Do you remember calling for your friends to come out to play? What did you do??

I suppose we should call it benign neglect but it was the norm for kids in the 1950s like me to go out for the day and come back at teatime.

We had a drinking fountain in the “rec” and a jam sandwich in the saddle bag of our bikes and off we went, making dens in the woods and cycling round the sea wall. One dramatic day we saw a drowned body being retrieved from the sea, which I’ve never forgotten.

We were kicked out of the house in the summer holidays at 6.30am when our parents went out to work. We were locked out all day, I can remember being told to clear off on a regular basis when I called for a friend at 6.30 am I had no where to go so I used to wander around the village until I was allowed to ask a friend to play. Sounds astonishing now but in 1972 it was just what I was used to!!

I remember taking a small boy back home to my mom after he had fallen in the pond catching tadpoles. He was covered in green slime from head to foot. I was dispatched to let his mom know my mom was giving him a bath and some old clothes to go home in. Probably wouldn’t be well thought of today.

Being able to go to the local lido with friends when at secondary school. Being able to take sandwiches and a drink and go to the park on our bikes. We didn't realise how lucky we were.

A lovely post! Remember most of the above except that we were not near any open countryside. We did also use the old Anderson shelters in people's gardens as our hideouts. Also used to stand on a nearby railway bridge waiting for a steam train to pass by so that we'd all be enveloped in smoke, probably not a great idea but fun at the time.

I grew up in the 70’s in a new build ‘close’ so the road was safe. All the kids came out to play and we all went to one of two local primaries.

We made camps, had woods to explore, went on bike rides with packed lunches, play ‘it’, rollerskating and cobbling together anything with wheels out of old prams to make makeshift go carts.

All very Famous Five

I was brought up abroad and wasn't allowed to play out until I was about six. In the late 1950s we were living in Buenos Aires in the San Telmo district and one day I was outside our building playing ball against the wall, waiting for my friend who lived across the street to come over. Suddenly, there was a terrific noise and a passer-by grabbed me and pulled me down on to the pavement - someone passing in a car had sprayed the wall where I had been playing with machine gun bullets! My mother and father wouldn't let me play out again after that - not even when we moved back to the UK - our next posting was Belfast!

I lived in a road with hardly any young families it was mainly elderly or people with teenagers and I was an only child! So I was thrilled when a young family moved in next door when I was 10,( the 70’s). I used to call for them all the time, and vice versa! we used to cycle to the village and up on to the Sussex Downs where we took picnics, built dens and looked for treasure, or went to the local park for feeding the ducks on the lake looking for squirrels or to the cafe to get an ice cream! We wanted to go to the beach (very near) but that wasn't allowed.we had a great time though and were gone for hours!
My own children were allowed to call round to local friends houses, and go to the local park alone! Slightly more restrictive than my own childhood. My grandchildren though are not allowed to go anywhere alone. And every play date is organised and parents carefully monitor all the play too. Different times

Oh yes, in fact we were out all day. Did your mums used to say, “Get out from under my feet”so we did. When the street light went to amber we knew it was time to go home. We were so fit and healthy.

I think that kids do call round for each other if it's safe to do so. Roads are so dangerous now, with so much traffic. Our DGDs had a little friend who lived nearby and they used to call for each other until she moved away.

On one memorable occasion, our DD called round to see if a friend could play. She was about 12 or 13 at the time. Friend's dad opened the door, took one look at her and shouted, "Donna, here's your f*****g Paki friend." My DD is mixed race. She thought that it was quite funny, but didn't tell us about it until later, when she and Donna were no longer at the same school.

granjan66 Fond memories. My friend and I would do the same with our bikes as a young teenager.

WW010 I did some of those things too.
My favourite was roller skating on the pavements. Strap on skates over shoes - remember those?
I was brought up on a brand new council estate. We use to dare ourself walk on the top railings that surrounded a block of garages. About 4' off the ground. I loved that, well I did until I fell.

Thinking of the garages. We played tig and tag round them.

I was always told to be in before it went dark. Got a good telling off a few times.

I remember our next door neighbour calling for my sister and I in a sing song voice. We lived in the country and in school hols my sister and I would be off on our bikes all day with a sandwich in brown paper. Mum had no idea where we went and never worried about our safety. That was real freedom as compared to today's children.

Oh yes, I remember doing that. We played in the street most of the time but we also went exploring. Our parents didn’t know where we were or what we were getting up to. We climbed trees, slid down hills on cardboard, explored disused mine dumps and slid down the slack heaps, played in dried up pit water holes, dared each other to walk through a dilapidated train tunnel - none of us ever ventured too far in, played on train tracks and in the old castle and it’s grounds. Nothing was fenced off in those days. We played near reservoirs but dare not swim in them for fear of being pulled under and drowning. Knocked on doors to ask for a glass of water - we never thought of taking food or drinks with us. I don’t know how we survived ? We’d get home filthy and hungry and thirsty and it was a slice of bread and dripping and a cup of water until dinner was ready. Those were the days - we had a lot of fun and not a care in the world.

