The long school holidays

There weren't any organised activities, apart from Saturday Morning Cinema for children and Brownies. Like many have stated, we were expected to amuse ourselves. Lots of park and swimming pool visits, my brother and I did all this when we were quite young unaccompanied, but that was usual then. I lived near a common where there quite a few ponds so they were a magnet, looking for newts and other pond life, we had a stream at the bottom of our garden just beyond our fence which fed into a pond so all of that held a lot of early memories. In retrospect it does occur to me that no one seemed particularly worried about young children being around water. I liked cycling round to friends houses, and remember roller skates, quite clunky, which tied on to the foot with strips of perhaps leather, but nothing like the sophisticated in line blades loved by my children who skated with far more skill than me.

Sometimes my mum gave us an old sheet which we put over the washing line and pegged down to resemble a tent. I had a friend who lived nearby who had a lovely docile Old English Sheepdog who seemed content to while away the hours with her and me in our makeshift tent.

My maternal grandparents retired to the Sussex coast, I did love going to the seaside, again we spent hours amusing ourselves with seaweed, rock pools and bucket and spades and lots of swimming in a fairly chilly English Channel. My grandparents had friends who lent them a beach hut when we came down, that was the icing on the cake.

Books were incredibly important to me when I was growing up, still are, during the holidays I was allowed to order favourite books from our local library. I could spend an afternoon in the garden with a book and a bag of sherbet lemons which kept me amused for hours. I was pretty good at amusing myself, my brother less so, he was always moaning he was bored. Hardly any tv then. A life lived without screens had its upside.

Scottish summer holidays are a lot shorter now, grandtanteJE65! Many of the schools are going back at the beginning of next week.

When I was a child, I enjoyed the summer holidays, which included a visit to my Granny's in England, as well as usually a stay in a rented house somewhere in Scotland. When our DC were young, it was a relaxing time with no busy evenings and weekends with activities, and no rush in the morning.

Relatively few children are left to amuse themselves these days, at any time of the year.

That said, I remember being bored towards the end of the Scottish school holidays of my childhood. They began around the 20th June and ended on September 1st. I had no friends living nearby and a sister who was 3½ years younger than I, so after the first month or so, I was sometimes bored.

My father, like all or most other fathers in the 1950s and 60s had a fortnight's summer holiday. Sometimes we went way during it, but roughly ever other year my parents felt they couldn't afford to do so, so we just had days out during his holiday.

If we were lucky, my mother took us to the beach 35 miles away by car once or twice during the rest of our school holiday.

So I don't think much has changed really, except that we were expected to help with housework, gardening, shopping and so on.

Judging by the children in my extended family this is not expected of very many children today.

I lived in countryside and was rarely off my bike. The father of one of my friends built her a small shed so we had great fun playing in the shed if we were not out on our bikes. We were lucky because the roads were not main roads and we had access to a tennis court.

For two weeks every year I went on holiday with my parents in their camper van to visit my mother's family in Ireland. The highlight of my holiday was getting on the back of a huge cart horse!

I was a latchkey child because both my parents worked full time. I read a lot so I was never bored. I loved Enid Blyton.

We did have some treats and outings during the holidays but also had to amuse ourselves a lot of the time. But there was always someone around to go cycling or swimming with, it was safe to play tennis out on the roads and we had a big back garden to play in.

Nowadays a lot of children are at creches and childminders during the day, or at Summer camps because their parents are both at work. Back gardens in modern houses can be small or non existent and many roads are no longer safe to play on.

Am just laughing that being in a car in being a little princess. Dh drove me half way across the country yesterday, we used his car and I am not on his insurance, this did not make me a princess.

Calendargirl, I was just the same sort of mums you were.
In our town, we had a beautiful open air swimming pool in the gardens of a big house. It was used and enjoyed by all, and our eldest two had great times there. Take a picnic and spend all day.
Fast forward some years and the site has been taken over and built on. There is still some discontent in the town. We all thought that the pool had been left to the townsfolk in perpetuity.
Do current day mums feel guilty if their children's days are not continually filled with activities, instead of allowing them to get bored?

