Crap 'hobbies' you had as a child.

[DrMadelineMaxwell]

I used to go around the village where I used to live with my notebook and pen and write down number plates. I can still recall my Dad's car plate.

This is a cause of much mirth to my kids who have clearly never known the heady excitement of a long sunday afternoon pre internet days.

@Livebythecoast you've just made login for the first time in years to say I had a cheek-a-boo I loved that thing so much when I saw your picture I got such an overwhelming happy emotion.

I bucked the trend and made cardboard homes for wood lice, with windows made from sellotape.

I used to rollerskate around my patio for hours, round and round, I will confess to the fact I was squashing those tiny read spiders 🕷 sorry.

I remember at school they used to have a book club? You'd get a magazine and take it home and your parents could order, and the school would hand out books? I was 4 and I begged and begged for a book all with different fonts.. it was Wiro bound my mum finally caved and I spent hours and hours drawing out my name in the different fonts... writing anything over, turns out I now run a design agency 👍 still love my fonts.

Anyone remember "raggedy Ann and Anne" Or something like that with a camel in the story?

So many memories, I feel so lucky to grow up in the 70s/80s

@Lurleene oh my gosh! We lived with my grandparents in the mid 80s for a few years. Next door had an only child who was a year older than me. I thought she was wonderful.

With the backdrop being the Miners Strike, my parents having just seperated and me coming to terms with being a Southener in a very Northern town... Dempsey and Makepeace was my fantasy go-to.

I'd play for hours over the fence with the NDN girl. No idea why we weren't allowed in each others gardens! My younger brother was always the bad guy and NDN was always Makepeace 😂

Id totally forgotten about it til reading your post!

Happy times.

I used to like sketching multi storey car parks.

Also, I think I was about 10 at the time, I ambitiously tried to write a book about ferns.

^

this is incredible

I used to collect china thimbles. I had fucking hundreds of them. My bloody Nan started it, because she had wanted a china thimble collection when she was a kid. I had shelves for them too. My parents kept them for some unknown reason and many years later, when I was well into my thirties and a mother myself, presented me with about four carrier bags full of the buggers basically saying “these are yours, they’re taking up valuable room in our loft”. I took them and put them straight in the big bins outside my then flat. Didn’t want them much in 1990, don’t want them much now.

Oh and My sister and I had one of those sticker maker machines, and a badge making machine. I remember my grandad, bless him, used to proudly wear them on his coats and shirts! They were truly awful but he seemed to love them!*

Nah...he loved you

@Fanciedachange1

Plasticast , basically setting things in plastic. It had to be done in layers which you could clearly see in the finished item.

I use to draw moustaches and beards etc on people in the TV guide

In fact probably got a stack of magazines under my bed (that I buy and oily get round to reading 2 pages of each) might give them a makeover tomorrow

@arhhhhhnofreeusernames , glad you had a fond memory of chic a boo's too! I absolutely loved mine. He was called Boo (how original) and its my DD's nickname now - shes 16!.
Congratulations on running your own design company too - you gotta love a font!

My friend and I used to have a secret club which involved lots of secret codes to send messages to each other. We used to make them up endlessly and make up club rule books for when the dozens of other people clamoured to join us, which of course they never did. I think our aim was to solve crime but I'm not sure. We also had a very secret den at the side of our garage which was damp and mucky, but it was the club house and we spent ages there.

I tried to make my own language and culture/ national dress. I realised I was crap at drawing and not very creative in general but I really felt it was in me somewhere!

I also used to walk along the edge of pavements pretending I was doing acrobatics in the olympics. I did get some funny looks off people who noticed.

@totallydevoidofideas - me too! Are you my friend?

We also used to go “exploring”. This largely involved packing a bag of vital equipment, like a big torch and apples - and walking up to the railway sidings are the top of the next street.

'Cutting out'.
Often suggested by my mother or grandmother when I was bored and involved cutting out the pictures from the Kay's catalogue.

I think Enid Blyton had a hand in a lot of these crime-fighting clubs.

I was desperate to find a swarthy smuggler on my council estate.

I had a spoon collection Also kept a notebook with marks out of ten for the public toilets we visited on family trips. Marked for decor, cleanliness, atmosphere, extras(such as flowers, hand cream). Had pet snails (common or garden variety) for a while. Lol children are funny!

Does anyone else remember the sheets of Victorian pictures? They were just called "scraps" and I used to cut them up for my scrap book.

My favourites were the sheets of horses: I used to make stables and list all the details about each horse - its name, height, breed, etc.

These things

The horses were like this.

was circulating on my various WhatsApp chats recently for those of you that haven't seen it, btw. Might bring back some memories since so many of us seem to be of a certain age

This thread has just reminded me of an assembly we had in primary school where the headteacher asked for an example of what we liked to do in our spare time. First child to put their hand up said 'watching the clock hands go by'. All the teachers had a good laugh and I remember thinking 'ooh I love watching the clock hands go by!!'

Amazing thread! Me and a neighbour used to do the gymkhana/slumping thing. We'd drag chairs, stools and pouffes into her garden and place gardening tools (rakes, forks, hoes) over the top as jumps. Her dad sang in a band so used to set up his mic and amplifier so that one of us could compere whilst the other 'competed'. On a Friday night boys from the cul-de-sac could join in and all details and their points were recorded. There was even a prize ceremony of old rosettes and a golfing trophy at the end of the 'season'.

We also used to fabricate crimes in a notebook and knock the neighbours doors to ask if they had any info regarding the dead body/burnt out car/child abduction that had happened recently. Those were the days!

I used to get lovely A5 size notepads and create project books. So copy drawings and key facts based around a certain theme. Birds features heavily as my parents are twitchers but I also remember being obsessed with designing wedding dresses. My dad would take me to the library to get books out.

I used to type out radio plays staring my little brother’s cuddly toys, then perform them (with different voices for each character) and record them onto tape for him.

I came across a double tape is made for him, complete with hand-drawn cover and insert, a few years back but have been to chicken to listen to them!

*too chicken

Made my own radio shows by taping from the radio and myself speaking in between. Took a lot of work with just a cassette radio player.

I also liked making pictures with paper quilling (curling up thin strips of paper).

I would make pretend museums with bits found from the garden such as moss, rocks, sticks (nothing exciting), and making paper labels and then displaying them on my shelf. My parents thought this was hilarious and laughed like drains at it (being practical down to earth people they didn't really understand my whimsical nature). I would be delighted and supportive if my own kids did this though.

Flower pressing. Again, daffodils from the garden didn't work well (the only flowers available really) but I still wanted to try.

I was the Greta thunberg of 1976 in my village and I invited the PM (Maggie Thatcher) to come to a talk I was giving standing on a wooden box in the village square about climate change and aerosols.

Mrs T wrote to say she couldn't attend but sent a photo of herself instead. At which point I flounced and cancelled the talk as it was now "pointless".