Funny we never needed a telephone - at worst you would call round on your bike....great days fondly remembered ☺️

I lived what is now known as suburbia and we'd go round the streets, sometimes to the rec to play on the swings. Sometimes we'd go on the roundabout in the other direction which was known as 'the sick way' as it made you feel a bit funny. There was tarmac and there'd be many a fall with the usual grazed knees or bashed heads. All these lumps and bumps were accepted and you only went home to Mum if you drew blood. On the way we'd run from one lamp post to the next, would you believe sometimes backwards, sometimes skipping or hopping, etc. Oh, to have that energy now!

Such great memories. I can also remember the group of us going down to the woods and collecting many armfuls of bluebells. We then went round the 'old peoples' houses to give them away. These one level, bungalow type houses were built at most corners on our estate. Nice idea, kept older people living in amongst the community. Of course, these days it would be illegal to pick those bluebells.

Another thing we did was to hang a large sheet on a washing line having one side as The Stage and the other side for the audience - and would put on our own shows. When I got into a very posh grammar school (one of the first two from our estate to get into that via the Scholarship (11 Plus), I set up a school for some of the younger members of our group. My parents and the parents of the other girl who got a place in that school that year were invited to a special meeting with the Headmistress and advised NOT to send us to that school. We both went!!!!
Our gang (group) was usually also joined by a local dog or two.

Yes, all those WW. I remember taking a bottle of water with me for a whole day at the park with my friends, we came home when the water had run out!

Such happy memories of good childhood. We played all the usual games but spent
hours in the back yards,with our dresses tucked into our knickers doing handstands against the wall.If we were feeling a bit braver we also tried a handstand to end up in the crab position and then tried to walk.

My 11 year old granddaughter telephones or texts her friends to meet on the park now.

I lived in a block of flats, not high, ground and two more stories, 3 blocks. They had some grass areas around and two air raid shelpters left from the war, These were locked but raised and made hills, which we could run up and down. A long drive way for cars went the length of the estate and at the back were garages. Children mostly came out and joined in with each other. It could be a group of 10 or so of various ages. I did have one best friend, a girl my age.

I wish my DD had the freedom I had as a child. Our gang walked miles over hills and through woods with our sandwiches and bottles of water or squash, as we’d be gone for the day. It was safer then.
Climbing trees, making dens and playing hide and seek in the ferns/bracken.
We usually made a dam in the little river to make it just deep enough to swim in or if we couldn’t be bothered to do that we’d swim in a little lake that was a little further afield.
The football field had a steep bank to one side of it and we would collect cardboard boxes and open them up and slide down it.
Sometimes we would just sit in the fields and make daisy/buttercup chains and just chat about things or just lay back and enjoy the sunshine on your face. I can still remember the smell of the fields it was an earthy, floral, fruity kind of smell. Butterflies and bees were busy visiting the flowers and the sound of grasshoppers filled the air. The summers were never ending then.
Looking back my childhood was idyllic. Such lovely , chilled days with not a care in the world.

Brought up in post-war Coventry we used to play on bomb sites. But we called them the bombuildings - all one word. Probably very dangerous but no health and safety then.

I grew up in a ‘rural’ area sandwiched between Leeds and Bradford. We spent our days roaming the countryside, fishing in the local beck which we traced back to its source - an industrial slag heap, catching tadpoles, climbing trees, collecting lost golf balls from the local golf course and selling them back to the golfers. One friend lived on a farm and we used to bring in the herd of diary cows for milking when we were about 8 and make dens in the hay bales, lucky to be alive really. Our GCs don’t play with their neighbours, they have play dates with parentally selected school friends.

We lived in a village right by the sea and had a guesthouse, my brother and I had to do chores in the mornings but after that we hopped over the wall down the fields and spent most of the day on the beach with a bottle of squash we were about ten and eight at the time and completely unsupervised, used to go swimming, .....

It was an indyllic childhood.... also my best friend and I used to ring the operator(when you had to put pennies in and press button A or button B!) and sing the latest pop songs down the phone to her and they used love it.....??

We always played out in the street and sometimes in the back field. There was a stream at the bottom of the field where we used to go 'jumping brooks. This entailed jumping from a high point on one side to a lower one at the other, We were always in search of new jumping places. In the street we played 'farmer, farmer, may I cross your golden bridge'. The second line was 'not unless you have a certain colour', then 'what colour?'. All those not wearing that colour had to try and run across without being caught. Lots of other games too. Happy, happy days.