Things we liked as children

Going out all day with friends, wandering all over the place and just coming home at tea time. Folding a leaf and blowing it to make a noise. Blowing a dandelion and watching the fluff fly off. Making a daisy chain. Putting buttercups up to chins to tell if we liked butter. Skipping ropes, playing hopscotch

Playing outside all day and only coming in when we heard my dad shout us in !

Caravan holidays - even when it rained.

Christmas morning and the 4 of us going downstairs to get our presents which were always on the settee.

Sitting down as a family to watch sitcoms.

Going to church- the whole council estate walked up a hill to the church and it was a real community feel.

I posted that before I'd finished. Going to the Saturday matinee for sixpence, buying toffee apples from a lady in our street for a penny. Thanks for this thread. Makes me realise there were some good, simple things.

My grandmother used to ride horses so she encouraged me to learn.
I 'discovered' horses and the joy of riding at age nine, and spent all my weekends at the local stables.
My Dad always managed to find the money for the riding lessons even though we were not well off.
I absolutely loved it all and rode until I left home at age twenty for my career.
I have never gone back to riding, much to my regret.
I would love to get on a horse again now at the age of eighty. But ... perhaps not a good idea!

Being with my maternal grandparents.

New stationary

Donny Osmond (later Queen)

Sunday school trips (anywhere, just lov3d going on a bus for a change as I walked to school and my mam drove everywhere else) and having a shiny sixpence from my grandparents to spend.

Seemed like fortune at the time but I always managed to bring a penny home to save for another day - nothing’s changed, I never spend all my holiday funds!

Going on my annual trip to the country (near High Wycombe) to stay with country Aunt and Uncle and my cousin Barbara it was wonderful wandering round the farm fields and the common, walking up the lane to the village to buy sweets, not so fond of Sunday school first time in a church and I was scared. But I loved it mostly and Barbara and I still reminisce about those lazy hot Summer days. Her elder brother was in the navy and sometimes came home on leave in his thick serge navy uniform with his knapsack on his shoulder and we would run up the road and wait if we knew he was coming home I had a crush on him for years. Happy happy days.

Katy’s...Ooooo! Yes Saturday Club at the local flicks! Running home climbing and pretending to be what ever was on that week.

Esmenonna...going to church on mass sounds wonderful

The threepenny bit pocket money. Sherbert dabs. Playing mums with the girl next door ( who still lives in the same house 75 years later ) All playing was outside up the garden which was a big one.
Standing on a nearby bridge when a steam train was going under it not realising our faces were left dirty with the soot. It was daring and exciting.
Walking through a nearby woods to go fishing for sticklebacks and/or blackberry picking.
Pea-picking at the local farm. 1/6 for all day, a fortune !

It was idyllic when I think back----innocence, no fears, complete freedom and fresh air by the bucketful . A delightful childhood. And mum's cooking/baking.

Sadly those days are gone forever !

Playing hopscotch on the road.

Playing table tennis with my Dad.

Going to Chapel with my parents and most families in the street and joined by families from other streets as we walked.

Making dens in the ferns on the tip

Going to Barry Island for the day twice a year, Chapel outing and Miners Club outing, most of the village too.

Cinema on Saturday morning

Racing to a side street where an elderly lady made and sold
toffee dabs.

Pinching apples from an orchard and rhubarb from peoples
gardens, eating the rhubarb dipped in cocoa powder and sugar

Reading, playing in the park, seaside holidays,my DM's cooking.

Horse riding, camping holidays, new books (my parents used to buy me a book for the journey when going on holiday), playing with the toy farm my dad made for me. Food: scrambled egg and mashed potato, bread and milk (comfort food!), strawberry jam mixed with sweetened condensed milk!
And the freedom we had in those days.

Going to Saturday morning cinema with my Brother, then we were picked up by our Parents and taken in to Woolworths to buy the hot Peanuts and pick & mix.
Then to the Bakers for Dads Lardy Cake!
Oh Happy Days?

KatyK. I also went to the Saturday Minors ABC and if I had any spare money we bought a toffee apple off an old lady. One day we only had enough for 1 toffee apple and we were going to share it, but the old lady gave us 2 anyway.

Horse riding...and sitting on the back doorstep cleaning saddles &bridles...
Driving overnight(pre motorways) to Devon or Cornwall for a fortnight
Friday treat night.. chocolates and pop...
Hearing the slight this of Bunty&Judy comic plop through the letterbox...
Playing out on the park opposite with friends until dad shouted us in
Feeling secure,...just loved life..

slight thud

That was kind of her pat

Playing out in the street on warm summer days.
Mums baking.
Thinking the summer would never end.

Seeing a cowboy film every Saturday afternoon. I cannot stand them now!

Going with same friends early morning to a garden shed where we spent the entire day playing until it was time to go home.

I had access to tennis courts so they were well used as my parents were very sporty and they taught me.

Dancing, mainly Highland.

Library books- I loved reading.

Going to my uncle's farm to sit on a cart horse- the closest I ever got to riding!

taking local babies in prams out for walks.

My friends and I used to pick raspberries and my mother said it cost her more supplying sandwiches and drinks than I ever made re money.

I lived in the country so I had access to woods and streams and had a great time playing with my friends.

Riding my bike.

I do not remember it raining and this was Scotland!

Going to stay with my maternal grandparents who retired to the Sussex coast, I would be absolutely beside myself with excitement as soon as I got my first glimpse of the sea. Playing at the seaside for hours with our buckets and spades.

Being allowed to watch Saturday evening tv, such as Thank Your Lucky Stars, Juke Box Jury. My father was quite strict with what we could watch on the tv, he deemed most of it drivel but we were given a bit of a free rein on Saturday evening as a special treat. My parents really got into The Beatles in a big way and then we were allowed to watch even more drivel such as Sunday Night at the London Palladium if they happened to be on it.

Being taken up into London to see Coppelia, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake and over the Christmas period we often went up to Leicester Square to see a big movie such as West Side Story or El Cid, Sound of Music, Mary Poppins.

Getting a card from the library to say one of the Enid Blytons I'd ordered had come in. Reading it in the garden in the summer holidays with a bag of sherbet lemons.

Getting pocket money on Saturday, half a crown, going to Saturday morning cinema and stuffing our faces with sweets. Being taken to the cinema in the holidays.

Any new book at birthdays and Christmas, I just loved all my childhood books.

Meeting up with our French cousins, I found them so wonderfully weird it was because although they mainly spoke in French they could say things in English too which left me feeling

We lived near a common and we had a stream at the bottom of our garden that fed into a pond where many of us, the local children had loads of fun paddling about in our wellies with our jam jars and fishing nets and making camps in the Weeping Willows that surrounded the pond.

Dressing in our best clothes to go and see The Pantomime at the The London Palladium every Christmas.
Such a big treat, got to be a family tradition which I carried on with my Sons now with the Grandson, not always the Palladium now.

Driving off on our annual holiday and especially seeing the sea for the first time and then running across the sand in bare feet and into the water.
My happiest memories are always at the seaside. I think it's calling me back.

Another horsey childhood here - went to the local stables from around 7 and spent most of my time there, although I never got a horse of my own. Every birthday and every Christmas, I would open the curtains, hoping to find a pony in the garden...
Apart from that, I was a total bookworm and would spend all the rest of my time with my nose in a book. As an only child, horses and books were my best friends.