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

When I was about 6 we lived in Carlisle, which gets dark in winter a lot faster than it does further south. I would be sent out, after dark, to go down to the bakery on the corner and buy bread for tea. it wasn't far, and there were no roads to cross, but a 6 year old, running errands after dark these days? My mother would be have social services on her like a ton of bricks.

Oh, and the 'messages' would often include getting my father's cigarettes , and knowing the right substitutions if the Gold Leaf ones he liked were out of stock, which was rare.

Like others, I was put in charge of my sister, and took her to and from school at the age of 7 (me) and 5 (her). My mum had just had my brother, or I assume she would have carried on taking us, but still. I was also sent for 'messages' to the corner shop, and expected to know what to get if things on the list were unavailable, and to hold my baby brother on my lap on car journeys (there were no seatbelts).

We'd be sent out to play, with instructions not to go beyond certain streets, but of course we did, as streets don't make interesting playgrounds but woods do. When I was a bit older I had to take my sister with me to a large municipal park. Maybe we were 9 and 7. The only instructions were to be nice to her, not to talk to 'strange men' and to be home before dark.

Bus to school everyday on my own and playing out with other kids all day. Going butterfly collecting on derelict land next to the railway and sewage works.

My experiences were just like everyone else’s. But it wasn’t all wonderful. My younger brother and his friends were approached by a man who took them to a den he said he had built. My brother came home but I’m not sure if his friend was assaulted because I remember the police coming to our house. In a separate incident a 9-year old boy drowned when he was pushed into a canal because he couldn’t swim. But generally we were ok and this type of childhood made us more resilient than today’s children.

When I was about 9 I used to play on the railway line and down by the canal. Playing on the railway line was stopped as soon as my mother found out about it, but she never did find out about the canal. When I went to grammar school I had a three mile journey home, which I could do in a variety of ways involving bus or train or walking. Once I had left school my mother would never know where I was, or what route I had taken until I turned up at home.

Are there some converses though? As a child I was castigated for kissing our pets. Nowadays you see it often on Youtube etc. in quite extreme form. And I still do it.

I was talking to a friend. She remembers, at the age of 6 being pu on a train, in the charge of the guard, who looked after her until she reached her destination, where she was met by her grandmother. The journey was something like London to Portsmouth and she sat in the guards van with the guard aand throughly enjoyed the journey.

I travelled from Birmingham to Plymouth by train at the age of 9 . I was met the other end by my uncle.
My parents never had a car so we have been brought up with public transport . Nowadays it is rare that a child even knows how to hail a bus - hence posters at some bus stops

Whitewavemark2

I was thinking after writing about a favourite walk about what I did as a child that you simply couldn’t imagine being allowed now.

When I was 6, my parents lived in Plymouth. I remember a holiday when my mother saw me onto a train in Plymouth on my own (I assume the guard was keeping his eye on me) I changed at Oakhampton and travelled into Cornwall to Delabole ( our family village) and spent the school holidays with my aunt and uncle. I was 6 years old!!

I also travelled from my family home in Plymouth two bus stops away which included crossing a main road to my grandparents home!

Wasn’t there a station just outside Delabole?I seem to remember walking past it.

When I was still very little, during the 1950s, I regularly used to cross a very busy main road to get to the corner shop where I bought ten Craven A cigarettes for my mum and I was allowed to spend the change on sweets. I don't know of any shops that would not sell cigarettes to young children back then.

When I was about eight or nine I often used to travel on the London Underground from East London to the Natural History Museum in Kensington by myself.

My friend and I belonged to the London Cooperative Choir.
It was a 20 minute journey by train and then a tube to kings Cross. We were 11/12 yrs old and it was on a Friday evening,

Can you imagine 2 young girls travelling to that part of London . We returned at about 9 o’clock and my dad would pick us up from our local station.

Doesn’t bear thinking about now.,

Not sure if anyone else was into making dens, was an all consuming past time for the kids I played with, we lived near a housing estate being built in the early sixties and we nicked stuff the building crews left lying around to build our den. Then boys would come along and destroy our den and take our stuff so we would plot to do likewise to them.

