Utterly insane things your parents did when you were growing up

On holiday in the family caravan, my grandma used to coat us in a layer of lard to help us tan...

My Dad worked in a knitwear factory as the Maintenance and Boiler Man. The enormous boiler was fuelled by coal/coke but, depending on which way the wind blew, was cantankerous. Because he didn't swear, my Dad used to say to Mum that "the Old Witch" was playing up. He often threatened to bring the Witch home if we misbehaved - it was years before we realised!

He also used to throw an old mattress in the back of our 3-wheeler van, lift us out of bed in the middle of the night, and just drive. Many a morning we woke up with a view of the beach, forest, or hills and were amazed at how we got there.

But, on hot days, we used to beg to go to the beach, 20 miles away, "with everyone else". He refused to get stuck in traffic jams, so used to drive us in the opposite direction into London. We spent many a hot day traipsing around London I can tell you!

Mum used to buy me thermal vests and knickers from the damart catalogue until i was SIXTEEN

Don't know if anyone else had this happen but my Nana used to heat the poker in the fire til it was red hot then touch the ends of my hair with it. Apparently this gave you curly hair

Problem was my hair was then, and still is now, very naturally curly

The best thing she did was give us all a stick of rhubarb with a twist of suger to dip. It's a wonder any of us have a tooth in our heads

My mother is convinced my brother stopped breathing when he was a baby when he cried too much- the solution? Throw cold water on him! Every time my babies cry, she flaps around screeching 'Why is he crying? Don't let him cry! DB stopped breathing because he cried so much! If he stops breathing, splash cold water on him!!' It drives me potty! I have no idea how she brought up two children!

I have to confess I have a vw camper van with a homemade wooden, rear bench seat. The back of the seat is held up with a curtain pole and if I brake hard the seat slides forward and the back slips down under the curtain pole and lands in the boot.

I do put dd in a car seat on this seat. I did eventually find a garage that fitted a lap belt after other garages refused to do it as they said the seat is a death trap. I don't use it often but did go all the way to Paris a couple of years ago with her in the back. I normally make dh sit in the back but sometimes I need him to map read.

My dad not only used to make his own wine but his own yoghurts as well. There would be twenty four little pots set up in the bathroom every fortnight. They were foul.

Me and my brother were allowed to travel in the boot of dads hatchback for a treat. I used to love lying in there looking up at the sky.

Mum And dad took me and my brother and two other kids out for the day and with encouragement for us did 100mph up the a1. No seat belts, we were all stood up in the back leaning over to see the speedo!

When I was at primary school in the winter my mum made me wear a green parka (think kenny from south park), a balaclava, and she made reflective strips that were safety pinned to my coat sleeves. I left that school when I was seven and then at sixteen started collage and a boy there remembered me and howled with laughter about my balaclavas and reflective strips.

When it snowed either my parents or another parent in the neighbourhood would have the turn of tying a sledge to their rear bumper. All the kids would queue up for turns to get whizzed round the streets. Would be hanging on round the corners and often fall off and have to chase after the car. I remember reading in the paper a few years ago that someone did this and was seen on CCTV. The national papers were horrified and the bloke was tracked down and arrested and charged. Social services were involved!

My family are renowned in the bohemian area where they have lived for generations for being outrageously eccentric In fact when I started university a lecturer asked me if I was related to the eccentric insert highly unusual surname of boho area . My mother's response when I relayed the tale to her was "better to be thought a millionaire eccentric than a poor fool"

I remember going every Sunday for high tea to my great grandmother's house - she had a small monkey that spent most of its time sat on the curtain pole in her parlour. My siblings and I loved it when it would run down, grab a cake from the table and race back up the curtains but the adults never batted an eyelid. She also had a minor bird that sang sea shanties .

Granny kept a baby alligator in her bath which my cousins and I would prod with wooden spoons and then run shrieking from the bathroom when it snapped at us . I never thought to ask where the alligator went when they bathed

My father rescued 2 goats and brought them home for us as pets. We loved them and used to walk them to school with us every morning where fellow pupils would sneak out their lunches to feed to the goats instead lol. (we were not living in a rural setting but no one thought this odd of us). Not sure what happened to them in the end, I have a sneaking suspicion we may have eaten them

My father thought it easier and completely acceptable to remove a hedge by tying a rope round offending hedge, attaching it to his car and driving at high speed in the opposite direction

He also believed that plastic milk crates were the answer to EVERY building problem - apologies if you ever bought a house that had milk crates supporting the raised floor

I once let him look after my twins for a couple of hours (one and only time lol) He took them to the park to play but tied a 25m length of rope round each of their waists (one at either end) and then stood in the middle and let them wander where they will . I'm amazed someone didn't report him to SS

My siblings and I often say we will never know when dad has gone senile as he won't change a bit

School disco circa 1983, i wanted a pair of skin tight black satin trousers to look all 'new romantic'. Mum gets flared pair from charity shops and alters them but is rubbish seamstress so one leg up way, way narrower than the other - did feel kind of strange.

Bless her, she was not much better at knitting, had always grown out of jumpers by the time they were finished - still had to wear them though. Then she bought a knitting machine but it was so complicated all she could make was scarves, we had hundreds of em....

mumzy-my dad fitted locks on all our down stairs doors. The idea was that if a burglar got in through the window, they were unable to get into the rest of the house. I don't think he thought about the fact that the burglar would just break through the door!
I was terrified of opening the doors when we returned home incase a man in a black and white stripped jumper ran out at us.

