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Listenening to old people anyone over 40, telling me how life was when they where our age, now im one of them.
Watching Till death do us apart,, and love thy neighbour and laughing at the jokes,
walking to school and cycling to school, being punched by teachers,
Realising some of the more physically developed boys and girls always got better marks after special lessons at lunch times,off 2 of the teachers,
That there would be snow at christmas and sun on summer holidays,
Watch this pair run out on bright sunny day at Elland rd, I don't even like football but this picture made me feel old.
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i have slow-worms in the back garden
At my school one pupil each year was appointed "college gun" and allowed to wander the grounds with a shotgun controlling vermin. This was early 90's so not [i]that[/i] long ago.
At my school one pupil each year was appointed "college gun" and allowed to wander the grounds with a shotgun controlling vermin. This was early 90's so not that long ago.
WTF? Where the hell did you go to school? Beirut?
WTF? Where the hell did you go to school? Beirut?
Not quite. Hertfordshire.
The teacher bringing in the junior kids then electrocuting them with a Leyden Jar in physics lessons
Everyone wandering around the woods dawn - dusk with massive sheath knives building dens
Black widow catapults / GAT "Air Pistols"
Happy days....
.22 live rounds on a funfair!
Saw this in France last summer! It's still 1998 there.
Gentlemen's evening at the Rowing Club.
Super 8 projector, well used film, silent apart from the comments from the audience.
10m high diving platforms at the local swimming baths
dunno about that, but I remember using the 30ft high diving boards 😀
Riding on 26 inch wheels....those were the days.
Gerrin yer Fingers and Tops
Making massive piles of grass clippings at primary school and spending half and hour being the a-team and jumping into them.
I had a shotgun certificate at 13.
Fillings with no anaesthetic at all!!
Same here--was telling my current dentist about it (he is probably 32 years old) and he was incredulous
Starting at about 8 years old, my dad saddled up one of the horses every afternoon after school and I'd ride off across the ranch to round up errant cattle for milking and feeding. When I reached about 11 or 12, I was allowed to carry his 30-30 Winchester in a saddle scabbard in case I came across Wiley Coyote & company (who regularly marauded newborn calves and chickens). I was pretty sure I looked just like John Wayne.
Gentlemen's evening at the Rowing Club.
never mind gentlemens [i]evenings[/i], we used to have em at dinnertime in the local working mens club!! 😀
robinsons golliwogs.
"Fillings with no anaesthetic"
I still do that:-) .
Going home from school on my horse..
Tom Howard - Snakebite, Have seen this used as a drama warmup game and still deployed in the scouts.
Walking to and from school in a foot of snow.
Then a cross country run.
Making a gokart from old pram wheels, and
riding it down the railway embankments
"Fillings with no anaesthetic"
I still do that:-) .
I did it then because that's just what the small town dentist did--can't imagine doing it now--makes me cringe to think about it
Conkers and sore knuckles
Playing 24 a side football up the local playing fields. Using bikes, coats or jumpers as posts, the game ended when it was too dark to see the ball.
Playing dodgeball with basketballs during p.e,
If you were caught cheating you were stood alone at the wall while the entire opposite team had a shot at you, all at once.
Pirates, brilliant fun! sadly banned when somebody fell and broke their finger.
Good new Star Wars films?
I have fond memories of helping nearby farmers make hay, drinking too much cider and falling from the top of the stack into soft hay below... everyone makes smelly silage these days!!
Oh and another thing...
Which school timmys? that's my neck of the woods.
if youth is my mid to late teens,bushy fannys and women who actually wore stockings on a night out…awesome..
Sailing all day from dawn to dusk on a Starfish (early Laser) in the Florida Keys 😀
It will never happen again 🙁
I saw a tiny fairground shooting range thing along with a handful of stalls in a town square in the French Pyrenees in the early 90s. They too were .22 rifles but they weren't tied down at all! You could've grabbed one and run off.
