Naughty things we did in childhood

We went to a Victorian School, with lovely wooden floors - in which there was a trap door opening all screwed down. Over a couple of weeks we worked on these screws with screwdrivers we had brought in, as they were difficult to 'shift' and eventually got them all undone. The following day was picked for us all to go down there and have a look and we were all to bring torches etc so that we could have a look at what was down there...... Sadly that day, I was ill, so was mortified that I missed out, but they lifted it and all went down into the bowels of the school, and GOT CAUGHT!!!! There was a great hoo-ha about it, Headmistress who was one of those scary ones who walked around in a cape sent letters to the parents and got the parents in for a 'telling off' too!! I took my screwdriver home and thought myself very lucky!

The other thing I did was played 'dress up' with my Mum's Engagement Ring, went down to the nearby shops in her shoes and LOST it! OMG she was absolutely livid - fortunately some very kind man found it and handed it in to the Post Office and she got it back, but I really was not popular at all!

I asked my parents to sign a blank piece of paper at the bottom, which they did. I wrote a letter to my mother's friend above asking her not to come back to the house as we didn't like her or her children. I then added my own signature and posted it. Life was wonderful without her then one night I came back from school and my mother was waiting to greet me with the letter. Sounds bad for a 7 year old, but there were good reasons.

Apple scrumping - I don't know anyone that grew up in our village that didn't do that in the farm orchard - found out many years later that the farmer was well aware of the fact it happened - apparently whenever he planted new trees closest to the road, he made sure they were either cooking apples or ones that ripened later in the year !
I also put a little knitted mouse in my pocket while at a friends house, fully meaning to give it back the next time I saw her but I was never asked to her house again and as she changed schools, I didn't really see her after that. I did post it through her letter box a few weeks later, with a note apologising though.
One of my friends was involved in "the great gate swap" - where they removed and swapped gates around the village after the annual village fete.(Much mead was drunk in the evening!) Funny thing was, some home owners never even noticed for months!

My younger sister [by 14 months] was the really naughty one - I always got the blame for allowing her to do it - even when I wasn't there!
I still resent it.

When I was about 12, my mother sent me for some lyril soap. I’m afraid I stole two bars and kept the money.
I’m also a bit naughty now, if I’m playing scrabble with Orlin and get a Q late in the game and don’t have a U I have been known to palm it back in to the bag and pick another letter. Trouble is I then giggle uncontrollably and have to make up something funny to explain that.

Where I lived as a child there was a lovely park opposite with a golf course to one side, which was separated by a little brook. My friends and I heard that if we retrieved golf balls from the park the golf club would give us money for every one that we retrieved. I told my parents and they said it was OK but we were not to go into the brook (my mother had had a brother who drowned in a river some years earlier). Of course, many of the balls were in the brook so we defied our parents and paddled in the water to get the balls. Yes, you guessed it, I fell over and got absolutely soaked. I never did it again, but of course couldn’t hide it from my parents!

I did a number a things myself as a child, I was far from perfect, but the thing I most remember was something my sister did. She had a large doll and she took it upstairs one day and when she had brought it down she had coloured it all over with a purple crayon, even the face. She is often reminded of it and she has no idea why she did it.

At the age of 11 I collected stamps and had to walk home from school through town before I could catch the bus home. One of the shops was Woolworth's and I would go through the store every day looking at the packets of stamps for sale. It was very easy to crumple up the cellophane packets in my hand and just leave without paying. One day the assistant spotted me and said I was not supposed to crumple them up in my hand. I never did it again but managed to build up my stamp collection.

Oh Whingeingmum, that brought back a memory for me.
My mum also had a bottle of Chanel No5, that was precious. She used to put a couple of drops in her bath, so one day I thought I would do the same, and emptied the whole bottle in.
?

How precious

I know sweets only came off ration in Feb 1953, and I wondered if that is why so many Gransnetters mentioned that they ‘helped themselves to them’ in local sweet shops. After no sweets for so long it must have been almost irresistible. (I was born after the rationing stopped So never experienced the hardship of rationing)

My friend and I caught a couple of frogs and put them into the local letterbox!

My friend and I dressed her toddler brother as a guy and pushed him round in an old pushchair to all the houses on the estate collecting pennies for the guy !! My mum was furious but his mum seemed to think it was a good way to raise funds !

I wanted something from the back of the garage - so I moved a pile of panes of glass that were going to be used in a cloche if I remember rightly.
Of course I forgot to put the glass back and when my dad got home he drove the car into the garage, right onto the glass and it cracked every single one of them! He was livid! I was babysitting down the road at the time and my mum came and told me what I'd done and not to come home for the next hour or so. I can't actually recall what happened when I got back home so my dad must have calmed down by then.

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You are a naughty lot!

My family owned a small farm, which had quite a big pit. My older brother decided to make a raft using some railway sleepers.
My two brothers and I, along with friends, used to sail round the pit, with frogs jumping aboard, and newts around.
Real Tom Sawyer stuff!
There were some bushes surrounding the pit, and we once decided to make some chips. Building a fire, and filching some lard from the kitchen, we nearly set the bushes on fire.
My parents were always busy on the farm and their business, they didn't realise half the things we got up to.

When I was little I sold some of my younger sisters toys to our next door neighbour's daughter. My mum must have found out because I can remember having to give the money back.
Shame on me, I remember taking a couple of pennies (old money) out of my mum's purse. I'm amazed she found out, but she did.
Apart from that, our mum always used to say she had had five little angels.

As a 4/5year old I climbed over the style to the next house to rescue the baby that was crying in it’s pram and took it back to Mum ( who luckily was a nurse and had taught me how to hold a baby safely). Mum was understandingly horrified and promptly returned it luckily unharmed!

When I was about 11 , I accidentally tore my brothers Eagle annual, I was made to pay my brother the price of the book . I then took ownership of said book, and got our younger brother to colour in all the black and white pictures! The elder brother was furious!

At boarding school I was invited to spend an “exeat “ with a friends parents but you needed a permission letter from your own parents so I forged one. Oddly enough my headmistress wasn’t fooled by a letter in 11 year old’ s ink blot filled handwriting.

Just the usual things really - playing knock down ginger around the neighbourhood; scrumping apples and pears from neighbours gardens; dropping dustbin lids off the roof of our flats and making an horrendous noise to get the neighbours out; and putting fireworks in dustbins which had the same effect. But never did anything really naughty, too scared of my Mum!

Et you smelled wonderful Auntieflo!!

Aged about 10 I was given an area in my Dad’s allotment to grow whatever I wanted. One day my cousin and I decided to move 3 gooseberry bushes into my little area. My Dad was not impressed on his return and there were no gooseberries that year!
I also remember spilling a bottle of my Mum’s perfume all over her beautiful polished dressing table causing a dreadful stain.

We lived fairly near a crematorium with a vast graveyard.my friend and I used to hide behind gravestones when the warden toured round locking the gates in the evenings.We waited until he got to the bottom of the hill,then we would jump about calling him,he would rush up the hill,whilst we scaled the fence an d ran off....it nearly backfired when we took another friend who was slow at climbing the fence,and he nearly caught her!!the police patrolled around for a couple of days,so we stopped our very naughty antic

I always had to look after my sister who was ten years younger than me. Once when she was about two she fell off our garden bench onto her head on concrete. I saw her take in the deep breath before a scream, picked her up and ran down the road as fast as I could before the scream erupted so my mother would not hear it. I would have got into big trouble! Another time I let go of her push chair at the top of a steep hill and it hit a stone bridge at the bottom. Luckily she flew out and landed on grass. She doesn't seem to have suffered any lasting damage!