PaperMonster yes that is the reality for my daughters’ children. They are obviously used to it and enjoy their childhood just as much. I just can’t imagine being that dependent on adults when I was their ages. It’s just different.

biglouis we have a thriving Guiding community locally, but this is term time only. Living rurally with a not brilliant bus service, you do have to ferry your children about. My daughter’s friends are from both our own and surrounding villages so often she is unable to walk to them.

I was never bored during school holidays, ,and very little was done to amuse us. We occupied ourselves. My father had the idea, which still affects me, that if you were bored it was your own fault. We played in the garden, saw friends, had the very occasional day out, read lots of books. I was always happy to go back to school in September, but the holidays weren’t boring. As far as I remember my children were the same. I think it must be harder if you don’t have a garden.

I’m afraid I wasn’t one of those mothers who was always busy doing activities with my children in the school holidays, but one thing we all enjoyed was going to our open air swimming pool in the afternoons on a nice day. Tried to get all the household jobs done in the morning, then we were at the pool all afternoon, the children swimming, diving, jumping in with their friends while we mums sat on the grass and gossiped, trying to get a tan.

40 years ago! The pool is no longer open air, so we can swim all year round, but oh, that summer of ‘82 in particular has happy memories.

?‍♂️?‍♀️

Children now do not seem to have hobbies. Rather they have expensive "activities" to which their parents drive them. We had guides, brownies and dancing lessons (if the parents could afford it) to which we made our own way by walking. No cars to ferry us about like little princesses.

Like many of the posters upthread I loved the holidays and was never bored. I used to be playing with friends or wandering off alone. Its safe to say that streets were safer then (1950s) as there were few private cars and neighbours watched out for one another and their kids.

I cant ever remember either of my parents organising any kinds of games for my sister or myself. As one of the older kids most of the games were organized by me. We dressed up and put on plays in the house or the back yard. When we were young we had the odd day out to the seaside - maybe one or two a year. When we were older we would go for a week to N Wales in a caravan and think outselves very lucky to get out of Liverpool.

I think that many women who work, still feel they should compensate for not being at home for their children by scheduling activities for every waking moment. It seems to be a largely female trait ( I am happy to be challenged on this assumption) and even if they do manage some time off from work, will bend over backwards to provide/enable entertainment.

I rather liked the school summer holidays as a parent because they were a break from the same old same old.
They saw cousins, stayed over at friends, we could get up later have proper breakfasts, wear what we liked, shop for toys, go to the swimming pool, go outdoors for long meandering walks with the dog, and if it rained watch a film together on tv, bake treats, eat unhealthy meals at odd hours, stay up late
Just being there, present, making memories, taking photos, talking, arguing, laughing. It was nice ?

I used to absolutely love the school holidays. I didn’t have access to a car but planned every day with delights and trips out.

Marvellous time.

Love the hols with my daughter. Nearby friends are either on hols or in holiday clubs at the mo but we have been catching up with friends who live further afield before we go on hols. Then some days she just entertains herself because I’m working.

I loved the long summer holidays, it was the only thing that kept me sane during the rest of the school year. We probably had about one day out during the holiday - no money for any more - and I just played in the garden the rest of the time.

I watched four or five neighbourhood children this afternoon indulge in a water fight on the front garden (there is no hosepipe ban yet) and they were having the most wonderful time. Yesterday they were taking it in turns to ride a go kart, on the pavement.
The teenage children next to me appeared to be having chicken races with their chickens; I think Beulah won, to loud applause.

We entertained ourselves because woe betide us if we told our mam that we were bored. She would be ready with a list of chores that would solve our boredom and keep us busy. We hated chores so we never got bored.

I loved the summer holidays! Playing out with friends. My mother like many women of her generation did not work , very different for today's parents!

I loved when my kids were off during the summer holidays....We always had great fun...Longer lies in the morning and out playing later at night...We went to the park with picnics where we met friends...Always went away for days with grandparents.. I loved seeing their wee sleepy faces at night going to bed....I worked in the school then so I was off all the summer holidays as well...Magic times

I don't know if it's just me, but children don't seem to have hobbies any longer!

and of course, how old the children are

Children still play out. I suppose it depends where they live and whether it is safe, whether their parents are at work and extended family etc