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

My late mum aged 9y had to take baby sister out in the pram before being allowed to join her friends who were ‘plaung out’.
She said she used to angle the pram so that the sun was shining on her sister’s face. She cried, had to scrunch her eyes shut, got tired quicker and fell asleep. Job done my mum said!

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.

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

aggie

I remember children taking babies out for a walk , I couldn’t understand the fun in that ! I had a baby sister and taking her out was a boring task , stopped when I left her outside the library and walked home without her , too busy reading my book

I wasn't very interested in babies either.

There was a couple I chatted to because they lived round the corner from my friend and they had a dog I liked. As we didn't have a dog, I asked if I could take him for walks and off we'd go, this little dog and me, roaming across the Common on our own once a week.

I remember walking to the paper shop for my dad to get the Sunday papers.. I bought for him.. The Sunday Express, The People and I got the Jack and Jill comic.. Must have been about 5 or 6 years old.
I have two GC aged 5 years... Can not ever imagine them being sent out to do this task.

I must have been about eight when a teacher from my school used to invite me to his house for tea.
His wife and daughter ,
who went to my school were there .
I don't recall either of them being that warm and friendly.
We very occasionally went out .
I was never alone with him .
He used to buy me birthday and Christmas presents .
He was a very quiet handsome man and always behaved in a fatherly way towards me .
I don't remember my parents being particularly concerned about it .
I think that my mother once asked if he touched me .
Today it would be considered strange if not odd and not advisable nor appropriate .
I wouldn't have allowed my children to go to a teacher's house nor out with him .

I remember children taking babies out for a walk , I couldn’t understand the fun in that ! I had a baby sister and taking her out was a boring task , stopped when I left her outside the library and walked home without her , too busy reading my book

Before I’d started school at 5 1/2, my mother sent me more than once to shops a good 15 minute walk away, with money and a list.
She was once very cross because I came back with the wrong flour - I couldn’t yet read so had no idea that it was wrong. Looking back, I dare say it was all the smallish village shop had.

To be entirely fair to my mother, she had two considerably younger ones at home, and certainly no car.
It was in the 50s, so very few cars about anyway.

When we lived at that house, the milkman used to come with a horse!

From a very early age I hopped on a bus to go to school 2 miles away. The stop was nowhere near the school, but I found my way there.

Coming home, I let myself in as my parents worked cose by. My dad popped home to light the gas mantle, and I entertained myself until one parent came home

During holidays, I would leave at an early hour with my friends and return home early evening, starving.

No babysitter, I looked after myself.

I also knocked on random doors and took babies out in their prams.

Around 14, I travelled from Scotland to Ireland on my own, even spending a night in a hotel. My mother did as much of the arranging as she could, but after my evening meal, I went for a wander around the Dublin streets. The next day, I had to get to the train station, and at the other end, in the middle of nowhere, I was picked up by my aunt. No car, shanks pony, so at least 2 miles.

I cringe now when I think of what could have happened.

I live in a small, quiet cul de sac and children are not allowed to play in their small front gardens. It has gone from one extreme to the other.

Babs03

From reading posts I can see how much things have changed. Parents and adults in general were not part of our world, we took off at the soonest opportunity to be with other kids playing and getting into scrapes.
I think that suited our parents as much as us. I can’t remember my parents taking it upon themselves to do something with us, unless it was the summer holiday when my dad had two week off from the local Mill - it was called ‘the wakes’ back then - and we would go to a cottage in North Wales or to Blackpool where my sis and I both missed our friends and got very bored because it often rained.
Nowadays parents have to be totally involved with their children, planning activities and taking them everywhere. I think is much harder for them and for the kids.

I used to go with my Mum regularly, once a week, on our bikes, to visit 'Auntie' and 'Uncle's' farm but, once there, we children were allowed to roam freely.
My Mum took me to work with her in the school holidays from the age of about four as well. She worked in a large, very old hotel and it was good fun roaming round there too. No-one seemed to mind.

I remember a friend and I taking ourselves off to a Beetle Drive aged about 11, catching two buses at night. (Why?)
I remember it because I won the booby prize.

Drive.

Putting young children on a train must have been seen as normal. Every summer, from the age of 6 my brother (8) and I were sent from London to Scotland on the train. We were in a carriage with the compartments, in the care of the guards. Lunch and tea in the buffet car. I always worried because tea was around Carlisle and I thought we’d still be eating when we got to our station.
We were met in Scotland by our Grandparents and Dad would dive up at the end of the holiday to collect us.

From age 4 I took the bus to school about 10 miles away.( She thought the village school wouldn't be suitable.) I don't think my mother ever went to the school so a girl who got on at the stop before me walked me through the town to school and brought me home. She was 6.
One day when school ended I couldn't find her and the teacher told me everyone had gone home.I managed to walk to the bus station and got the bus into the village as it didn't go past my house on that route. I waited in the shop intil my mother came to collect me. I wonder now how she knew where I was as we had no phone.