My mother used to play hunt the thimble with us, but instead of 'warmer warmer, very hot, cold etc' she used to sing a song called 'How green you are' (same words repeated ad infinitum) and if her singing got louder you were warmer, if she was whispering you were cold.

We also used to have an old anthracite burner which heated the water and the radiators. It was permanently lit, and every couple of days mum would remove the clinker with a big shovel, and then carry a shovel full of red hot clinker across the living room, through the kitchen, through the walk in larder to a metal bin outside.

I remember the feeling of excitement when I was deemed old enough to remove the clinker and take it on its final journey

We had a mini van and dad bolted an old wooden bus bench in the back for us to sit on (and slide along)
Dad and male family friend going night fishing, mum and blokes wife going night clubbing. In Margate. By bus. From Maidstone. Leaving 5 girls aged 3 to 8 home alone ALL NIGHT (all together though so we were safe...)
Leaving sis and I home alone when picking dad up from work. That stopped after the time they arrived back at the same time as the fire brigade. (kitchen fire)
Being wedged, 5 to a pram (aged newborn to 4) in the fields whilst mum and friend fruit picked (there was only room for 1 pram in the back of the farmers sheep truck that we all sat in.

LQ We too sat on old sofas/ garden furniture in the back of my dads works van on many trips down to see my aunt in London....we had a great time slip sliding around and reading our old back copies of "Smash Hits" and listening to our tapes on the ghetto blaster

Dodgy haircuts (I spent one summer looking like a vampire with dyed balck hair and v shaped fringe) and home perms....ugh.

Awful cheap nylon shiny pants bought "from a man at the pub"

My parents are paranoid about room doors blowing open when they're out and setting of their ancient ( fitted in 80s) alarm system so dad fitted all the doors with slide locks on the OUTSIDE! Everytime they go out there is a tedious process of ensuring all the rooms are locked and visitors think it's either weird or hilarious. However one day when we were visiting with 2 yr old ds during lunch we realized mum had disappeared half way through. A search revealed she had been to the loo and ds had been playing with the outside lock and locked her inside. She was not happy as she ' d been there for half an hour and had been banging on the door to alert us to her predicament.

Lovely funny, nostagic thread..

1. We were not allowed to watch grange hill on telly because the accents were too 'common', despite having strong yokel accents ourselves - think worzels and you're halfway there.

1. Mum made our old tshirts into hot water bottle covers

1. Dad would pretend he was rubbish at changing plugs and hold our spaniels paw over the switch so HE wouldn't get electrocuted. This would have me squealing in terror.

1. Hairdresser that came to our house persuaded my mum that i needed 'root lift' perm. For some unknown reason this was only required for my fringe and small side sections. Result - poodle permed fringe / rest of hair limply hanging poker-straight AND my mum wouldn't even let me have next day off school.

The other thing I remember is being given biscuits off the supermarket shelf to eat while we were shopping - she always showed the empty packet at the checkout but I was TERRIFIED we'd be arrested.

Dosey - my Mum too - she refuses to spend money on cleaning cloths, I don't think I actually realised they could be bought until I left home. Though she preferred my Dad's giant white y-fronts, and still has not run out of supplies even though he has been dead for 12 years! It makes helping with the housework oddly emotional.

She also made sure I understood the shameful waste of throwing away tigts with a ladder, by demonstrating the technique of cutting off the laddered leg on two pairs and then wearing two one-legged pairs together - "and the best thing is you get a double gusset to hold your tummy in!"

my mum, who is a very large (but lovely) lady used to use her old knickers for dusters!!!

Fabulous thread!

Oh yes I used to get to do the driving thing too, sitting on my Dad's lap in the Land Rover and steering happily along the main road, changing gears .

My Dad also encounged me and my friends to do this mad racing game on anything with wheels down our incredibly steep driveway. Luckily on the other side of the main road across which we used to shoot, completely out of control, there was a fence which we would crash into to stop before we hit the sea.

When I was about 5, my grandfather decided to 'teach' me to sail by putting me in a boat and casting me off into the sea. He told me that if I came back, I'd learned to sail.

My parents used to buy really, really rough red wine in these huge 10 litre bottles and we'd have periodic 'wine decanting' days when the whole family including the kids would fight to suck the wine up through a tube to siphon it into bottles. Everyone invariably ended up quite drunk, and it's only now that I'm wondering why we didn't just use a funnel...

Oh and me and my mum once found a load of students picking magic mushrooms in a field. We picked a load too and then handed them to the students who were very embarassed at being given magic mushrooms by someone's mum.

My dad used to put potassium permanganate in the bath to make the water go purple. Just for fun. And he'd go to the butcher for cows eyes and leave them in the fridge. I have to point out that he was a science teacher, not into eating cows eyes!

He also used to make elderflower champagne. One year there was some kind of super reaction and it exploded all over our tiny back yard. One bottle set all the others off and it was actually fountaining so hard we couldn't go in the yard till it stopped. Very exciting for us kids.

He read "the dice man" (horrible book) and decided to go on holiday decided entirely by dice - ie get off the ferry and let the dice decide if you go left or right, roll again to decide which hotel, that sort of thing. He actually took a set of dungeons and dragons dice in case there were decisions with 4 outcomes or twelve outcomes!