So did you ever wander off as a child

21-03-2014 11:02AM #1

When I was about 3/4 my aunt was looking after me she took me shopping with her and when she was in the butchers, I got fed up because in my opinion she was chatting too much to the butcher, so I decided to go back to her house and wait for her, I remember thinking shopping is the worst thing ever, being so small it had not occurred to me that the door would be locked. I walked out of the shops across the car park, crossed a very busy road walked about half a mile and got to her house of course when I got there I could not get in, so sat on the step, about 30 minuet's later she finds me and there is murder and I genuinely could not understand why I was in trouble.

kneemos · 21-03-2014 11:05AM

I wondered off one day and came across a host of golden daffodils.

Mince Pie · 21-03-2014 11:07AM

I ran away to nursery school on a Saturday in my pyjama's when I was about 4 I think. My mum had to pick me up from the police station. Kinda remember thinking what was all the fuss about.

Gatling · 21-03-2014 11:08AM

I actually did it once when I was around 3/4 ,we went to a fun fair and some how got separated from my family ,don't remember much other than been found by a search party organised by the gardai according to my folks I was found 6 hours later several miles from the event ,

Scary thought I don't remember a thing other than been in a ditch when I was found

SEPT 23 1989 · 21-03-2014 11:10AM

yes in shopping centres

Greenmachine · 21-03-2014 11:12AM

Wandered off a small lad on the beach. We went out for a day trip. My mom went to the water with my siblings while I stayed with my dad. I think I was prolly cranky that day. I decided I didn't want to go in the water. At some stage I changed my mind and wandered off to where I thought they were. I ended up lost

SEPT 23 1989 · 21-03-2014 11:15AM

we can all remember that horrible sinking feeling when we cant find mammy

First Up · 21-03-2014 11:17AM

Of course.
How do you think I got here?

Lollipops23 · 21-03-2014 11:18AM

When I was about 3 and a half we were on holiday in Wales (me, my mam and her friend). Mam and her mate were down in the hotel bar one night, with my mam checking on me in bed about every 20-30mins.

I woke and didn't know where I was, so was bawling at the top of my lungs. Decided to explore, got out of bed, opened the hotel room door, wandered down the corridor to the lift and the only reason I didn't get in the lift was because it was one of those old school grate ones and I didn't know how to work it.

Went back to the room, got back into bed and fell asleep. Was an adventure!

21-03-2014 11:20AM

The thing that stuck with me is that I genuinely could not understand what I had done wrong and feeling very perplexed that I was in trouble, one of those adults are so stupid moments that I often had as a child.

Freddie Dodge · 21-03-2014 11:25AM

I wandered off aged about 3 looking under stones for bugs scurrying away, but where I lived, there weren't any other people around. Took me hours to find my way home.

My ex wife got lost in the city when she was little, and when the cops picked her up they though she was foreign because she spoke no english, just Irish (one of those families) :rolleyes: till she was 6. Some cop from the wesht eventually tried irish on her and then she wouldn't shut up till they got her home.

danniemcq · 21-03-2014 11:25AM

Uncle was babysitting me when i was 2 or 3. can't remember the exact reason why but I couldn't find anyone so aparently decided to go find ma (i knew she was in the chapel)

walked into town just over a km away before being spotted by friends of my Ma seen me and knew me and tried to get me into the house or car to take me home and i just kept repeating "don't talk to strangers", one of them drove to the house while the other made sure i was safe and eventually was all sorted out.

I was raised well!

SEPT 23 1989 · 21-03-2014 11:29AM

danniemcq wrote: »

Uncle was babysitting me when i was 2 or 3. can't remember the exact reason why but I couldn't find anyone so aparently decided to go find ma (i knew she was in the chapel)

walked into town just over a km away before being spotted by friends of my Ma seen me and knew me and tried to get me into the house or car to take me home and i just kept repeating "don't talk to strangers", one of them drove to the house while the other made sure i was safe and eventually was all sorted out.

I was raised well!

I would say Uncle was popular when Ma found out:D

harry Bailey esq · 21-03-2014 11:29AM

i was a right bollix for going missing when i was a little kid from what the ma tells me,in fact I've kept it up to this day...which is probably why im single again lol

Obliq · 21-03-2014 11:29AM

Can't remember doing it myself, but a neighbour brought my youngest home one day having found him (age 2 1/2) striding out purposefully for my aunt's house down the road. I'd thought he was still playing in his room with the lego blocks, while I was washing up in the kitchen. You can't keep your eyes on them all the time unfortunately - same child (same year) was found hanging by his hood off of a high stone wall TWICE, having tried to get down frontways - also escaped his gran into a field with 8 horses and lay quietly among them while she ran frantically up and down the road shouting for him. Some parents do have em

Going Strong · 21-03-2014 11:29AM

Twice that I can remember.
The first time was in Dublin Zoo when I was about 5 or 6. I wanted to stay at the petting zoo but my parents wanted to move on and we got separated. I don't think I was away from them for long but I remember the feeling of panic and a woman holding onto my hand until my parents came back.

The second one was worse though. I was about 9 or 10 and it was a shopping centre before Christmas and I was too busy looking at the toy section in the supermarket that I never noticed I was alone. I wandered everywhere looking for the rest of my family but couldn't see them anywhere. I spoke to an assistant and, as I did, I started bawling crying. She took me to the information desk, me blubbing away and, round the corner came a pair of my classmates. My name was called out over the speakers and we waited, and waited. So then the security guard came and went out to the other shops in search of my parents and came back with them eventually. I was made to look a right eejit for some time afterwards in school as my "Crying like a little baby" routine was re-enacted for all.