Bikebouy - reminds me, whole days out at sea (the med) on windsurfers without a life jacket (and in budgies 😳 ). No wonder I am a bit of a helmet rebel!!!
Was hit by a ricochet in the air gun range at CLSA game fair once and another bloke was hit in the back. Good job that didn't make the papers.......
.....a mate who had a folding .410 in his golf bag. Nutter! Hiding the dead rabbits was funny to watch though.
Fillings with no anesthetic at all!!
Our village dentist used gas practically every visit. 1...2.... then waking up on the couch at home! Almost looked forward to it.
Building Nov 5th bonfires was entirely the local kids responsibility, cue rival gangs armed with axes hacking down ever larger trees and carrying them through the streets.
Sitting in a car parked on a steep hill outside the WMC whilst Dad was inside getting mashed . Occaisional coke and crisps brought out every 30mins or so.
Being able to buy 1 cigarette at a time
Being whipped by Mr Crouch if you were last in the school cross country run, with a whippy branch.
Playing death stars on the sports feild with the swimming pool roof . It ws made of fibre glass squares about 12" square whwich were removed from the roof , quatered and launched at head height and the speed of sound across the playing feild.
walking 1/2 mile to Michael Edwards house then 2 miles to school from about aged 8.
Renting a B+ W TV
Being allowed in the boot of my dads Beetle for long journeys.
Being forced to go surfing in Cornwall in just swimmers pre breakfast.
Inter school fights with homemade firework launchers.
mate at school, physics department air rifle (!), tower block, football pitches outside (3 floors up). Mayhem.
Think Day of the Jackal (in fact he's still known as Des the Jackal come to think of it).
Embarrassed if parents came to the school, although they never did.
"Bailing out". Jumping off a swing when it was at it's highest, the furthest jump won. This progressed to jumping from a standing position, had to get that right or you got a face full of tarmac.
Riding down the slide on your bike.
Jumping onto the back of the milk float to see how far you could go before the milky told you to **** off.
Swimming in local lakes/gravel pits.
Buying single cigs.
Watching through the windows at local community centre whilst strippers stripping.
My old man always had crap cars and was regularly down the local scrap yard on a Saturday morning pulling various bits out of cars. The place was like a playground to a nine year old boy. The cars were stacked three high on top of each other and there was oil and glass everywhere. I remember climbing up to the top cars and balancing on the roofs while my day was down below ripping the guts out of a Cortina.
😯 😯Being allowed in the boot of my dads Beetle for long journeys.
Televisions where the 'remote control' was the youngest person in the room who had to get up, walk over to the TV and press one of three buttons to change channels.
Going to scout camps in the back of a furniture van with the whole troop and kit.
Cars with no seatbelts and unheated wing mirrors on the wings.
As a student I could buy a return air fare from London to New York for £100.
Trainers were called gutties.
The scouts I was in on the Wirral used a furniture van to get us to camp. When I moved to Scotland we went in a double deck sheep lorry, gear on the bottom deck, kids on the top. If it rained you got wet.
When I moved to Scotland we went in a double deck sheep lorry, gear on the bottom deck, kids on the top. If it rained you got wet.
A minute later and I'm still laughing and mopping up tears. Thanks.
As soon as you could reach the counter your whole life was making cups of tea for your mum or anyone who came in the house.
On the bushy fanny theme
Going on the school trip to France. Coach from Whitley bay to La Rochelle. Sitting by Emma Thomson who was the year above and had huge boobs
Wilson also in the year above asking me if I could sit by her and he'd give me a pack of Murray mints.
Two days later he gave me said bribe and said "she's like a forest man".
Those were the days.
Swimming off the rocks in the North Sea by Whitley bay.
Football in the park after school. Jumpers or bags for goalposts. Pitch as wide as the field.
Cars with no seatbelts and unheated wing mirrors on the wings.