From reading posts I can see how much things have changed. Parents and adults in general were not part of our world, we took off at the soonest opportunity to be with other kids playing and getting into scrapes.
I think that suited our parents as much as us. I can’t remember my parents taking it upon themselves to do something with us, unless it was the summer holiday when my dad had two week off from the local Mill - it was called ‘the wakes’ back then - and we would go to a cottage in North Wales or to Blackpool where my sis and I both missed our friends and got very bored because it often rained.
Nowadays parents have to be totally involved with their children, planning activities and taking them everywhere. I think is much harder for them and for the kids.

When I was about 14 we moved to an isolated house in the country and I knew no one. I used to cycle round and explore. One day crossing a little river I was stopped by 3 strange men and we chatted for a while. They asked me if I would like to play golf with them so I cycled into town the next day and had a nice round of golf where they taught me some shots. I didn't tell my parents.and I don't think they would have been interested.

Just re-read my post and forgot to say my secondary school (when I was 10) was 6+ miles from home , but only 3 or so from my father's workplace. I only ever walked the 6 miles in the spring/ summer (and when I didn't have my huge art portfolio with me!).
Walking back from junior school was only a mile or so to my father.

As an aside, my grandson walked home from school (about a mile) with friends for the first time last summer. He was 10. He was really excited to do it!

I was pretty much protected until I was nearly 8 because of the war. Life consisted of running to the shelter when the siren sounded, at home and at school. After the war ended I had a lot of freedom, mostly with the boy next door. We would disappear on our bikes, all along the coast east and west from Torquay, more or less all day and only going home to eat and sleep during school holidays. Climbing down into a local quarry by the sea was a favourite and having picnics with odds and ends we took from home. Old bomb shelters made great places to play. And suddenly beaches were accessible after being cocooned in barbed wire during the war.
When I look back, I had a huge amount of freedom. Mum didn't seem to bother about where I was.
From 11 onwards I cycled to school on the other side of Torquay, in all weathers.
Mum had her first stroke when I was 13, and I was put on a train to Bristol to stay with unknown relatives.

I was put on a train to London from the North and "crossed over" London with a friend of my father's who I'd never met before in order to be put on the train to the ferry for the Isle of Wight - where, once over the water, my aunt would be waiting for me at Ryde.
I think I was 10.

From 10 upwards I'd sometimes do what others talk about. Save my bus money for other things and walk home along the canal - or to my father's business which was not so far.
Nobody knew what I was doing.

I actually think children are capable of so much more than we give them credit for.
Being put on a train one end of a journey and getting met at the other isn't really SO hard.

I also walked to school from 5 years old with my older sis who was 7 and her best friend. We had to walk through country lanes for part of the journey then along a busy road.

During the week my life was very much micro-managed as my mum taught at the primary school I attended.

At weekends however we would go to my Gparents farm and then I was free to walk dogs around the farm, play by the river and in the barns with cousins, unsupervised all day. As long as we turned up for meals with our hands washed no questions asked!

When I got my first proper bike, aged 13, I spent the whole summer cycling the country lanes, just me, no plan, no mobile phone. Marvellous!

I walked to school by myself from the age of 5. Once I was in junior school I was allowed to spend time on the swings at the park on my way home.

Went to the Rec after school on our bikes and stayed there until dinner time.

Listened to the radio, read books and played games in the evening as we didn't have a TV when I was very young.

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.

Like the OP I was put on a train. I went from Bath Spa and travelled to Portsmouth (Cosham) where my grandparents lived. My lovely gran met me off the train. I endured the journey in a state of abject fear: was I on the right train would I be able to work the window, lean out and open the door so I could get off?
Like others I had the freedom to go out and not return for hours. Nor did my parents ever take me to school or collect me. My dad showed me where the infants school was and I took myself there and back from day one, though it was a safe journey with no roads to cross. When I went to junior school aged 7, I used the bus (or walked and spent the bus fare).
Today’s parents would be horrified.

From the age of 6 I walked/ran to school in all weathers which took me along a stretch of one of the busiest main roads in Bristol and took 15 minutes. When I was older we would play marbles in the gutters all the way home, and play in the bomb sites...no rush to get home at all.

When older[8,9+] we would bike out to countryside [now choked with row upon row of houses], build dens, pick apples, plums, pears, blackberries, paddle in a stream and go home when we felt like it. We'd also knock on farmhouse doors for drinks of water if we were thirsty. So trusting!

With one friend I would go to the swimming baths [aged 7/8] and we had to take her younger sister [6] along. Neither of them could swim, but I could. They always managed not to drown though and got home ok.

No one ever knew where we were or when we'd be home. When I was a brownie I would knock on strangers doors for 'Bob-a-Job' week and go inside to do all sorts of tasks! Again no adult knew where we were or what house we were in! Nothing bad happened, Thank God.

When 11 I cycled along the very busy main roads and bus routes from one side of Bristol to the other [6-7 miles] to go to a friends house. Took ages and was scary. Then had to do a longish bike ride with her...then cycle the traffic choked roads back home afterwards. Exhausted but lived to tell the tale. Mother didn't seem bothered.