Favourite childhood pastime

I loved my Post Office set and played with it for hours.

Colouring but I couldn't bear the thought of the adult colouring that is produced now.

Reading. And playing with my Spirograph...happy hours were passed making all sorts of patterns.

Dinky Toys. I had a large selection, of over 200. But when we left Malaya, my mother said I was too old for such things and gave them away, she also did the same with my Meccano. I think my father really wanted a boy

I also liked playing with paper dolls. My mother used to buy the cutting out books for me, but I also liked to make my own. I made families for my dolls house and all their clothes. Kept me busy for hours. I also had a train set that I was very fond of - the Duchess of Montrose, with a Pullman, and a mail coach that picked up little bags of mail as it whizzed round the track! Outside, it was seemingly endless games of marbles, and paddling in the river collecting water snails. If you had seen our local urban river you would wonder why I am still here to tell the tale ?.

Me too,(the cardboard dolls) Double ball,remember that,we used to drive my poor mum mad playing up against the kitchen door.

Reading reading reading!! Drove my parents mad. How many parents would like their child to do that today though?

I used to make my own ' dressing up dolls' . I had a shoe box full. Also skipping, two balls and whip and top. I lived in a long street and only one family had a car. So all us children played all day in the street or the surrounding fields

Going into the woods, climbing trees, watching wildlife, pick wildflowers- swimming in lakes, skiing and ice-skating in winter.

Reading when it rained and skipping, especially in the road with 2 of us holding a washing line and jumping in an out and singing the rhymes. I couldn't get enough of it.
Then out with the dog ( dogs took themselves for walks in those days) and we saw him in the park and whistled him and watched him running over the grass to meet up with us.

playing horses

My sister and me would play with Dinky toys too Pippa000, those and a wooden garage would keep us happy for hours. We lived in the country so we spent most of the good weather days playing out, would roam for what seemed like miles. We played with a giant tipper truck in the brook, mud made an excellent load. If friends were about we played Cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, gerries and allies. Swinging in an old tin bath hung from a branch. Always time for reading too. Such a shame children nowadays do not have the same freedom

Loved the paper dolls too. I think my favourite tho was playing Two Balls against the alley wall. You had different throws/ actions going from 5 to 4 to 3 etc. very few if any books in the house so only got into reading a lot later. A pity as I remember hours of boredom especially on Sundays when not allowed to play out on the estate as it was 'common'.

When the weather prevented outdoor play, then paper dolls, reading, table tennis, anything creative like collecting lolly sticks and making things out of them, or making clothes for my dolls out of any scraps of material I could cadge from people.
In good weather I loved going for long cycle rides with friends, taking a picnic, looking for tiddlers and newts in local streams. Climbing trees, gathering wild flowers, roller skating. In the summer holidays I could be found most days at the swimming pool with friends.

Oil painting by numbers.

Reading - lost in the world of 'The Magic Faraway Tree' and anything else I could lay my hands on to the point of not hearing anything .

Also, I had 'Bayko' building set which was wonderful; I built rock solid models of bay windowed houses and played with them for hours. This amazing construction game is no longer made.

If raining, paper dolls, table tennis, jigsaws, reading. Hornby train set. If outdoors, hopscotch, ball, marbles, sledging, yes even in summer, coal tips had their uses , tadpoles, arrows, and Saturday morning cinema

Reading. I would be completely lost in my world of fantasy. Also loved something I think was called Pegorama, just little pegs to put in tiny holes on a board to make patterns, very intricate and kept me busy for hours.

Loved Enid Blyton books, especially the St Clare and Mallory Towers ones and also the Famous Five. Loved my Lego too, and the paper dress-up dolls. Anyone else used to play with a ball in an old long sock? We used to stand by a wall and bounce it around yourself! (Sounds vey odd eh?)

Reading, mainly Enid Blyton Famous Five and Mallory Towers.

Riding

Making dens under the hedges

Sitting on the pig pen rooves

Climbing the apples trees and eating the apples

Ditto the cherry trees

Most of the time I also had to look after my younger siblings which is probably why I put myself out of reach in trees and on rooves!

Playing Hide and Seek could last for hours especially if there was a larger group of children. The first one to be 'it' would decided by counting rhyme.
Skipping ropes, double balls, climbing trees and picking blackberries.

In the summer going off all day with one or two other kids and take a picnic, lived in the Vale of Neath in Wales.Would never have let my children do that, so sad really. Riding my bike, off on that as soon as I came home from school. Reading for hours, outside in warm ŵeather. Colouring books, most of my pocket money was spent on one every Saturday in Neath market and the newsagent is still there. Cock and hen with my father at the riverside, tadpoling the stream, poo sticks on the little bridge by the canal only we didn't call it "poo sticks" which sounds too posh. Sliding down an incline in the snow on a biscuit tin lid or opened out crisp box. Really miss seeing the seasons change in the countryside, so true that you don't miss things until they've gone.

Reading, paper dolls. My father gave me a set of woodworking tools and I did fretwork.
I had a sister ten years younger than me so I had to have her with me a lot of the time, that put paid to anything adventurous.

I well remember skipping with a huge rope to skipping songs, whip and top, onesies and twosies against a wall and having a book with scraps in and charging "a pin ,a pin , a pin to dip in"
What I can't understand is how we would come to the playground with the correct toy. No-one said lets do skipping tomorrow and it seems as if each activity lasted for several weeks.
I loved Thursdays...Children's Hour serial .Books were favourites with a good 30 minute walk to the library and then having your hands looked at to see if they were clean enough to have a precious NEW book
Always playing out with a small group ...I can vaguely remember a game called tin can tommy, but can't remember
Dressing up gave endless pleasure as did paper dolls , crayoning and so on. So many lovely things to do
I was born just before the war !.