Things you remember from your childhood that would not be ok today!

Suddenly a whole lot of memories came flooding back, from primary school in the 1980s.

When I fell and hit my head in the playground at primary school, a teacher took me straight to the nearby hospital in her car: she decided on the spot it wasn't a matter of school first aid. As far as I remember, she didn't even tell the office: she just took me straight out. It was before the school day started, so the adult I was with came too, and was able to bring me back afterwards.

When I was ill, the school flatly refused to call my dad because "he'd be busy at work", and the paperwork clearly stated that he was much easier to contact than my mum; and even I knew this. I had to stay in school until the end of the day. My dad wrote a polite letter in the next day to put them right.

The "getting changed for PE" routine, at primary: everybody down to vest and pants, put on shoes without socks, with the stern order "put your heels in your shoes!", walked to assembly hall, past the other classrooms of children who would giggle.

The teacher would always lock the classroom door when we were out of it; perhaps because we had proper scissors in those days. She would count us through the door, saying "hurry up, or you'll get locked in!" Once she did actually lock it while two children were still inside. She did unlock it again after a short pause.

One of the worst sins children could commit was doing something without being told, even if it was obvious we'd be told to do it in a moment. One teacher wrote "kitten" on the board, and so did more than half the class. She then did a slow march round the classroom, throwing children's books on the floor. She then made them pick them up, and hold them up in front of the class. After they had sat down, she said in a kinder voice "now write the word 'kitten'".

There was no corporal punishment (although some older teachers talked wistfully about it), but some teachers used to yank a child by the wrist while telling them off, and drag them around, perhaps saying "if I had my way, I'd be slapping you hard".

I overheard a boy telling a teacher that another boy had weed on him. The teacher casually discussed with the head what to do about it, in front of other children; they decided to make the offender write about it, and not be allowed to go to the toilet again that day, saying "if he wets himself, too bad". I'm not sure if they were joking or not.

Nothing particularly wrong with these, and actually I think some brave teachers might do these today: some boys who laughed when told off were then made to laugh in a mirror. Another time, some children who were playing with sticks in the playground were told not to, because they might go in somebody's eye. When they kept doing it, they were made to miss their next playtime, and they were blindfolded (sitting apart from everyone else), so they would know what it was like to lose sight. We had recently learned the story of Louis Braille.

At secondary school, the boys in years 7 and 8 were often made to play sports in "shirts, or skins": one side had to go bare-chested, to set them apart from the other side. This was outdoors on cold days as well.

Omg the smoke was just awful, wasn't it?

I remember my stepdad used to smoke on the toilet in the downstairs loo, which was basically just a tiny cupboard, certainly no windows. He'd smoke an entire fag in there and when I went in afterwards I couldn't breathe. I used to spray loads of air freshener, thinking it would help clear the smoke and then I'd get in trouble for using it. They never twigged it was because I couldn't breathe, and I certainly didn't dare complain.

They'd smoke in the car with the windows up too and roll their eyes at us coughing in the back.

Hitting was beginning to become less acceptable in the 90s but my parents definitely still did it. Once I was at a friend's house and her mum took off her shoe and threw it at my friend, she missed and it hit me, but she didn't even apologise, she just carried on ranting at my friend like I wasn't there, and then she got sent to her room and I was awkwardly stood there like, "do I go too?" 😄

Yeah that's got beyond ridiculous. DD2 could meet me at the gate or walk with her friend to their house or the church club a couple of mins down road from year 4. Yet same school a decade later ( same head as well,) and you would be expected to go to the classroom door of year 5 and 6 to collect kids.Not even allowed to walk across playground.

DS left there 10 years ago so heaven knows what it's like now.

No big gates though.

And I remembered something else

My parents were very strict and we had to behave ourselves. There was definitely no swearing.

My uncle gave my dad an eight track cassette tape recorder for the car and a few of the cassettes to go with it

One of the cassettes was I think an art Garfunkel collection and there is a song where the words were

When I think back to all that crap I learnt in high school

My brother and I would sit on the backseat of the car and sing this as loud as we could really accentuating the word crap

We thought we were both really clever, but apparently later years we found out our parents thought it was hilarious

My mum used to do something similar.

She was now I think about it a really straitlaced parent at the time so I’m not sure if she would do this out of anger or to give us a thrill 😂

We weren't tracked

The same school I walked alone to from Y3 now doesn't even let kids leave alone until Y5 AND they have to have written parental permission.
It also now has double gates (as in one set of huge metal electric gates, a short walk and then a second set of huge electric gates) to get in and out of the playground. In my day, it was completely open, and locals would take shortcuts through it to get to the shops 😄

My parents would drag us on holiday every year (same place,same hotel,same rooms just a different year)

Every single night,they would piss off to the pub a few miles away,leaving us in the room,get pissed out of their skulls and stagger home

One night a woman wandered into the hotel,found their room unlocked,got into their bed and was smoking away inches from my brothers face

My parents came back,found her and kicked her out before going to bed themselves

Guess who was the most judgemental of the mccanns for leaving their kids and having a meal yards from their room years later?

Nowadays,they'd find themselves the subject of ss,but not in the mid 80's,it was just a funny story to tell their mates-they where more pissed off over the fact she was smoking than the fact she could have ran off with one of us

If we ran out of seats in the car,one or two would sit in the boot and another in the footwell

The seat belt laws came in the day we where coming home from holiday and the car we where travelling in didn't have seat belts

We where told to sit and be still in the back

A mate of my mother's would come round,smoke a pack of 20 and then go home again

No thought to us kids

Ditto my chain smoking grandmother and aunt-the air would be thick with smoke but nobody opened a window

(In fact,if we said we couldn't breathe,we'd get a smack for whinging)

My brother had really bad asthma and nobody bothered-they just carried on chugging on their fags

Smacking wasn't an issue-my mother broke a cricket bat over my back and her friend grabbed my recorder and belted her ds so hard,it shattered

Nobody bothered about it-perfectly normal

In fact we'd go to school covered in bruises and nobody asked where we got them from

A lot of the things my parents did were already frowned upon even in the 90s, so definitely unacceptable now.