Peter Visibility · 21-03-2014 11:30AM

I did wander off but it was called 'Playing' in the sixties.

Red Pepper · 21-03-2014 11:30AM

Coincidentally, when I was 2, I walked out of the house during the day and got about a mile down a busy main road before someone picked me up and brought me to a Garda station.

I Heart Internet · 21-03-2014 11:30AM

Lollipops23 wrote: »

When I was about 3 and a half we were on holiday in Wales (me, my mam and her friend). Mam and her mate were down in the hotel bar one night, with my mam checking on me in bed about every 20-30mins.

Your surname isn't McCann by any chance is it??

Bold Abdu · 21-03-2014 11:31AM

When I was 4 or 5 I went for a walk. Got knocked down by a car. Apparently the driver thought I was dead and put a coat over my head. I wasn't.

sbsquarepants · 21-03-2014 11:31AM

Not when I was a toddler, but when I was around 11 or 12 a group of us would regularly walk up to the hell fire club, about 5 miles from my house, stay there for the day and then walk back - I'd have been worried sick if my kids done that when they were that age, I wouldn't even like them doing it now and they're 18 and 15! We never told our parents obviously and in those days you just left the house in the morning and came back for your dinner, no mobiles and no way of being contacted, anything could have happened!

Red Pepper · 21-03-2014 11:32AM

Bold Abdu wrote: »

When I was 4 or 5 I went for a walk. Got knocked down by a car. Apparently the driver thought I was dead and put a coat over my head. I wasn't.

Jaysus! Were you badly hurt?

danniemcq · 21-03-2014 11:35AM

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

I would say Uncle was popular when Ma found out:D

honestly she wasn't to bad (from what i was told), He had to go up the back in the field for stones for a wall or path or something and at that time he'd have been out of my FOV so that must have been the time i went looking.

He was pretty distraught about it too plus I guess a happy ending meant a happier ending for him

Bold Abdu · 21-03-2014 11:37AM

Red Pepper wrote: »

Jaysus! Were you badly hurt?

A few bumps and bruises. I think I lost a shoe too. It happened right outside Crumlin Hosp' so I had a bit of luck that day.

danniemcq · 21-03-2014 11:42AM

Bold Abdu wrote: »

When I was 4 or 5 I went for a walk. Got knocked down by a car. Apparently the driver thought I was dead and put a coat over my head. I wasn't.

Holy crap,

how long till they found out you were alive, were you knocked out and came round or was the driver just in shock?

ThunbergsAreGo · 21-03-2014 11:43AM

World Cup Italia 90 homecoming at the age of 5,

Remember getting a free canof 7up, dad found me in the chipper

wispa9 · 21-03-2014 11:46AM

I used to have a habit of standing in the display windows of Dunnes (clothes section) and pretending to be a mannequin. My mother always knew where to find me when I disappeared!

Maximus Alexander · 21-03-2014 11:47AM

My brother went through a phase of wandering off when he was maybe 2 and a half or 3. He'd get up really early in the morning, push a chair from the kitchen into the hall, then get up and open the front door. Fortunately he bumped into some neighbours who promptly returned him.

Plazaman · 21-03-2014 11:47AM

kneemos wrote: »

I wondered off one day and came across a host of golden daffodils.

Aww you must have been lonely, as lonely as a cloud to wander off.

During Summer holidays as a kid I could leave the house in the morning and not come back until suppertime. No one came looking for me

Different times though, the only paedo about then was the neighbours incontinent dog, Peedo.

Bold Abdu · 21-03-2014 11:51AM

danniemcq wrote: »

Holy crap,

how long till they found out you were alive, were you knocked out and came round or was the driver just in shock?

To be honest I'm not sure. I was following my brothers. They heard a crash, came to have a look, ran home and told my mother I had "been knocked down and someone put a coat over my head"

youtube! · 21-03-2014 11:51AM

Many times ! To list a few, when I was about 4 I was just in from school and I went off to play down the road, I saw this huge looking machine which was tarring the centre lines of the road and thought this looked very interesting!
So I walked up to it,saw a ladder up to the cockpit and climbed on up there to be greeted by a nice man who let me come in and see how it all worked,nothing weird in my mind and when I was finished he helped me down the steps,not that I needed it of course, I eventually went back home none the worse for wear!.

Now around a year later I decided rather than to come straight home after school I would just go off with my schoolmate back to his house for a while which turned out to be 4 hrs....my Mam went up to the school worried sick but the teacher had remembered which boy I left with so was able to tell my Mam,who then sent a man who was working in the house at the time and who had a car to collect me, I vividly recall him telling me I was in big trouble,****ed if could figure out why!

I often wandered off to pick berries,catch bees in jars, find a game of football on a new road or whatever, never telling anyone who I was with or where I was going, the reason being I didn't have a clue where I was going most of the time! I just led my life by the minute and didn't plan anything, it was a blissful happy go lucky existence when I look back at it now!

The weird thing is I never let my own kids have that kind of freedom and I wonder if it's the right thing ya know? I would just worry too much about every little detail in a way that my own folks didn't, different world.

So did you ever wander off as a child

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