Stuff you did as a child that wouldn’t be contemplated now

Yes, we were so lucky that there was so little traffic. I grew up in a Scottish tenement. It was a block of four - six families in each. When we moved out in 1964, only one resident had a car, out of twenty four families. He was a single chap, still living with his parents.

We were RAF brats living in Aden . I was about 7. I had an accident and hurt my knee . Taken to hospital and was there unable to walk for what felt like months. My parents were forced to leave me in Aden in the hospital and they returned home to UK . I was left in the hospital for at least a month before being casivact home alone on a plane . Still unable to walk . I was taken to a hospital in Wiltshire and put into an adults ward . I had no visitors for a long time until one day my mum walked through the door . My parents had not been told I was now back in the UK . I look back and wonder how my poor mother coped being 4000 miles from her 7 year old child . Strangely enough it was never talked about again . I can't imagine that ever happening today .

My 6 year old neighbour walked me to my first day at school when I was 5. At home time she went back without me and I walked back by myself. My mother, who was very protective, told me later that she was worried when she saw the other child but not me, however she was reassured when I turned up.
When I was older but still at primary school I used to spend all the summer holidays out of the house, playing in the local park with my friends. We were given sandwiches and left the house in the mornings returning at tea time. My mother had a job by then but didn’t have to worry about childcare. The only time there was any suggestion that there was cause to worry was when the Moors Murders were in the news.

Walked at nearly two miles to primary school alone with my younger brother every day. Went out to play with friends and disappeared for the day, no mobile phones, just arrived home in time for tea, my mother had no idea what I'd been up to and where I'd been! So much freedom in the good old days, definitely appreciate now the freedom we had and the total innocence of childhood.

There was a chap locally who was known as Cheeky D….. and we used to laugh at him and run away pretending to be scared. Very cruel, as I think he simply had learning difficulties. My mum looked after him when she was an old people’s warden and said he was a lovely chap.

Another one here who walked up to the shop for my dad’s fags aged about 6 or 7. I took the money in my little basket, handed it to Mr F, saying “Can my dad have 20 Park Drive, please, Mr F?” He would hand them over to me with the change and off home I would trot. Across a road that is now swarming with double decker buses and cars, but which we used to play on with a skipping rope spread right across the street because the only person I knew who owned a car was my friend’s dad up the road who was an insurance agent! And we’d be out playing hide and seek or whatever until after dark. And we’d go off to the woods and play. How on earth did we ever survive it all? I’m guessing that some didn’t, but we never heard of any.

I walked home from school, I have to say there were some men around that did scare me. One had learning difficulties, & used to follow me. We used top call him Dandelion because he was always about picking dandelions for his rabbits. Another lived with his mum & my Mum always used to warn me off him because he used to chase her & her sisters when they were young.(he was a quite overweight & I was fairly sure I could outrun him).
Neither of them ever did anything more than follow or stare, but I don't think strangers lurking in woods are any more numerous today than they were then - we just hear more about it.

I walked to school on a path through the woods until grade 6. It was safe then but I shudder to think who could be lurking there nowadays. My friends and I rode our bikes around all day (without helmets lol) and only came home for meals. Our parents never had to worry about us. Somehow we lived through no seatbelts in cars, dangerous playground equipment,talking to strangers and other horrors.

I cycled to infant school from day one with stabilisers on my bike. The naughty boys used to hang on the luggage rack at the back and shout at me to pedal faster. One day a lady ran out of her house, grabbed the ringleader and gave him a mighty clip round the ear and a massive verbal dressing down. I never saw the naughty boys again. She was a total stranger, but adults seemed to feel free to tell off any random child who was misbehaving.

So much of these accounts of the 1950s are familiar to me. Walking to and from school in all weathers (including deep snow in Yorkshire) after first day at infant school. At age 9-10 taking my 4 year old brother on top deck of double decker bus into busy town for Saturday morning cinema at a choice of two cinemas. Then afterwards a long walk together to the other end of town to visit grandparents where we’d each be given
a “ Saturday sixpence” which we’d spend at the corner shop on the walk back to the bus station. I too knocked on doors if I spotted a baby in a pram in a stranger’s front garden. If I could take their dog out for a walk attached to the pram, all the better. I cycled 5 miles to secondary school and back along country lanes, satchel strapped on the bike rack, rain or shine for years from age 11. I am grateful that we all learned independence and resilience, had all that freedom and I am so sad for the restricted childhoods of today. There’s no going back.

I came across a letter written by my mother to my father in 1971 when he was away on a course. In it, she describes how she drove me and my brother (14 and 13) to the bus stop because we were late for school, leaving my baby brother (6 months old at the time) at home, alone. She writes 'He was perfectly happy in his playpen, playing with his toys.'
I find this strange in so many ways. When my children were teenagers, if they'd been late for school, they would have had to accept the consequences - I would not have bailed them out by giving them a lift. And I would never, ever, have left a 6 month old child at home on his own even for the 20 minutes it would have taken. Changed times.