My dad's Morris Traveller with the sticky indicator which needed a thump on the inside of the door pillar to get it to pop out.
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Great thread---amazing all the things we survived and, IMO, sad that kids today will never experience
Playing cowboys & Indians with homemade bow & arrows with the arrows as sharp as you can get them.
Getting a backhander from local plod for giving him lip
Getting the slipper at school or cane
Eating toast toppers
Yes and white dogshit never see that now?
Sat on the village green guarding a big pile of empties the bigger lads collected from the houses and the took back to the pub for the deposit. I got paid in threepenny bits.
Finding a cache of ww2 ammunition and rifles we were told by the police were put aside in case of invasion. Obviously we didn't give it ALL back
We used to drill holes in fence posts stick in a live round and hit it with a hammer. Golden days.
Playing tiggy airgun and trying to hide the resulting purple bruises from mum and dad at bath time.
Going to The Anvil outdoor to buy cigs and cider for "my mum".
Aged 14. Drinking Boddinton's bitter in a school minibus on the way to The Lakes with a fully opened OS map to conceal us from the teacher in the driving seat.
Metal climbing frames on tarmac playgrounds at school
Soft. Ours were covered in concrete and broken glass. There was always some kid with his arm in a plaster at school.
Iodine on your knees after you fell over.
Making shrapnel 'grenades' from 3 bangers, a Ben Shaws pop bottle and a good handful of drawing pins.
Three bangers with the fuses wrapped together packed in the bottle with the drawing pins and the fuses sticking out of a hole in the screwtop lid.
The idea was to see how late you could leave off throwing the bottle into the air once you'd lit the fuse 😀
Kids today are quite good at making stuff up too. 😉
As a scout leader , i'm pleased to report that the rope with a knot/ball game is still going strong. Scouts are still allowed to build massive fires and carry knives (penknives only till you get to 13 then bowies it is!)as well as climbing trees and playing various fairly energetic wide games in the pitch black before coming back to poke sticks in the fire etc
We can't travel up the M6 in a removal van though......
Standing on the transmission tunnel between the front seats of my dads car whilst he drove.
Similarly sleeping in the boot of a large estate whilst my dad drove 7 hours to Devon.
We went on a 6th form trip to a club, we were 16, the 3 teachers drove the minibus. thems were the days.
The grenades were a bit of a disappointment if i recall, more of a 'pop' than a bang. Anyone remember those whistling bangers you could buy? Made great missiles, you lit them & stuck them lit end first down a bit of pipe with a sealed off end. We used to shoot them at each other in the local park - how we never ended up with our faces blown off I'll never know!
Aged about 10 I used to be sent to the paper shop to purchace 20 Senior Service for my Dad when his gout was bad and he couldn't walk properly. The lady in the shop used to put them in a paper bag and fold over the top and selotape it down and write down the amount on the front.
Travelling the length of the street in the backies without toucing the ground, going from one air raid shelter roof to the next. Technical terms involved "half spammies" where distance < body length so hands in front and below face level so falling forward should span the gap, "full spammies" where distance = body length so hands at face level or above and the awesome "jumping spammies" where distance > body length so a jump was involved, as well as some tears and someone's mum as often as not
Going shopping with my mum at the village CoOp. The counter girl would ringbir up and put the receipt and cash into a metal puck that was latched on to a network of cables on the ceiling and it it would be fired off to the cash office at the back of the store. Moments later the change and receipt came firing back. Every months or so wed go to the big CoOp in Chester or Birkenhead to cash in the divvy.
Sugar and weedkiller pipebombs. We set fire to Jamie Fogg's dad's shed that way.
Blagging the empty Barr's pop bottles to return them for 20p to get toffee off the Penny Tray.
Playing in the local works throwing small metal discs at each other.
