The worst "naughty" thing you did as a child?

I used to lie to the priest in confession. If I hadn't committed any sins that week, I would make some up and end with 'I told lies ' Five Hail Marys later my soul was cleansed

It’s been around at least since the eighteenth century, apparently.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischief_Night

Mischief Night was the night before Bonfire Night and was a big thing in the North East of England, certainly in the 60s. Whether it still is, I don’t know. We were really given a free rein to do anything for that one night only - on the other 364 we were kept in check by those dreaded words - Just you wait till I see your mam/dad about this.

I bet those children were popular at home!

There were a few things, but probably the best one was a group one. We went to this horrible Victorian Secondary School before heading off to the Grammar, those of us that were bright anyway. The classrooms had rather nice wooden floors and in the centre of ours was a trapdoor, all screwed down which we assumed would take us under the school, so as a class we decided we were going down there! We brought in screwdrivers and bit by bit over the next coupe of weeks the screws loosened, until one day we got them all moving. It was decided that we wouldn't do it that day, but would bring torches and go down the following day. Luckily I was off sick that day as they went down and were caught! Mrs Pennington the headmistress who always floated around in a black gown had the whole class stood up in assembly and gave them a rocket and wrote letters to everyones' parents who had to come in for their bollocking too for having such hateful disrespectful children!

It's interesting how these things vary from place to place.

Halloween has been big in Scotland and Ireland for well over a hundred years as far as I know my great granny used to tell my mum about their halloween and she was born in the 1840's.
It was exported to The USA by Irish/Scots immigrants

I found my mum's sanitary towels..unused I hasten to add!

I took them into the front garden and after decorating them happily, hung them off the bushes and gate by the loops - I thought they looked wonderful, my mum didn't!

I don't remember any Halloween traditions here at all.
Nothing much was made of halloween, as far as I know, but maybe all the other children were out having fun while we were tucked up in bed by 6pm.

Not in the part of Scotland I'm in ,never heard of anything like it ,never heard any of my Aunts or my mother mention it either .Sounds quite dangerous from some of these posts .We never did "trick or treat" either ,when we went round the houses at Halloween we did a "turn" sang a song or recited a poem or told a joke and got an apple and nuts and a sweetie in etuen ,its much the same here still ..no tricks

One of the boys in my class had huge, sticking-out ears. One day when he'd been annoying me on our way to school, I 'boxed' his ears. I had no further trouble with him, but I didn't feel as satisfied as I thought I should!

Do you have something similar in Scotland, paddy?
I had thought it originated there for some reason.
It wasn't done here when I was a child, or now.

I've never heard of mischief night ,is it widespread or limited to a particular area?

I really don't think I did anything naughty as a child.

My mum was incredibly strict, and I always imagined she would find out, or at least that is what she told us.
A teen... well, that's a different story.

Probably the worst was punching an older boy in the nose in the school playground when I was 5. I don’t know if I broke it but there was an awful explosion of blood, snot and tears and he was escorted home between two other boys. Funnily enough no one told me off - probably because he was bullying one of my little friends at the time who was so scared he’d wet himself.

We did some awful things on Mischief Night - as well as the tying up of door handles and removing of gates there were some nasty things posted through the letterboxes of people who (quite rightly) kept us in order the rest of the year.

My friend and I once sneaked in and picked the flowers from one (horrible) teacher’s garden and presented them to another (horrible) teacher - we were never found out.

I dropped a library book in the bath and ruined it. Rather than confess, I carefully copied the note I’d seen in another book about this one being removed from stock after my loan, complete with librarian signature. I got away with it - perhaps I should have pursued that career as a forger.

Knowing full well I shouldn’t, I headed off with a new girl at school for tea at hers when she asked me. I assured her parents that mine knew about it and would be picking me up. She lived a long walk away down a country lane and my parents didn’t track me down till hours later when it was dark, after a frantic search round the village and all my usual friends. By then my friend’s parents were starting to wonder… I got off very lightly for that - they were just relieved to find me.

There’s more - but not that I’m admitting to on here!

My OH confesses to making a gun and it blew someone's garage door off. He never got caught. Still enjoys playing with rifles now.

I also hunted down my Christmas presents before the day. That’s quite mild naughtiness, really. The worst thing I did was collect “for charity” and keep the money. I’m very ashamed of that now.

I lived on a long street of terraced houses off a big main road and the big houses that backed on to it had small back gardens which were accessed through a jitty.
I got friendly with new girl in my class whos’ family lived in one of the big houses. We were aged about 8. One day for no reason other than sheer mischief, she (and I out of curiosity only-being totally ? % good and innocent ?), went through this jitty and opened one of the unlocked back gates. There was a washing line full of the BIGGEST BRAS I had ever seen and all of a sudden she began pulling them off and then proceeded to stuff them into the nearby old metal dustbin full of ashes which flew everywhere. Then she said RUN!
I can still recall the clang of metal dustbin lid as we scarpered out and up the street. I was convinced that we would be found out sooner or later and was quite ashamed- though we never were ?

Mischief night was great for us kids. Not so great for people who had lighted bangers dropped through their letter boxes though, but I was never involved in that particular prank. I do remember a small group of us dropping them down storm drains, though. The echoing bang from below was very satisfying.

A friend and I went onto the local golf course one mischief night, and turned rearranged all the arrows that were meant to show the direction of the next green.

Chewbacca

Another stupid thing we used to do was to get one of the old copper 1d pennies and go down to the railway tracks, put the penny on the railway track, wait for a really heavy steam train to come through and flatten the penny and then run back to the track to grab the red hot penny and see who'd got the biggest and flattest. I don't know how we survived our childhoods!

Chewbacca I used to do that too. We had a single line steam train at the bottom ofthe garden. We liked to place a nail on the coin - then the coin came out in a really weird shape and the nail too.

there does seem to be a lot of posts here involving matches, fires and fireworks doesn't there? Maybe some of us were just as bad as some of the youngsters today, and yes, where WERE our parents??

Mine involved placing bangers into cows pancakes, soft ones, lighting them just as a cyclist or pedestrian came past, and hid with my friends in the hedge watching the reactions of the folk covered in the liquid that had just splattered them! the noise was a soft " flump" rather than a loud bang, the semi soft liquid must have deadened the noise!

I’ve enjoyed reading these, even the hair-raising ones. My naughtiest act was ‘exploring’ all the cupboards near Christmas and telling my sister what we were getting.

I was brought up in Yorkshire and had mischief night on November 4th . Knocking on doors then running away. Tying a rope to a neighbours dustbin lid , attaching the other end to the door handle , knocking then running off. Pretty harmless really , but we felt really naughty !

I