Favourite childhood pastime

I think I read an extract of it in a magazine, actually. Anyways, Amazon have got it "Grannies Button Box" Poems and stories. Theyve only got used ones and they are over £11!I sometimes find little bone looking ones in my very old garden.

Reading, doing jigsaws and can anyone else remember those painting books where you just painted over the page with a wet paintbrush and the picture came to live in full colour?

There's a book I noticed about a button box I'm gonna see if I can find where I read it.

Do you remember the Rupert the Bear story about the butterflies Wot? I was enchanted by that story and used to long to find a place like it.

My favourite games were with buttons. My mum had a vast collection of buttons passed down from her mother. They had been cut off dresses and coats. I was fascinated by the shapes, colours and sizes. I used to put them into families and make up stories about them.

I also loved reading. I would sit hidden behind my mum's dressing table in the sun and read every book I could find. One I remember was called Stories from Lohengrin and had wonderful pictures. I was quite a solitary child until I was old enough to play out with the neighbouring children. I had few toys as my parents were not well of and it was post war.

Oh, and Noddy and Bigears! Loved little Noddy and the illustrations in the books. Not forgetting Rupert the Bear. The annuals made me start to learn to read as I wanted to know what he was up to! I used to love the end of the stories when he went home to his mum and dad for tea.......all cosy and nice!

We made ' stilts' from National Dried Milk tins and string. Not very high and noisy but we loved them

When my friend and me were about 10, we used to knock on the doors of people who we knew had babies and say 'can we take your baby out?' Unbelievably most people would get the baby ready, pop it in the pram and we would take it to the park. Some of these people had never set eyes on us before. The same days when people used to leave babies outside shops in prams.

Yes! I had stilts - red and blue, as were my knees when I fell off.. I used to collect car numbers in a little red notebook with 'Notes' written on the cover. I think they were about the only note books which were around, from Woolworths.

I forgot to say I read too, incessantly. Lots of Enid Blyton esp secret seven, Wishing chair, Mr Pinkwhistle and the adventure series eg Castle of Adventure etc. Also loved Arthur Ransome (Swallows & Amazons etc) which my own children also loved, and Malcome Saville (Secret of Grey Walls, Gay Dolphin adventure etc.) When I was very little I had a series of Enid Blyton books called Mary Mouse. And Beatrix Potter of course. I could go on.....

Did anyone have stilts? My dad made me a pair. You weren't too far off the ground, and it was fun!

Sitting on a wall spotting train numbers and noting them down in book! (Yes I know, sad!).

For several years I was the only girl in the village, so I used to go off with the boys, building camps, paddling in the river and catching minnows, pond dipping and taking tadpoles and water snails home to my poor mother. In the summer we'd be gone from nine-ish til tea-time-ish - or until somebody's mother could be heard calling a name. Loved it.

What idyllic childhoods we had and all without the benefit of electronic equipment!
I loved:
playing with something called Tinka Toy
fuzzy felt
making houses out of my Mum's wooden washing airer,
roller skating,
jacks,
skipping,
french knitting on an old wooden cotton reel,
playing in the park behind our house and jumping off a huge tree stump into a ditch
'camping' on my Dad's old army camp bed
playing horses with my friend Pamela sitting astride her truckle bed, galloping to the wind-up record of William Tell
visiting my grandparents,choosing my favourite Quality Street choc from a never ending supply in a dish and going home with a half crown from Grandad!
Oh! I could go on..............

Reading, especially the 'Narnia' books,'The Secret Garden', 'Paddington', 'Jennings' and the Chalet School books.

Monopoly

Spirograph

Post Office set

Pretending to have a stable of horses and being both horse and rider wherever I went

Making camps and houses

Riding my bike far and wide

Farm set

Matchbox cars

Oh! The freedom and the bliss! My mother worked so I could do as I pleased in the holidays. I feel sorry for todays' children being stuck indoors with their horrid screens.

What a pleasure this thread is.So many memories of happy, carefree days. Were the summers really long and warm,winters crisp and white? We lived in a small mining village and all played together, boys and girls- cricket rounders, chap door run, bools (marbles), ran miles with a gird andstick, even our motley assortment of dogs were best pals!

When very small we used to play 'housies' . pretending we had babies , with wee room made out of any trash we could find . We talked like mothers, about going the shopping , when the baby was getting fed etc . Grew out of that then started exploring further than the garden , new builds were happening and they were exciting to explore , we played with broken asbestos !!!!
Hours were spent at the beach , rock pooling, picnics, howking around in the tide line.
My sister and I had a one roller skate between us, no straps or lacings ( don't know where it came from )but we slid along on it like a skateboard and used to fight over it !!
We used to plead to be allowed to sleep in the shed , must have been crazy as it's full of spiders now and I can't go in it ! We used to put on shows in that shed .
All the kids would come to play, someone would produce a washing rope and tie it to the lamp post and the whole street would play skipping , chanting out songs. We played British and Gerries , chasing each other with machine guns made from sticks going 'a a a a,a a a a a '.

Thank you everyone - you've reminded me of so many lovely things we used to do as children that I'd forgotten about.

My favourite occupation was reading (still is) and I had some brightly coloured wooden mosaics which I would spend hours arranging into different patterns.

I lived in the country ,so inthe summer holidays my friends and I spent most of our time outdoors.we went out in the morning with a bottle of water and some jam sandwiches and spent all day being free,fishing in the local pond,paddling in streams,playing in the woods and playing in the local farmers barn on his bales of hay.Health and safety would have a field day nowadays.

I lived in a street that had quite a lot of children. We played cricket on 'the Green' which was just outside our house -- until people from the Council said it wasn't for playing on, it was there to look nice.
So we played in the entries at the back of our houses with balls or marbles.
I went over the fields with my 2 older brothers if mum was out when we got home from school. We used to look for newts and frogspawn. And jump the brook. The day I didn't quite make it, my dress was hung up on a branch of a tree, hoping it would dry before we had to go home.
After Sunday School I went to my aunt's house to watch her baking, do jigsaws, and when older to practise the piano. One Sunday I climbed a tree, and when I jumped down I caught my best dress on a small branch and tore it. Mum was not happy, of course.
Saturday afternoons I went to my godmother's house and took down the football results for her husband. And played her records, etc.
Sometimes I watched dad gardening. We had a pear tree and fruit bushes, and he decided to grow chrysanthemums when his workmates said it was difficult to grow nice ones.

Got to be slamming two balls against a wall singing plainsey walls ice cream etc. Can still do it now n am teaching my granddaughter. Will it take off again? Sadly I think not x

I also craved a pogo stick and must have mentioned it at work as one year that was my 'secret santa' gift! I haven't used it much, it must be somewhere in the garage, maybe I'll look it out tomorrow and break my ankle have fun with it.

Stilts, yes! My granddad actually made mine...wonder what happened to them?

Arghh never had a pogo stick - I so wanted one. But I've still got the wooden stilts I used to walk around in- found them in my parents' garage when the died. Grandson should be old enough to try when they next visit.

Tracing drawings using Bronco toilet paper.

Riding my bike
Roller skating
Playing on the swings and slide. Did anyone beg for the waxed bread paper to make the slide shiny and fast?
Roaming about the countryside until dusk.
I wasn't much interested in playing with dolls. I liked jigsaws and board games though.