Starting a career in banking aged 15

aggie

Allira

aggie 😲😂
Hope someone found her and brought her home!

I was sent back to get her , it was 3 streets away , she was still asleep
She still dines out on her abandonment 🤣

Oh, thank goodness!
"My sister didn't love me - do you know what she did!?" 😂

We lived on a farm & in the summer holidays a lot of the children I went to school with used to come with their mums to pick the (soft) fruit. The rule was, if you were tall enough to reach the lowest fruit, you helped pick in the mornings & then in the afternoons you could play in the woods or make dens from the fruit crates.
Dad used to pick everyone up in an old Bedford van with homemade bench seats bolted in the back. The drivers door was tied open for fresh air & our dog used to lie on that side next to Dads feet. If he had to brake suddenly everyone's sandwiches rolled about in the back, babies were grabbed from all sides & once the dog fell out onto the road!
Our teeth were stained purple all through the blackcurrant season.
The older children looked after the younger ones & I remember trying to feed a toddler some pies we'd made of mud with a loganberry filling! We got told off a lot & learnt a lot & had masses of fun.No sunscreen on any of us - we were brown as nuts.

Charleygirl5

Yes, a horse-drawn cart arrived where I lived and my mother would go running out with a dustpan and brush to pick up the horses' droppings.

I used to get sent out to pick up any horse dung from the street, and also go up the field with a bucket to collect sheep droppings for the leeks!

Allira

aggie 😲😂
Hope someone found her and brought her home!

I was sent back to get her , it was 3 streets away , she was still asleep
She still dines out on her abandonment 🤣

Much the same as most of you, walked to and from school one side of the town to the other. All winds and weathers. Sometimes went off to my Nans in another part.
School holidays were always spent at my paternal grandparents, in a small village, but joined in with the local children around my age the whole time I was there (coincidentally along with another friend from same town as me) and we used to go off on our bikes all over the place. Often to one of the other villages.
We used to pack up a picnic and go across fields to the river, by a weir, and spend hours in the water. Would also catch the bus into town and go to the swimming pool.
We would be out by about 9am, pop in for lunch and back out asap, back for evening meal and if it was still light enough off out again. Running about all over the place, playing games. Scrumping apples.
Never did any damage or caused harm.

When I was 6or7 my Mum put me on the train at Paddington she asked a lady to make sure I got off at Cardiff my Grandparents found me on the platform. I remembered I was terrified as we went in the long tunnel under the Severn it was black noisy and very smoky as a window was open no one warned me but at least a kind lady gave me a sandwich. Can you imagine 😱

NotSpaghetti I actually think children are capable of so much more than we give them credit for.

That is so true. Many moons ago when I was teaching, one of ‘my’ children, aged just five, caught the bus to school on her own as usual. The journey was about 1 1/2 hours, plus a 30 minute walk. One day the bus broke down.

The school was small, so we all knew about her getting the bus to school. Of course, when she didn’t arrive there was a panic and after contacting the parents it was decided that the police should be notified. They searched for her without success.

Hours later, this little tot eventually turned up at school. She had remembered the entire bus route and walked the whole way, from bus stop to bus stop, which included crossing very busy South London main roads! How she managed it unscathed is unbelievable!

Not me but my kids.
I let them go on bike rides for several miles unaccompanied by adults. On rural roads.
Now I shudder at what could have happened.

From the age of 6 I went to school alone which involved crossing a busy road. I also went to the local park which had some equipment which would now be regarded as pretty dangerous for young children to play on unsupervised.

The primary motif of my parents seemed, on reflection, to get me out from under their feet. I would be told "be back for your lunch/tea/whatever" and then expected to make myself scarce. My friends and I played on bombed sites, railroad tracks, by rivers and in muddy steams and fields. We made dens in the trees and invented games without any adult intervention. We formed and reformed friendship groups without investment from parents or schools. I believe it made us stronger and more resillient people.

Blimey!

*playing out