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Original poster

If you grew up in 70s/80s what things did you do which would be unimaginable these days.

631 replies

newlabelwriter · 03/01/2022 16:47

Just thinking about this. When I was about 9 my friend and I used to go around knocking on our neighbours doors to see if we could pick dandelions (or something similar) for her pet rabbits. Seems such a random thing to do and obviously v v young to knocking on doors to go into their gardens!

OP posts:
MeMumI · 03/01/2022 23:55

"If you lived on a farm, you might have a Field Car. Normally, this was a dilapidated Vauxhall Cresta or similar that would be worth a fortune now. It was there so the teens of the household and their friends could drive it into ditches, instead of the tractor."

In our village some of the farm kids still do this.

Most of mine have already been said, but I'll throw in "bob a job week".

In the Brownies (so I was under 10), one week a year, we had to raise money by doing chores for neighbours and the like. I remember doing all sorts including bathing two toddlers all by myself, in their bathroom and went into other people's houses (lots who I didn't know!) to do chores... I loved it at the time, but can see the safeguarding nightmare now!

Also lots of people have mentioned buying fags. Our local shopkeeper used to sell them individually to children under age. They were 10p each!

AlecTrevelyan006 · 03/01/2022 23:56

I think parents instinctively knew that you should be wearing a seatbelt - but they also instinctively knew that Jimmy Savile was a wrong 'un so they had a huge internal mental struggle of wanting to do the right thing but also not wanting to do anything that a creepy weirdo DJ told you to.

Mammyloveswine · 04/01/2022 00:01

80s baby so early 90s...but i used to go to work with my dad, a lorry driver, and sleep in the cab! He had bunk beds!

I loved it, going to the transport cafes.. all the truckers used to give me money or sweets!

Cant even imagine it now! A 5 year old spending mon-fri with her parent whilst he's lorry driving!

My dads old boss even made the effort to come see me on my wedding day they loved my dad so much and had watched me grow up!

BurnedToast · 04/01/2022 00:01

5 kids in a 3 wheeler without seatbelts Shock

Spent most weekends say outside pubs drinking a bottle of coke and eating skips crisps then drove home by my 'merry' parents

Disappearing from dusk to dawn on the estate we lived on. My parents has no idea where we were

Buying a bag of sweets with a half penny

The teachers drinking in the bar on a school trip.

Happyladybug · 04/01/2022 00:04

@newlabelwriter

Left in the car with coke and crisps while parents were in pub!

faithfulbird20 · 04/01/2022 00:05

Jesus some of these things are scary!!

BurnedToast · 04/01/2022 00:06

Taping the Sunday night charts and learning the lyrics from a magazine.

Sparklingbrook · 04/01/2022 00:16

Something being on the TV and if you missed it going out you missed it.

Mother87 · 04/01/2022 00:33

Singaporean Chinese dad taking me and DBrother to the casino on a Sunday night for the free midnight buffet! I would have been about 13/14 (he never gambled - it was all about the foodGrin) We'd get home about 2am and go to school the next day (quiet/shy English mum never used to say anything or think it was all naughty apparently) How we even got INTO a casino in a big city in the first place?!

And visiting merchant navy ships in Birkenhead when dad wanted to visit his old navy pals when they docked in the UK. Dbrother and I would RUN WILD all over the ship for the whole day - unless that still goes on??

Rhubarbfairy · 04/01/2022 00:44

Going to buy cigarettes for my parents aged 7.

Walking to and from school from about 5. When I was 7 we had a bomb threat at my school and we were all sent home. First my parents knew of it was when I got home. My dad was out the front washing the car and asked me what I was doing there. My brother was at the infant site next-door (same playing field) but clearly no threat was posed to them as they didn't send anyone home.

My dad was pretty hot on seatbelts. But they both still smoked in the car. My mum would flick her ash out of her window and it would come straight back into mine.

Being allowed to roam for miles and for hours.

It was the same sort of childhood my parents had in the 60s, so they thought nothing of it.

Ladyrattles · 04/01/2022 00:53

Baby brother in Moses basket on back ledge of car. Me riding jn car boot or on peoples knees, or laid across back seat with bedding.

Being given a sandwich and told to go play up at the country park which had woods & a lake. I used to jump out and sit in the overflow drains.

Given ginger wine & snowballs at Christmas from about 10. Always allowed some of dads shandy at the family pub.

Regularly told to pop in alone to visit neighbours to cheer up the old folk. One used to make me ribena milkshakes.

