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

I used walk to the beach for the day with my friend. We each had a sandwich, a drink of water (in a glass bottle), a towel and swimsuit. No sun lotion. We'd be gone all day until about five o'clock (when we thought it was time to go home, we asked strangers on the beach what the time was because neither of us had a watch). We were aged about ten or eleven at the time, definitely primary school age.

When we were 8 yrs old. One of our playmates died of the flu. During the holidays we used to scooter to the cemetery which was about 3 miles away with our sandwiches and pop. Sit beside her grave and have a picnic. We would chat away to her as if she was with us. The attendant would ask what we thought we were doing and we told him ‘we’re visiting our friend Pamela. He smiled and said don’t ride your scooters in the cemetery. . ?

Whitewave - making dens in hedges and try to cook - these were hawthorn hedges which grew curved over dried up ditches.
We did that too and once set it alight when we tried to cook.
These memories - I used to think that I was the only one who had the freedom for adventures ( being so old) but good to know others enjoyed it too.

Not sole! Whole!

We lived right in the edge of the downs from the age of 8. There was also a golf course that was on the edge and the sole road of children used to play rounders on a teeing off square, hiding when the golfers came along.

Marbles in the gutter! Who would let their child do that today?

Make dens in hedges and secretly take matches, old frying pan, eggs etc and cook. I can remember eating egg with bits of twig in it.

Bikes, used to go miles. I can remember the feeling of elation with wind in my face and the freedom.

We used to be out all day only going back to eat when we were hungry.

Roller skates, and lots of street games.

We had so much freedom.

We lived on a council estate in the middle of nowhere. Don't remember calling for friends but we were always out all day playing, in the street, in the fields, in the woods. Mum would have had no idea where we were but not a worry in those days.
When I was older, I remember children knocking on the door for the dog to come out to play. He was a very huge and gentle dog and loved children.

When I first met my chum I was 4. My mother took me with her to see the new house we were going to live in. There was a girl in the neighbouring garden who was two years older and she asked my mother if she could take me with her. I was allowed to go with the girl who took me by the hand through her garden to her house. It was a warm summer day, and this girl's mummy was standing at a wide open sash window with a smaller girl than me in her arms. The little girl had curly dark hair and big brown eyes, This smaller girl was recovering from scarlet fever . She and I would become best chums.

Barmeyoldbat

Marbles, skipping and hopscotch as played on the road outside our house. Also use to play shops and collected conkers during the conker season. Yes friends always came to the back door and I can remember when I was in my teens a lad calling to take me to the youth club. My dad shouted XXXX theres a lad here for you, he has long blond hair like Jesus and is wearing a necklace. The embarrassment of it. He took me to the youth club on his bike, I sat on the handlebars and he peddled.

? I remember a boy calling for me when I was about 12. My dad asked him why he wasn’t out playing football instead of ‘messing about with lasses’. I was mortified. The boy used to give me a ‘backie’ - back saddle on his bike - home from school. It was up a big hill so he must have been tired when we got to mine. Happy days.

Watching ants...
Played Red Rover not Red River
Finally, Parchesi not Porches ?

I remember lying on the sidewalk wTch I never ants, swinging and teeter totter were huge! Lots of lovely cast-offs from Mom and Grandma for dress-up, my absolute fave! Had a cast-off fox wrap with head from an aunt. Hide and Seek, Kick the Can, Red River. Walked a half mile with a friend when I was 5 to catch a bus for swimming lessons. Roller skated down the basement steps once!!! Baked with my Grandma. Had to take a nap and a bath every afternoon. Dolls were a great favorite. We played "pretend" everything. Played Monopoly and Scrabble and Porches. Read. I miss those days.

Yes all the time.Bulldog, hopscotch, skipping, french skipping, tree climbing, scrumpying,scooter rides, roller skating.Going to the park,swimming, bike rides.Reading, jigsaws simple but a great childhood.

I used to play with two boys I knew from school.Usually walking to the recreation ground, which meant walking along the canal tow path. Don't know if my mother ever found out where we were going. She did find out about us playing on the railway line and that was stopped!

Marbles, skipping and hopscotch as played on the road outside our house. Also use to play shops and collected conkers during the conker season. Yes friends always came to the back door and I can remember when I was in my teens a lad calling to take me to the youth club. My dad shouted XXXX theres a lad here for you, he has long blond hair like Jesus and is wearing a necklace. The embarrassment of it. He took me to the youth club on his bike, I sat on the handlebars and he peddled.

Love these memories. I too was sent out to play and not allowed in the house unless it was raining. When calling for friends we always had to use back doors, no one used their front doors in our terraced flats. Would spend hours gardening scrapping dirt from between the cobbles in our back street with a lolly stick. Would play all sorts of games in the nearby allotments, felt as if I was in the wildest depths of the countryside about 100 yards from our suburban terraces. Like others we would play in half demolished houses, walls partially collapsed and their papered walls, fireplaces and stairs exposed to view. One of my more adventurous friends would dare me to accompany her down drain tunnels and climb walls topped by glass. Somehow managed to grow up unscathed ?

Yes I called round to play with my one special friend she lived in a prefab , I lived in a council house in Suffolk. We made a seesaw out of a plank across a barrel she was lighter than me so needed more plank to even up the weight. Nearby was a beck that dried up in the summer leaving soft sand to play in , We caught slow worms basking under corrugated asbestos. A cart horse named Jock let us climb from the gate onto his back.

What happy days.

