Utterly insane things your parents did when you were growing up

crying with laughter. I thought i was the only one whose mum was a bit bonkers.

my parents were due to go on a business trip (one of those 70s style being schmoozed for business type trips ie a free holiday) but their baby-sitter fell through at the last minute. The hotel in Germany was full - and couldn't fit my brothers in, so, for some rather bizarre reason, they ended up staying in a sailors' refuge type place. My parents went off for their posh dinner on the saturday night and left my brothers (who must have been maximum aged 8 and 6 because I wasn't born) in the company of a load of random sailors drinking rum. but hey. this was the 70s and that's what you did.

We used to go out in the car for picnics (probably only about 10 miles from home) and my parents used to take a little camping stove, kettle, teapot, cups & saucers and a washing up bowl. Yes, they made us all cups of tea then washed up afterwards.

When Mum and Dad went out on a night out, we had this 'routine' where we'd ask who was coming to babysit us.

He used to jovially tell my sister and I, aged about 5 and 7 it was the Boston Strangler, the Yorshire Ripper....and later on it was Jeffrey Dahmer.

Oh and we knew exactly what those men did...he used to read us passages from his books as bedtime reading!!!

Have a guess what my sister studies...yep, Criminology

Yes, 40 Peter Styvesens from the sweet shop...

Ive actually got a school photo of me with a pudding bowl cut and half my fringe missing.

I can remember going to the shop daily for 20 berkley superkings with a note....at 6

MandaHugNKiss that song is one of the MANY versions of There was an old woman, all skin and bones.

I had crap parents so didn't have any fun stuff however, I seem to be making up for it with my friends children (The Cub is a bit young yet) I tell them wind comes from wind farms amongst other things.

Nearly forgot my father was a long distance lorry driver and would sometimes invite hitchikers back to the house I now think it was become they were swingers!

StoringUpSomeOfTheThingsHereForTheCubTiggaxx

I had a friend who had that half head fringe hair cut. It wasn't her mum that did it - but a 'hairdresser' who came round their house.

I have doubts about this hairdresser!

The driving to your holiday remins me of driving to Italy from East Anglia in a pick up truck. (just WHY?!)

MrsRhettButler Cowpats - not bare feet but my new Easter Sandals. yuk

Drive to Spain, for our first holiday abroad, in a Ford Cortina (with Vinyl seats). Twas a 2 day drive, in intense heat, and all our bums stuck to the plastic car seats.

Bigredtractor, I would just like to point out that my pathetic DH still does the honk and wave game, especially to the female of young couples....

My dad used to pay me to load ammunition in the 1970s - by the time I was 10 I knew how to smelt lead and pour it into bullet moulds, prime and load the ammo them pack into into boxes ready for use by the police. I would earn a penny a round!

I still find primers between the floorboards in the attic rooms we used for reloading and when DH and I bought this house from my parents in the early 2000s and had the place rewired, the electrician found several bags of live ammo buried in the sand in the crawlspace under the house

I have just been giggling like fuck at the half head fringe, and the mum with the trike

The splinter thing worked differently in my parents' house - my dad allowed me to dig out his splinters with a needle. It sounds quite brave or stupid to allow your 6 year old to do this, but neither my father or mother's eyesight was good enough. I got proficient fairly quickly.
My father used to wear an ancient coat to carry out any tasks around the house, a posh friend asked me if he was the gardener.

We went for a drive in the countryside most weekends, and my father always took a stove and cooked up a meal of bacon and eggs. once we cleared up and noticed a sign warning of the dangers of forest fires - we all laughed. The notion that we might cause some damage was never considered.

Have you ever stepped in one with bare feet?

Oh the cowpats! Crispy on the top and super gooey inside

In my father's case,invite random men he befriended in pubs back to our home,so that they wouldn't have to pay for a hotel,or because their partners had thrown them out, only to go to work the next day,leaving my mother and myself,toddler age,alone with them.
The most memorable occasion being when he brought a Dutch man home one night,who turned out to be a murder suspect.

Winkyslink, I think your dad was most sensible to have ropes to hold onto in the van, did you use them to swing yourselves around on good corners?

Hmmm.....I was very familiar with cowpats as a child, despite being a townie. My children don't seem to have the same relationship with them.

Yes, we are still a bit like that here with each others kids. Its still not as good as being a child of the 80's though

I seen it on facebook the other day and it made me smile

I was always the first one to be called in when the street lights came on

Fifis25StottieCakes, did you live next door to me?

When you say the neighbors loved you, do you mean they shouted at you and told you off if your were naughty? (But also gave you a slice of cake if you were polite)?

There's too much really, my mum and auntie are both completely insane... They have a tipi/wigwam and we used to stay in it every weekend in the middle of a field shared with cows.
Before my auntie learnt to drive we used to get the bus there and back (a farm just outside the city we live in) and we would have to walk back from the bus station through our neighbourhood on a Sunday evening absolutely disgustingly dirty and stinking of woodsmoke wearing horrible wellies and awfully stinky wax macs looking like little wood children and would be laughed at in school on a Monday morning.

Of course once my auntie learnt to drive she bought a van.... Not just any van... No, an old dry cleaning van with absolutely no back seats so us and our cousins used to fight over who got to sit on the wheel arches

There's more but I've blocked it out

My curfew was the street light.
My parents called my name not my phone.
I played outside with friends not online.
If i didnt eat what was cooked for dinner, then i didnt eat.
Sanitizer didnt exist, but you COULD get your mouth washed out with soap. I rode a bike without a helmet, getting dirty was ok, and most of the neighbours LOVED YOU as much as your parents did.

I posted earlier and then weirdly had the most bizarre argument with my dh over his mistake collecting a Thai takeaway when he paid for someone else's food too. In 30 years time, my eldest daughter will post about how her mummy threw egg fried rice at her daddy, and it all fell on the floor.