To ask what stuff you did as a kid that now seems weird and/or wildly inappropriate

[CheeseyToast]

For whatever reason, today I was reminded of being three years old and lunching with the street cleaner. He drove a little cart/sweeper thing and would take his break sitting on the grass outside our house. I called him The Jigger Man.

When I spotted him, I'd run inside and say, Mim! The jigger man is here! Can I take my lunch outside?

She'd give me little sandwiches wrapped up in paper and I'd rush out to sit beside him on the grass.

Oh I loved my jigger man picnics.

Was I a complete weirdo or did other kids do stuff like this?

[nannybeach]

Playing "kiss chase" with the boys at primary schoo, Oh the gorgeous BURT twins

you show me yours, I ll show you mine!

[DBoo]

Our paper delivery boy used to come in and show my brother's all the latest cheats for their computer games.

I remember a time some people on our estate had done a booze run to France and we were all allowed a little bottle of esp lager 😁

[CatherineTheTiny]

The "hostage game", whenever we visited friends, DSis, their children (who were my/Dsis age) and I would play this. The set up was like this.
The older girl had a second "room" inside her room where she had her desk and lots of toys she didn't use anymore (Old house with weird architecture). That would be our prison. Our younger sisters would play in the room next door and we would wait a bit, "kidnap" them (They were allowed to fight, but no biting, scratching or kicking) and then put them into the tiny spare room. One of us would then guard the door and the other one would go downstairs where the adults were enjoying their tea and ask for snack-contributions as we had to feed our hostages. Meanwhile the little ones would try to escape and when they managed, everyhing would start from the beginning

[Eliza9917]

Travelling in the boot of my dads estate car. I remember seeing the local childminder picking up kids outside primary school and packing them all into her boot.

Playing out all day on our own.

We used to play a game where my uncles girlfriends daughter got locked in the airing cupboard until an adult came up and let her out. They knew she was in there because of her kicking and screaming.

Not sure what else but there's probably loads as I grew up in the 80's.

[Firesuit]

There was nothing strange about the following at the time, but if it happened today, in the UK, I bet SS would be called. Aged 8-12, I went anywhere I wanted to in the few square miles that constituted the town, my parents didn't know where I was, though I was expected to be back for supper. For example, I might go swimming, riding my bicycle on public roads to the public pool a few miles away. If I felt too lazy to ride up the bridge over the railway line, sharing the single lane with lorries, I'd drag my bicycle through a hole in the fence and walk across the tracks. Sometimes I'd put stones on the tracks and wait to see them being crunched by the next train. When I got to the pool, a proper 50m long pool with a deep end so deep you'd struggle to reach the bottom unless you launched yourself off the higher diving board, there was no life guard. It was the customers job not to drown themselves, not local governments job to keep them alive. And that was true even if the customer was still in primary school.

[Testarossa1]

We used to play a game called web. One person would have a huge ball of wool and spend ages wrapping it round furniture (Or plants/trees if outside) zigzagging it all over the place, crossing it over itself, creating a web. Once the wool was used up the other person was given the end and followed the path, climbing through the web and rolling the wool back up. Then you'd swap places. Such a bizarre game but me and my best friend loved it and played it for hours!

[Firesuit]

In contrast to that, I have taken DD aged 6 at the time to a pool in London where she was not permitted to swim in water deeper than she can stand in unless she went and did a swimming test and got a wristband to prove she had passed. As far as I could work out she would have to be tested every time we visited the pool.

(To be clear, it was not permitted even if I swam right alongside her.)

[Shadow666]

Where we used to go camping on holiday, there was a long tunnel and dad used to switch off the car headlights as he was driving through to freak us out. He came to visit us last year and I did the same to him in a tunnel near our house and he went apeshit. What the fuck do you think you are doing? That’s so dangerous! I couldn’t stop laughing!

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

We used to search the railway embankment for abandoned scrap wood, pram wheels etc to build home-made go karts.

