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.

So glad I'm on the only weirdo ex number plate collector.

I spent all my pocket money on novelty erasers. There was a stall dedicated to them in the local Saturday market.

Yes, also to poring over the argos catalogue planning my own home. At the age of 8...

I still remember the revelation that you could record yourself on the radio. My friend and I spent far too long trying to record the charts or making our own radio programmes.

@astridstar that reminds me - we once restaged the whole Olympics using canes for high jumps, javelins etc We had all the local children around and I made everyone medals out of milk bottle tops.

This thread is gold.
I used to make tickets for my books (many) and pretend to work in a library. I was fascinated by the rows and rows of little brown tickets they had there (pre bar-code days) and would love to have got my hands on them. I begged my parents for one of the inky date stamps and would randomly stamp dates in books much to their annoyance.
Gosh life was different in the 80s!

Shadow box and collected Whimseys and hideous glass animal ornaments

Me and my friend made radio shows. Spent a lot of time on the scripts.
We also used to have ‘clubs’ and would have membership books/badges we had to make.

My siblings and I had a game we called "Claire". We would take turns to dial random numbers on the phone and ask to speak to "Claire". Usually we would be told there was no Claire living there but occasionally a Claire would be called to the phone, which always provoked panicked giggling on our part and we would hastily put the phone down.

As a teenager, I enjoyed taking myself off on random train journeys. I would pick a train station in a town that I knew nothing about, buy a return ticket to that station and spend the day mooching around these on my own. Sometimes it was suburbia, sometimes an industrial area, and sometimes it was quite interesting.

I love this thread. I love it.

@ElizabethMainwaring I’m glad someone finally appreciates my childhood hobby!!!!

Seems to be a few fellow childhood catalog lovers here- finally found my people

@BalloonSlayer I used to do that too, with my childhood best friend!

I also collected little china animals. I think they were called Jumblies.... Off to Google I go. I got my Brownies collectors badge with those!
Thank you for this cheery thread

When I was child, my mom used to have lots of catalogues; Janet Fraser, Littlewoods etc. I'd play a game called 'If I was a Princess' where is trawl through it, picking out all the things I would buy if I magically became a princess. On reflection, I think most of it was floral, polyester dresses but it all seemed very glamorous at the time!

I had a small tape player and a microphone, so I would make my own radio station. I even made up a jingle.

French knitting, spent hours doing it with the most garish wool ever.

I grew up in a village and one boring summer I spent documenting and detailing each house in the street with who lived there. I kept it all in a special folder, alphabetised by street.

I also collected Whimseys.

Researching ghosts. I used to spend all of my 'screen time' googling places within five miles of my childhood house trying to find evidence they were haunted. This from from around age 8, just after we first got a family computer.

I blame my nan. I'd have had a more normal hobby if she'd left me something in her will other than her collection of bloody spooky books about ghosts sightings.

These are fantastic. My friend and I used to create habitats for ladybirds in jam jars and then keep them in there with some leaves. They always died of course because they never had any water or food source, I feel terrible about it now 20 years later.

I was also obsessed with “fashion” drawing and drew hundreds of wedding dresses. I’ve never been very good at drawing though.

I also collected shells and interesting stones, which I still do now to be honest. I’m not sure what happened to my original collection, but I loved taking them out of their special box and feeling the textures and then getting them to fit back in the box in a specific order.

@TravellingSpoon it was whimseys, not jumblies. Thank you!

Oh God, I have a memory coming back to me now. I had some disney books as a child and I started a project to write them backwards, to re-write them out, starting at the back and all the words are backwards.
I have no idea why!

It must have been a theme because I taught myself the alphabet backwards and I can still recite it.

Is this thread destined for Classics?

Oh yes, my tape recorder and microphone and my radio shows.

I also used to get all my parents LPs out and lay them out on the floor. They'd cover the whole lounge and I'd make up a story involving the picture on each album cover.
Also used to make up dance routines with my friends. I recall being a very bossy and exacting choreographer!

@astoatora54 love the medals made out of milk bottle tops

I feel very comfortable amongst you all on this thread

Does anyone remember collecting the plastic tags from loaves of bread and clipping them onto the spokes of your bike wheels to make a clicking noise?

I used to make Pom-Pom chicks - one Christmas I made one for each of my friends

I also used the catalogue to list everything that was going to go in my fantasy gym - I remember agonising over how many towels I would need in that gym!

My brother used to put drawing pins on the sole of his shoes so they made a noise when he walked

I collected keyrings. I used to just attach new ones to the existing bunch and it ended up being this huge mass(mess). It started because my sister used to give me the keyring clips that you got with Pepe jeans.

Like PPs I used to make a show jumping course in my garden, I even had my own make believe riding school, it had a name but I can't remember what it was.
I also collected bus and train tickets and used to stick them in a spare school jotter I had.
I also had a book that I took on journeys to write down the names on the front of Eddie Stobart lorries that we saw on the motorway. And if we were travelling on 1st August or a day or two afterwards, I used to count how many "new reg" cars I could see "oooh look! an H reg!"

I nearly always played alone because my siblings were in their late teens when I was small and my parents moved a lot so my school friends were far away and we never lived anywhere long enough to make friends nearby.

Anyone else have a scrap book?
they were great for sticking in treasures