Going to scout camp and eating meat mush from the river. We had put four days worth of burgers and sausages in a plastic bag then put it in the river too stay cool. The bag had a hole so the meat turned into a pink blob which we ate for the next few days. Can't imagine what river life had had a nibble previous! Wide games were fun, breaking into the rugby club, stealing whiskey, drinking it at the firing range/jump spot and riding through fire! Scouts was great.
Spud guns!
Remember the ones that had a little cartridge that flipped out to load with spud and a paper 'cap' off a roll. If you peeled the backing off the cap, you could fold two together and hurt people more!
getting dragged to the head penguins office by the hair/ear for 6 thwacks with a wooden meter ruler,last one turned on its edge if you were deemed possessed.All in the w**k bank btw 😯
Strippers at our local rugby club - who then did additional performances for cash. So I am told
Collecting cows eyes from the slaughter house for a biology lesson
13 year old Army cadets being sent on a fag break.
We used to travel to camp in an open 4 ton truck. No adult supervision, kids would be hanging off the back going down the motorway.
Occasionally we would take the mini bus. It had two sliddy wooden benches to sit on. The driver would slam the brakes on as hard as possible in an attempt to hurl the cadets across the van. They had a scoring system. They would get the smallest kid to sit immediately behind the driver. If they hit the brakes at the right moment the kid would end up wedged under the driver's seat.
This was worth loads of points.
Jamming shotgun cartridges into the centre of round bales, then shooting at the percussion cap with an air rifle. From about 20 feet away.
Interestingly, and I wouldn't want it to descend this fantastic thread into a health and safety debate, I read t[url= http://http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/school-ditches-rules-and-loses-bullies-5807957 ]this[/url] the other day.
Lived next to Salisbury Plain. Once a year a big exercise had the squaddies camped in Pear Tree hill woods near Earlstoke. We'd buy a case of beer from the pub (George and Dragon). The walk up the hill and sell it for massive profit to thirsty troops.
Buying a .22 air rifle, Bowie knife, and WristRocket at the same time.
Somehow managed not to die or kill any of my mates.
Watching England win a World cup football match.
Running up to a copper and knocking his helmet off, running away, and if caught just getting a clip round the ear.
Playing split the kipper
Airgun fights
Going to France without a passport on a school trip and buying flick knives.
Being able to use whatever language to insult whoever you like in whatever way you like without fear of arrest.
'Sticks and stone may break your bones but names will never hurt you' being a very reliable mantra.
Weedkiller and sugar bombs. Obtaining boiling tubes from school and then filling them with petrol. Shooting them over a flame with a Webley Meteor .22, the weapon of choice, all the discerning lads had them.
And as so many others have said- just vanishing for hours and miles during amazing summer days that seemingly now lasted for ever. Oh if I could go back to those times...
In retrospect meeting 'down the arcade' on Saturdays and leering at the girls was grim but to be expected I suppose.
Outside toilets at school.
Dustmen who walked into the back garden to collect the bin, and except for Christmas, usually half empty.
Same Milkman my entire childhood.
More worried that my Mum would find out, than actually getting the cane/slipper.
Buying fags in ones from the sweet shop.
Driving a van in my first job, with only the Boss asking 'can you drive?'
Never, ever carrying any form of ID.
Going out without a watch or mobile phone
Being safe on a bike on a dual carriageway tt
Getting wacked with a ruler in German lessons
Drinking thunderbird (kids these days semust be more discerning surely)
I too used to love the long, languid summer days when we used to cycle bloody miles and hang around in leafy places talking about girls, Commodore 64s and BMXs. I'd be out of the house by ten and would only pop back for meals, I'd roll in home long past dark.
In my teens it was all about drinking cider in the park and smoking your way through a packet of ten JPS...bought for the princely sum of 79p.
Playing "stinky finger" in the park with Jane Kelly.
tying the 'fur' from the collar of your parka round a pin and firing it across the classroom using a bic biro as a blowpipe.