Someone up thread mentioned Famous Five. The books were very popular with us children and if anyone had the good fortune to get a new one, we would gather together sitting outside someone’s house and take turns to read bits out loud! Some read better than others and some just listened, but all enjoyed. The forerunner of book groups?

Wow, such a blast from the past and did practically all of the above. We would make dens on a patch of waste ground using whatever was to hand, dam streams in the local woods and cycle through the park (when the park keeper wasn’t around!). There were communal skipping games in the road, with a very long rope and everyone jumping in and out - even the mums would join in sometimes! Not many cars around either. And we played lots of games of marbles. Marbles were much nicer then than they seem to be now. Winning a prized specimen off your opponent sometimes caused upsets! When I was a child the edge of our large northern city had quite a rural feel and there were farms and fields of dog daisies and cowslips in the summer and bluebells in the woods. It took you out of yourself and life in a two up two down terrace with no garden. It’s council housing now, but the woodland is still there to be enjoyed.

Rozina, in Manchester we used to call that "tippling over". We had many street games that involved the children that lived in the same street but every so often there was a huge game of "Ralievo" or Ralley-vo that would go on over several evenings. This was usually in the autumn when it began to go dark earlier. I never knew how the word got round about this game, but it did and everyone, kids of all ages, joined in. I had a younger brother that I HAD to take with me on my disappearances/adventures. Off we went all bathed and clean clothes. On the return I would be filthy, lost ribbons etc. and brother was pristine. Bugger. I had to grab handfuls of dirt and rub it over him. One dirty was in trouble, two dirty was OK. Collecting wood for Nov.5 bonfire was always fun, we called it logging, and there was warfare with other groups as we tried to pinch their wood or they attacked our pile. Roast potatoes and apples in the embers, and parents came out later to sit out and have a drink.

We were always outside playing, Making dens, off on our bikes, having conker fights and I remember the elastic band game when you joined all the elastic bands up and made a huge one and one girl had on her ankles one end and another girl at the other end and then you used to jump in and out and make patterns and do a sort of weave of the band around your ankles, singing a song. I can't even remember what the game was called but used to love it. Does anyone else remember this? Played marbles, made perfume from rose petals, drinking pop in our treehouse with sugar butties (yuk) but we loved them and mum used to tell us we would get worms eating sugar butties! Hopscotch, whip and top with coloured chalk on the top to make a pattern, skipping, fishing for tiddlers in the local brook, collecting tadpoles and I could carry on. These are all the things I did when my friends knocked and ask could I play out. Such happy days and such freedom, we went off for hours and the mums were quite happy for their children to do that and play out. No mobile phones or I pads then!

Forgot to mention we used to "cockle up". I think Cockling up must have been a Derbyshire expression. It meant standing on your hands and throwing your legs up at a wall (doing a handstand) or even on your hands and throwing your legs right over your head.

Oh the memories! We used to play "I draw a snake upon your back, zigga zagga, zigga zagga, who did THAT" ("THAT" being someone who taps the person on the back). Why zigga, zagga, I have no idea! Then we would all go and hide and the person who's back was tapped had to find the person who drew the snake on their back. However, it could have been any of us, and no-one thought that one out, so basically it was just hide and seek. We also used to make dens and sit in my Wendy house eating old custard creams that had gone soft!

We used to go to the sandhills, woods or beach. Very lucky to have such amazing areas where we grew up.

This has been the lovelies thread. Thanks so much for all the memories. I’ve read through it a few times and it keeps making me smile. A couple of wows in there too!! I’ve made my mind up to introduce my little GDs to some of these games.

When I was three I persuaded my mother to let me play out with some less advantaged children who lived in the next street. I took out my dolls prom and scooter. When the nearby factory hooter went off at one o’clock the disappeared so I was left crying until my mother came to find me. Wasn’t allowed out again until I was older and had s sister.
We moved to a rural location near woods and fields. Also our house had our own piece of woodland at the end of the garden and a piece of field before that. My parents were over protective so was never allowed to play out with other children.

Oh so many happy childhood memories here. I grew up in North East London and my Mum didn't like the local kids, considered them to be common and rough, so wouldn't let them call for me, always sent them packing! But she approved of one girl whose parents were 'business people' so I was allowed to call for her and visit her home. But we weren't t great friends so she didn't often call for me. But I would tell Mum that was where I was going and then I'd be off round the neighbourhood calling for whoever I liked, usually boys, their games and toys were more fun! We did all the things other posters have mentioned, also scrumping apples and pears, playing 'knock down ginger', playing cowboys and indians with cap guns, and exploring a large empty estate house which we believed was haunted and building campsites and bonfires in the grounds. Oh happy days! You can tell I was a real tomboy. I think that freedom to roam and choose my own friends made me more streetwise and increased my confidence as I was growing up. My Mum never knew what I got up to and was quite shocked when she did find out when my own children were young, hard to believe she never knew.

When I had my three sons in the 70's I allowed them to play out and call for their friends, with the usual parental warnings to behave themselves and stay out of the river. But I know they got up to all sorts of mischief, and so long as it wasn't (too) illegal or dangerous I turned a blind eye. Only twice did I have to wade in 'guns blazing' to rescue them from an angry neighbour. Just part and parcel of being a parent and they still remember it with amusement today.

Our youngest son's children enjoy a similar level of freedom, but the other GC less so. As someone else said it seems to be all supervised playdates now, not quite the same. I sometimes wonder if limited independent activity and decision making impacts on children's confidence, anxiousness and mental health in young people today.