I recall when I was ten, a girl in my class felt ill, and I was chosen to take her home. No one had a phone, so parents couldn’t be contacted. No one was in when we reached her home, but she had a key. I had to leave her by herself. Looking back now, it seems dreadful that no one was responsible for an ill child.

oh grannybuy I used to do the shopping had my shopping list, had to have King Edward potatoes, not those "whites" and eggs loose in a bag I think, and do NOT break any, then I had to balance the money from the list and make sure I got the change correct.. oh gosh those memories, this is such a good thread for me, as I don`t often look back.well have no one to share them with thank you everyone

I am the oldest of 3 .
Our Mam had a heart condition and was often "resting" ( she lived to be 84 )
I was , I think, what is now called the " parentalised child" and took on many things for my family and 2 siblings.
This includes taking afternoon off school, because Mammy was poorly, so I could cook for Dad and the younger children.
I would phone my head master to tell him this and he would sanction it because we were " a nice family" , clean and polite and very clever.
The best story is the one about 10year old me being kept from school, to walk 2 miles to the nearest pharmacy to collect.....Diconal .... A strong opiate medicine Mam needed for her migraine.
Social services would have a wonderful time with that one now .
This was 1966.
Thankfully, no one mugged me for the drugs on the way home!

I sometimes went on the bus after school to my granny’s from the time I was seven. From the time I was nine, I was home alone after school until my parents got home from work at teatime. There was usually a shopping list and money waiting for me. From then on, I did most of the shopping, including going along a very isolated road on dark evenings to buy my parents’ cigarettes. I was always out playing, or cycling around the area. By the time I was ten, I was taking babies out in their prams, and taking younger children in the neighbourhood out for country walks. Hard to believe now.

When I was 15, I often used travel to the BBC studio in London and take part in a live broadcast of Top of the Pops.

Loads of people, many younger than I was and mostly girls, used to turn up. They would open the doors and we would all swarm in. Nobody checked how old we were or how many people went in.

It was a different DJ every week and of course, Jimmy Savile was a regular.

Walked to school from age 5, it wasn’t far. Walked to secondary school, couple of miles, sometimes coming home over fields and a disused quarry. At weekends walked five miles through woods, and over a common to go riding alone (age 11).
Bought cigarettes for my Dad, without question from age 6!!

My mother made beautiful wedding cakes all hand made side rose holders and ornate tracery on each tier. One was ready for collection sitting on the sideboard and my brother knocked it and broke a couple of the fragile side vases, he shot out of the back door and returned home after 8pm, he'd been so worried . Mum always made spares and could easily fix it. I am in awe of the time she spent making everything for these cakes, she say for hours and hours. Our daughters' christening came was the last she made as her hands weren't too steady.

My mum was put on a train in Liverpool by her mother when aged 5. She travelled to Wales where her gran met her. She was quite traumatised by it.

Kate1949

I walked miles to school, walked home for dinner and back to school. One thing I find unimaginable now is that my friend and me used to knock on people's doors and ask if we could take their babies out. The mums would put the babies in the pram and off we'd go for the afternoon. Some of them had never set eyes on us before. I cringe when I think about it now.

We almost came to blows about pushed the pram holding our neighbour 's twins, they must be over 65 now!

When 7 yrs lived a mile and a half from the sea. Walked with a couple of school friends to the beach. Had about quarter lemonade bottle of water and a couple rich tea biscuits for a picnic. We pretended to swim letting the waves carry us back to shore. We were there for hours. No suncream either. Walked home in time for teatime. Or we deviated from our route and had a few slides down a pit bing thinking our parents wouldn't know. Of course our behinds were black from the dust. Worth getting in trouble for!

My friend ‘s dad was a coal man and every Friday night he would send his daughter (and me) out round the local estate with a list to collect his money! Imagine 2 young girls (we were about 10) out & about with a load of cash😬

Vice Versa.... LOL

'Fire cans' - oh yes, almost forgot about those. My husband decided to revive the tradition with our GS the other year - our son (GS's dad) was NOT impressed and promptly gave him a lecture about health and safety.

For some reason my parents enrolled me in a school outside our catchment area. I think it was a posher area and mum, an inner snob, thought I would mix with a better class of children! Unfortunately it was two bus rides away, the first up a very large hill, and she had to take me in the morning and pick me up again, 4 bus journeys. She did that until I moved on to the junior school down the bottom of the hill. Of course most of my school friends lived near the school so if I wanted to play with them I had to go on the bus. One friend lived at the top of the hill near the common and one day, I guess we were about 9 or 10, we were playing in the woods when a man exposed himself. We ran away and I must have been a bit more worldly wise than my friend so I said we must tell her Grandma , who she lived with. We ran to tell her and her reply was ‘ You shouldn’t have looked!’ Can you imagine that response today?