Riding on the top of a trailer stacked high with straw bales
Collecting cows eyes from the slaughter house for a biology lesson
Our kids (4.5 yrs old) have just helped dissect a pig's head in school! Pictures if them holding prized-out eyes, holding slices of brain etc.... 😀
pretty much all of it. most of all pyrotechnics, 'genies' rockets up and off the slide, out of the end of handlebars, with bike on its side we werent mad, rocket in 2 forked sticks just above river level, went like a torpedo with a smoky baang at the end, shooting at each other with those exolpoding fireworks. Acorn catapult attacks, acorns just about eye sized
incendiaries with paraffin were crap.how far can you get with julie T.... competition, mostly quite a way 😀 😀 was a team event and good spectator sport at 13-14. how the hell did we get through it all?
Oddly enough last summer I mentioned to a friend of mine that as kids a group of us went away on a weeks' holiday without parents at 13, a few were parents themselves at 15, and most of us had left home at 16. Alcohol and fags were a given by secondary school. By the age of 20 at least one mate would have died as a result of a motorbike accident. It seemed normal back then - early 1980's for me. He looked at me as if I was an alien and patiently explained that it was not normal for people to have done such things.
Being able to 180 a BMX.
But I may have made it up.
Playing cowboys and Indians with air guns around the local housing estate.
The Indians had to use those little steel darts with the yellow or red 'feathers'.
Going to a primary school (from the ages 5 until 8 ) with about 12 pupils and one teacher. having a rota to take turns to make the teacher her morning coffee, boiling milk in a little saucepan on the open fire.
The sadistic bastard Mr Kissack at Albert Road school, who would beat you with the sole of a slipper if you so much as looked the wrong way, were one second late doing something or did something incorrectly.
He'd always make you wait until the end of the lesson too -"you know what's coming, don't you lad?" Bastard, I can still recall the smell of his fags (he smoked like a chimney).
Having a "Hobbies Exhibition" at school and one of my mates bringing in his collection of swords, bayonets and revolvers (with ammunition) and test firing the guns in the long-jump pit. He was just told that he'd "better take them home"...
Me shooting someone with a Gat gun while waiting for the school bus in Ramsey and then, while he ran whinging back into school to "tell Sir", jumping on the first bus that arrived (to make my getaway!), being chucked off later by the conductor 'cos I didn't have the right bus pass and having to walk home.
I never heard any more about the shooting though.
Riding a 197cc Sun motorcycle down a school corridor at the end of term (when I was 15) and crashing through a set of swing doors into the school kitchen. I was chased out by irate dinner ladies.
The bike had been provided by our Biology teacher to give us something to do for the last week of term.
Driving tractors everywhere, as soon as I was tall enough to operate the clutch. Doing pretty much all my father's tractor work in the school holidays, at weekends and whenever I got the opportunity.
Getting 4d bounty for each "longtail"( we're not allowed to use the "R" word) tail that we brought to the local Police station. When we were threshing we'd collect hundreds of them. I bet the copper at Andreas loved having to count those.....
Riding bikes without a helmet 😛
Having real fur on your parka hood
Standing close to a 'senior' school girl on the packed bus to school, they had massive boobs back then
Typing 'BOOBLESS, SHELLOIL AND ESSOOIL' into a calculator and thinking it was ace.
Treehouses with a cider stash.
VHS video nasties
Your mates Atari
My Raliegh Bomber(I miss you)
Smelling your finger on the way home 😯
When I was very young, mods and rockers at Belle Vue..
Nicking empty bottles from the AA pop factory to get a few p from the shop
Making man traps in the woods filled with dog shit and sharp sticks and covered over with sticks and leaves
Getting battered by teachers
Battering teachers
Perry boys
1/2 p's
Vimto like treacle
Mars bars that were as hard as a brick
Tickle finger with Caz..
M'old... 🙁
Making chinese arrows.
Being slapped(hard) across the face by teachers.
Teachers smoking pipes in class(I loved the smell).
School trips where the teachers provided the booze.