on their reasonableness towards children. Some would put a knife through your football, some would chase you with sticks, some would call in to your parents etc.

As a 10 year old I stalked an Australian jockey who had rented a house on our road. When he returned at about 11 am after riding morning work I was waiting at his front gate to get a good look at him.

MilesMorales1

Keane2baMused wrote: »

Going out all day in the summer and coming back when it was dark, when I was like 10!

Sure every kid did that :pac:

razorblunt

Banishing a football by misplacing a shot or pass onto a roof.
If it was one of those Champions Cup balls you'd have 2 days max, to get it back before it become sodden and ended up weighing the same as a ball and chain.

Also those Derby footballs that would bounce about 20 feet in the air, it they hit a wall everyone ducked as it would come back at you at a rate of knots!

Galadriel

My Grandad giving me a flask of left over coddle, boiled sausages and all, great lunch!!

Also remember my teacher in primary school bringing us down to the local river where we had to cross by climbing over the burnt out car...class!!

Gentian violet, the cure for everything...

southcentralts

Back in the good aul days, when it took more than a google login and wifi to find you. Parents needed a private detective, forensic accountant, native american spirit guide and a younger sibling to find out where you were.

Maximus Alexander

73Cat wrote: »

Also going to the dump with my friends Dad, and the excitement of sitting in the trailer all the way home. You'd be arrested on both counts these days!

Were we friends? This sounds like my dad's trailer :eek:

Boring username

MadDog76 wrote: »

That is the most disturbing post I've ever read on Boards .........

Relax, I wore my seatbelt. Plus I've been driving tractors since I was about 7 or 8.

Anyway, if you want really disturbing have a look at the 'how often do you shower' thread :eek:


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057482038