Favourite childhood pastime

My Spirograph loved it

Horse riding,reading....and cartwheeling everywhere

I played for hours with my dolls, they were the best-beloved and best behaved dolls ever and got on well with all the teddies.

In good weather I loved my swing and my scooter.

How thrilled I am to read about this groups love of paper dolls. I actually collect them and have thousands of sets. If you are interested you can also buy paper dolls on my Etsy site ( Paperdollcircle)

I loved those mosaic sets.

Does anyone remember those metallic colourful mosaic sets? I had one of those and used to make patterns with it. Fuzzy felt was great too. My dad made me stilts which I loved and used to walk up and down the quiet road outside our house. I loved being outside so I wasn't really a dolly girl. Loved my bike and roller skates.

I had a brunette Tressy. She came beautifully done up with her hair up and little hair grips. Once I'd pulled it part I could never get her to look like that again. Mum knitted me a skinny rib dress in red for her as the clothes were a bit expensive to buy.

Me too! I had a posh one once from Father Christmas. It was called 7 in 1. One doll with 7 interchangeable heads and many different outfits to cut out. Always a challenge not to cut off the tabs!

Popping tar bubbles! Remember how hot the weather had to be? Amazing memories...such good clean fun.

printmiss did your mum get the tar off your fingers with butter? Mine did! It worked too.
I used to love painting, from being small, and had an assortment of the usual sort of simple paint boxes you could buy in toy shops. On my 11th birthday, my father took me to an art shop in town and bought me a very smart Reeves black metal paint box with pans and tubes of watercolour. I was so proud of it I wouldn't use it for ages, but when I did, it was a revelation. A couple of years ago, at an antiques fair in Newark, I found a box exactly the same, complete with its cardboard outer cover. One or two of the paints had been used, but only sparingly. I had to have it, purely for nostalgia's sake, but I doubt if I'll ever be able to bring myself to use it.

When we were about 10, my friend and I used to knock on doors where we knew they had a baby. We would ask 'can we take your baby out?' and the mothers would get the baby ready, pop it in its pram and we would take it to the park. In some cases these mothers had never set eyes on us before! The same days when people used to leave babies in prams outside shops.

Throwing a ball against a wall and seeing how far I could get along a very complicated rhyme before dropping it. And running a marked distance whilst timing myself, trying to break my own record.

And stealing next door's raspberries.

yattypung I too remember taking my "bead box" to school and swapping precious "diamonds" with my friends.

All of the above, plus 'snobs' and collecting and swapping coloured beads with my best friends. We kept our collections in a tin, and they were are pride and joy.

I haven't read all these through, there are so many interesting things, BUT, and I am almost ashamed to say this, I was what was known as a "street-raker". We played in the streets all the time, and my favourite pastime, after the roads had been tarred was sitting in the road popping the tar bubbles which had appeared. A really dirty game for us all, but fun.

Reading, drawing, looking after my pets and watching TV.

Reading anything I could.
Had books for Birthdays Christmas and Easter from my DGP.
Loved the Broons and Oor Willie in the Sunday Post
Rupert the bear in the express
Little strip stories at the back of my Mum's Peoples Friend
6 library books a week
Bunty (had cut out dolls and clothes on back cover) and Mandy comics.
When older Look and Learn mags.
Then the Jackie and Music Express

I had husky cars and a Tressy doll (is that how you spell it?) Pulled her tummy button and her pony tail grew.

One of my aunts worked in a sort of sweet shop tobacconist and she would give me the plastic chocolate bars and sweets that they used in the shop window. With this and some tins from the kitchen cupboards I would make my own little shop.
I had a metal cash register that was so heavy and sharp it wouldn't be allowed as a child's toy now.
Another favourite past time I had was playing with a little Hot point twin tub washing machine.
The toy I longed for and never got was a Tiny Tears doll

And riding my bike for absolutely miles. I used to pretend it was a pony as I was obsessed with them still am.

I loved playing 'pom-pom,does anyone else remember that? A bit like hide and seek but the finder has to stay in a fixed spot. The first one 'pom-pommed' (found) was the next finder. Also I loved loved loved roller skating. The scraped knees and bruised toes I ended up with! Must have been a nightmare for my poor mum. It was a miracle that I didn't do myself a serious injury. All that charging around outdoors certainly kept me slim pity it didn't last.

My friends and I used to spend ages digging in each other's gardens looking for "treasure" - bits of coloured glass, pottery (there seemed to be an inordinate amount of broken pottery in everyone's garden!) and other detritus. We once found what we were convinced was a Roman spear head and were only deterred from running off to the museum with it by our friend's parent who told us it was the finial off an iron fence paling! I bet Mortimer Wheeler never suffered such disappointments!

I well remember the end of sweet rationing. My Mum gave my sister and me sixpence, to share of course, and we went off to the little sweet shop down the road. I can't remember what we bought but the sweets were in a white paper bag which looked enormous. Needless to say we did not eat any until we got home. It would have been rude to eat in the street.

I too played with paper dress up dolls, I used to read my enid blyton books (or whatever the local library had available). I loved my hobby horse which I made with a broomstick and a stocking stuffed with old cloths, this was after reading 'hobby horse cottege' I think was by enid blyton.
I also loved gardening and would spend hours just digging and picking weeds.

You could get a quarter of a pound of sweets for sixpence??

Referring to buttons again......my mum used to cut all the buttons from old clothes before they went into the rag bag. When the rag and bone man came round with his wooden handcart, be used to weigh them with a book thing and giver her a few pence. We also used to have a bloke come round every day with a fish cart and we used to buy fish for the cat.(hake)
Gosh, i sound as if I'm about a hundred! Don't forget the gas meter man who used to empty the meter, counting a large pile of sixpences (and a fewforeign coins) if I was lucky, mum used to give me a sixpence .

Thanks for that info Wot. I'll see if I can find a cheaper version, maybe ABEbooks. Sounds like something I would enjoy.