What our parents did that wouldn't be seen now

Yep Jimi in a pink jacket- his last gig.

No tent for me- just a sleeping bag right in the middle about 20m back from the stage - perfect spot. Good job it didn't rain! no money either ;)

I think it was the 1970 one - Jimi Hendrix in a pink jacket?

We were camping on the hill, but had to move down to the main encampment when it got too crowded, and my lovely hand-made (by me!) leather coat was stolen...the DJ who was playing all day and night was so fed up with the level of theft that he gave up in disgust!

Which year? I was at the Isle of Wight 1970- the last big one (hitch-hiked of course... not easy where there are 1000s all along the road back to London trying to do the same- got 1 lift all the way back to Roehampton )

Goodness, granjura, you've just reminded me about hitch-hiking - we used to do it a lot in the late 60s, early 70s - that's how my friend and I got to the Isle of Wight festival from Manchester!

I even hitched on my own occasionally, and only once had a 'hand on the knee' from one driver - how naive were we? I'd have been horrified at the thought of my DC doing it

We always travelled long distance overnight when the kids were little. By the time they began to bicker, we would make up a bed for the oldest on the back seat, anf for the youngest in the well between the seats- and they happily slept all the way whilst we took it in turn to drive through the night- by the time they woke up it was breakfast time, and we wer almost wherever we were going (usually my parents in Switzerland) (1970s)

There were certainly no seatbelts in the back of our car in 1985 - I remember because we were involved in a motorway accident. DD1 and DS were OK thankfully, slid onto the floor, one minor injury, and DD2 slept through it all in her car seat.

Aged 14, my parent put me on the train in Lausanne to go and visit relatives in Milan... Mum asked a lady who 'looked quite nice' to keep an eye on me- about 5 hours on train and uncle picked me up in Milan...

As a teenager I hitch-hiked all over the place...

I tried, as much as possible, to give my children the same kind of carefree, happy childhood that I had enjoyed. I did walk them to school as there were so many more cars around than when I used to walk to and from school and drivers manners also seemed to diminish with regard to pedestrians.

My GC are very lucky that they are able to enjoy exactly the same here.

I used to go to school alone on the bus when I was six. Mum used to put me on it, 10 minute journey, then I'd walk to school at the other end. She was pregnant with my brother and had horrendous morning sickness so she used to throw up on the bus if she came with me. Interestingly I worked at the same school as a teacher and I know any Year 1 child coming to school on their own like that would have had social services involvement very quickly. but in the 1950s it just seemed normal.

I got the bus to school and back on my own at 8-9 I would get the key from next-door neighbour and let myself in when I got back. I'll never forget the day a car hit me on a zebra crossing whilst I was going to catch the bus. A policeman came to the house next day. I agreed that there had been a parked car obscuring the drivers view. There hadn't, but I thought I would be in trouble.
I didn't know anyone with a car until my half sister met the guy that later became her husband. I was about 12 then. My best friend and I would walk the mile to the beach on our own and spend the day swimming. We were 11-12 at the time.
I used to strap DD carry cot on the back seat using the seat belt. The thought horrifies me now. I had a 'proper' rear facing car seat by the time DS was born.

J52 mine was called a mummy's car too!

We travelled all over Europe in the moggie; people used to point at it saying 'baum'. We also went camping in northern France in a mini when my daughter was a baby; I'd love to relive that holiday because I still can't work out how everything fitted into the car . What made it worse was my daughter was scared of the beach and wouldn't go onto it till the last day of the holiday.

I had a white 2CV and took it all the way to the south of France one year, with a 5 year old and a 2 year old in the back. That was an interesting journey, and a memorable one. I sold it to my sister-in-law eventually, and she passed it on to her daughter. I don't know what its eventual fate was.

I used to love having to pick up speed downhill to get up the other side. But what used to really interest me were the lengths some people would go to to get past me, as though it were an insult to their dignity to follow a 2CV (or the lawnmower as a male friend used to call it ). One man drove his car on to a pavement to get past me on the inside

A few years ago we were travelling oop north and the motorway was full of 2cv's. Turned out there was a huge rally for them that week. Some had litle trailers attached. The only thing that would have made me go 'aah' more would have been a Morris 1000 Traveller rally.

Every time my young sons saw one they yelled " a mummycar " they still do: both in their 30s!!x

Shall we turn this into a 2CV appreciation society? X

We've had 2CVs in the faily since 1950 - in the UK I had 3. I had to give up on the last one in the end, as I had to get it started by pushing it along our long drive, then across the main road down the hill and jump in as it was picking up speed- and it would then start! When it failed to do so twice and I got to work more than 2 hours late (I worked in a town about 10 miles north of where I lived)- I just had to buy a new car and 2CVs were no longer available. That was truly the end of an era for me... Our kids and friends loved going Youth Hostelling in the Peak District and Norfolk in the 'xxxxxmobile' (xxxxx my first name)...

Granjura and Kitty, I had two lovely 2CVs in succession, first one succumbed to rust on the floor. I must admit that the very young DSs loved a short ride standing on the seat and waving out of the roof. No chid in car laws in the 80s. They did have special harness seats for proper journeys!

But, as a baby DS 1 was just in the carry cot harnessed to the seat in the back. I wish we had had the baby seats they have now. From car to home with no disturbance and so safe. X

Granjura, my first car was a 2CV and I cried buckets when DH insisted it wasn't safe and bought me a Volvo!!

As soon as I went to High school at eleven, mum went to work full time. On Monday morning I took the washbag to the local laundry on my way to school, and collected the wet washing on my way home, (oh the embarrassment).
School was a ten minute walk to the bus-stop and then a 15 minute journey, and after I got home I had to lay and light the fire, prepare and start to cook the evening meal, and then do my homework.
On Saturday mornings I did all the shopping.
All good experience for me.

Just remembered that I was a latchkey kid at 8 or 9 onwards...At primary school I had my front door key on a piece of thin ribbon round my neck! I wasn't the only one, either.

We only spent two years in England during the fifties but I remember, aged 8, walking half a mile on my own to get the bus for school and changing buses twice on the long journey. I often think of this when I see kids these days being transported door to door.

My mother couldn't have cared less where any of us were, I think her mother was the same with her and my aunt and uncle as long as they turned up for tea. My cousins and I aged between 3 and 11 would all be shoved into two rowing boats for the day on the Thames, near Runnymede, with a picnic to have on the anchorwick. We would catch tiddlers and paddle and swim and almost go down weirs...

My own children now 29 and 19, were not allowed anywhere on their own until they were nine. Even that would be just to go to sweet shops and the library while I was shopping. Or a hundred yards away to a friend's house. Moving back into the countryside, things relaxed hugely. My son aged 12 was travelling along the river in a dinghy to the next town with his friends, just as I used to, and they walked for miles to the nearest swimming lake. Ex was livid was he found out that I was allowing DD to go around the town shopping with her friends, aged 14! Yet only the previous year he had made her walk back to a nightclub in Corfu at 3am all on her own because she had left her purse behind.

We all smoked at school when in the 6th Form- at break time we would run out to light up at the bottom of the stairs, and teh caretaker would come and clean up the fag ends at the end of breaktime!!!

Actually, when I think back, we only had a couple of male teachers at any one time, so it would have been quite lonely for them if they'd had to use their own staff room!