[Snowysky20009]

We used to play 'outings'- basically hide and seek over the entire town, and 7 large housing estates/areas. The game would last all day, about 50+ kids would play, aged from 8 ish up. Game always ended when the street lights came on- signalled home time. The only time we'd pop home was to grab a sandwich for lunch (it may not be our home we 'lunched at', but everyone present was fed)- normally white bread, butter and strawberry jam, and the bread would go black from the dirt on our hands.

[Queenoftheblitz]

Me and my friend aged about 9 had a thing for old ladies.
We'd get talking to one on the street and
She would usually invite us in for tea and biscuits.
We would talk about allsorts. And sometimes do her hoovering.
Our parents didn't have a clue what we were doing.

[HoarseMackerel]

Not by choice but I remember being shown a railway safety film which was truly horrific!
I was about 8 maybe?
It involved children dying, blood everywhere and other children carrying out the bodies of their friends.
I had nightmares for weeks after.
As I got older, I became convinced that it didn't happen as surely no one would think it would be suitable for children.
Then I started working with a man of the same age who also remembered it and also said how awful it was. This was in the 70s.
It would never be allowed now!

[defectiveinspector]

Build a bonfire. That entailed collecting/stealing wood, old furniture etc in the weeks before. Guarding the bonfire so that other kids didn't either raid it or dismantle it, raiding, dismantling other kids' bonfires. Light the bonfire, set off the fireworks that we had bought using the money gathered by sitting outside the cinema (latterly bingo hall) asking for penny for the guy. All this from about age 8-12, not one single accident, with the oldest being probably 14 at most, late 1970s

[HappyEverIftar]

Hoarse I think I know the films you're referring to?

About once a term the tv and video player would be wheeled out and we'd have to sit and watch a short film about the dangers of playing on, close or near to railway lines/electricity pylons & sub stations/walking in the dark with no reflective gear on etc. they genuinely distressed me (particularly the electricity ones - iirc they would show the child being electrocuted at the start and cut to frazzled/singed hair at the end) . I knew they were coming when we had to gather as a class and I didn't want to watch it, so the headmaster pulled me to one side and said very loudly to all, that I "was a silly little girl". I'm not sure you could do that now?!

[HoarseMackerel]

Happy they were horrific!
I also remember the dread of knowing we'd have to watch them and feeling really upset.

[PointyBirdsAnointyNointy]

I love that Shadow666

[liz70]

The film is called "The Finishing Line".

Most disturbing thing about it is how hefty a lot of primary school children today look compared to the Lowry like twiglets in the film.

[Hoobledoop]

Queenoftheblitz that bit about hoovering made me laugh. But it was very sweet.

[liz70]

"Apache" is the one about kids playing with dangerous farm equipment, and of course "The Spirit of Dark Water" warning not to play near ponds and other bodies of water. I think there was also the one about not flying kites near power lines? All of them designed to strike fear into the heart of any 70s child.

[AnneWiddecombesHandbag]

I remember one where some kids found some Victorian graves on a farm where kids had died from farming accidents. As the film went on all the modern day kids fell victim to the same accidents. The one I always remember is the child drowning in the grain silo.

[Earlyup]

I remember two awful films: one with a boy who got electrified by a power line (shown at school) and one with a guy who got stuck in a tractor (think that was late night at home). Did what they were supposed to do!

[SeamstressfromTreacleMineRoad]

Oh those Public Information Films... Can anyone else now hear the voice of Donald Pleasance intoning, 'I am the spirit of dark and lonely water'...?
Mind you - they were effective; after watching the one about the boy who killed his Mother by not wearing a seatbelt, I was always VERY careful to ensure that everyone was belted up - even before it became law..!

[liz70]

Yes, I think the farm one is "Apache", Anne. Certainly sounds like it.

[mrspapalazarou]

We used to roll up paper into a tube, fill it with talcum powder and pretend it was a cigarette!

Don't know if you can still buy them but I have dvds of those films they released a few years ago called Charley Says (after the greatest public information ad campaign of all time). Truly terrifying

[MrsSchadenfreude]

We used to swim in the river unsupervised from about the age of8.