Constantly left in charge of my little brother and sister at age 11-13. Most of the time not even asked, they would just go out and assume I'd take care of things. Late nights too.

Walked to school alone from age 7.

Never a seatbelt in sight, travelled in boots often. Mum used to put us to bed in the back of the campervan or leave us playing cards at the table while she drove.

Played out alone until 10pm in the summer, with my parents having no clue where we were

And hit a lot, with belts, shoes and hands.

Saturday morning children's cinema - somewhere cheap for parents to leave their children while they did the shopping - chaotic popcorn throwing arena with a badly dubbed Czechoslovakian film about a boy and his pet reindeer playing in the background.

if you and your friend snook into his/her house to “sneak” an apple to eat and his/her mum caught you she’d say “go on out and play -get out from under my feet you horrible lot!” I lived opposite friends for a decade but the inside of their houses was a mystery largely …

We literally spent from dawn to dusk outside playing. We had adventures on the building site, sliding down huge piles of mud and stones. We had one memorable big trip to the sewage farm where we climbed the wire fence and Michael dipped his toe in.

On one occasion I walked aged 8 a couple of miles down the canal to where a lady lived with her grown up sons and said that yes we would like to buy the boat she had for sale. Later that week one of the grown up sons turned up at our doorstep to ask my mother if she really wanted a boat … 🤣

Parents had little idea what we were up to!

It's still like that at the primary school in my town (except parents don't drop off, kids just walk there and play in the playground before school starts). If it's cold enough they open the doors so they can hang out in the foyer to keep warm.

All the boredom taught me how to entertain myself. I would happily spend hours walking in a circle round my room while I daydreamed, or I acted out my daydreams in my room or outside.
We also always had plenty of books in the house thankfully and went to the library most weekends so I always had something to read (didn't mind rereading books for the nth time)

I feel bad that children these days often don't get a chance to be bored and develop their imagination and learn how to entertain themselves.

Pretending to smoke with kids candy stick cigarettes. They were actually white with a red tip just like a lit ciggarette

Our dog was also allowed out on his own. We did live in a little village though. When we got to secondary - which was in town - I’d frequently hear cries of ‘there’s a dog on the field’ and it would always be my dog. And a 45 minute walk uphill to take him home.

We did eventually move into town where he stopped being allowed to wander.

Brilliant that it was the headmaster doing this!

Someone asked my brother what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said, "An IRA sniper".

He'd just heard the term and thought it sounded cool. We were the only Catholics on the street. I think we watched less TV news after that.

We also had a dog we just let out.

Then we moved and she couldn't do that as there was too much traffic. But she didn't know that. One day my mum opened the door to find the dog on a lead with a stranger. The stranger was the dog warden! he'd found her wandering so once he put the lead on she brought him home.

Our next door neighbours started to buy dig biscuits for her. I think they were Boneo, anyway she had them sussed, when the daughter got home from school she went round for a Boneo, then when mum came home she did the same and then had a third visit when dad came home.

@maxelly on the TV thing, do you remember when ITV went on strike? And coin operated TV?

And when we went on holiday there would be no TV in your room, we often went to France and stayed in self catering so we would have 2 weeks with no TV.

And the boredom is probably why I know how to sew, embroider, tat, rug make, make macrame owls with big wooden beads for eyes, make lace, knit, crochet.

Going to our capital city on the train from age 13 with my friend to stay with her family for weekends. While there we made our own way around the city, mainly to concerts. She was pretty streetwise though 🤣

Doing a 300 mile car journey in the boot of my dad’s estate car with my sister and cousin , there ferre 8 of us in a 5 seater car . We used to take a pillow and blanket and gave a blast sleeping in the boot

Oh gee, you’ve reminded me about loving the smell of Tippex … BEFORE ingredients were changed so as not to send us all doo-lally…

After I relocated to another city, my former male teacher (in his late 20s) began sending me many postcards with messages like 'lovely ImMeMeMe,' 'cute ImMeMeMe,' etc. I was only 11 years old at the time, and this continued for a while. I found it incredibly uncomfortable and upsetting—I truly hated it.

Oh I remember this too! - my dog would sometimes pop out to see her mate down the lane.
My dad used to take the dog to work with him, which was about 5 mins walk from my primary school. She would sometimes turn up in my school playground enticed by the sounds of kids - she was a good dog so was always allowed to stay and play with us and then I would take her back at the end of break 😂.
(Late 70s)

My dad used to drop me at primary school at 8.15 (on his way to work) and I’d just hang around the playground until the bell went at 9. Loads of people did the same thing.

When my eldest started school 5 years ago I was genuinely appalled that this is no longer a thing and that I’d have to send her to breakfast club 😂

My Dad taught me to drive (just around the oil company town) at around the age of 14.

We lived in the Middle East, in an expat oil company town. I went to boarding school in the UK and i would fly there and back for the holidays on my own from the age of 11. I suppose a cabin crew member kept an eye on me but i don't remember. I do remember buying duty free fags from age 13. I could pass for 14, the age they could sell the DFs to you.
The country, Kuwait, went 'dry' in the mid 60s and the expats began making their own beer and wine. Some had a still to make spirits. Totally illegal but there was always some very dubious hooch called 'Flash' or 'White Lightning' around at teenage parties. It was horrendous and I'm surprised no-one died, to be honest.