Being sent to corner shop from a young age to buy everything from matches to vegetable knives.

Being allowed to dig massive holes in the garden (trying to tunnel to friends house 😂) and string up rope from windows.

Nat6999 · 04/01/2022 01:42

Being allowed out of school at lunchtime to go to the sweet shop, this was in the junior school, some kids even went to the cafe up the road for their dinner. Collecting my 4 year old brother from school to take him home for dinner & back to school, I was 10. Buying single cigarettes & 3 matches from the sweet shop, I was 13. Buying 2 litre bottles of cider to drink before going to Youth Club & hiding them in the subway near the youth club & nipping out for a drink, I was 14. Getting sent to the shop for cigarettes for the teacher during lessons. Going to the pub at lunchtime from school & seeing teachers who pretended to not see us & we did the same to them. Seeing a teacher beating the hell out of another pupil who had given him some cheek & other teachers just walking past.

Nat6999 · 04/01/2022 01:55

I pierced my ears with a safety pin at school in English lesson, by the end of the week I had 4 piercings in one ear. Keeping old appointment cards so I could wag school, I didn't go to one subject for nearly a full year but still managed to scrape a pass. Leaving school at 16, the whole year getting kicked out at 10.45am & by 11.30 I had signed on the dole just so I would have a UB40 & could go to the local lido all summer for free.

Battygirll · 04/01/2022 02:08

The teachers telling us and our parents that we would be allowed to smoke and drink alcohol on a school trip to Germany.

Cue lots of vomiting kids, all of whom were under 18.

NoNotMeNoSiree · 04/01/2022 02:11

Going to the village shop to get my dad's cigars at the age of about 10.
My mum is adamant that didn't happen but I remember it well! Grin
Also being about 8 and un contactable all day as obviously no phones back then and we were out on our bikes /playing in fields all day until it got dark

Snugglepumpkin · 04/01/2022 02:34

Happily went to school without any makeup on at all, just like all the other girls because nobody wore it.
Also just brushed hair & tied it back.
No product required or tools other than a hairbrush.

Seems unimaginable when I see the girls heading into school looking like they got up 2 hours early to look like they are made of plastic.

JustJustWhy · 04/01/2022 06:14

Pubs closing at lunchtime.
Shops and libraries closing for a half day on Wednesdays.
Most shops closed on Sundays.
Looking forward to the one children's programme at lunchtime.

liveforsummer · 04/01/2022 06:17

The sadness when Saturday superstore finished around 11 and you had to wait til the next morning for any more children's viewing

Oblomov22 · 04/01/2022 06:31

I really don't like these threads. I don't like hearing how extremist these children now are as parents. Why don't you get some counselling instead of going to the extreme of anxious helicopter parenting.

I don't feel this way. I was loved and cared for. I can't see he problem of going round to someone's for tea. Do you imagine that most people are unhinged or paedophiles? They aren't.

liveforsummer · 04/01/2022 06:34

@Oblomov22 to be fair I've only seen that from one poster on this thread. The rest has been light hearted and nostalgic exactly how it was meant

daffodilsunlocked · 04/01/2022 06:34

Following to finish reading later, these are hilarious and v nostalgic Wink

BG2015 · 04/01/2022 06:52

These are brilliant and I remember lots of them.

Being gone all day with sandwiches wrapped in an old bread wrapper and a bottle of squash, walked or cycled miles away and no one knew where we were.

The one that sticks in my mind was going to London for the day (we lived in Staffordshire) in my dads van, my parents put a mattress in the back so me and my two brothers could fall asleep on the way home, this was in the late 70's.

CovidCorvid · 04/01/2022 06:58

@Oblomov22

I really don't like these threads. I don't like hearing how extremist these children now are as parents. Why don't you get some counselling instead of going to the extreme of anxious helicopter parenting.

I don't feel this way. I was loved and cared for. I can't see he problem of going round to someone's for tea. Do you imagine that most people are unhinged or paedophiles? They aren't.

It didn’t turn me into a helicopter parent, quite the opposite. Other parents threatened to call SS on me because Dd was home alone in the day when I was at work in the holidays and she was 11yo. 🤷‍♀️ She was fine.
Deathraystare · 04/01/2022 07:35

Recording songs from the charts on a blank tape

Ah yes. I was recording "Tie your Mother down" by Queen. I decided to open my sash window, so now on the rare occasion I hear it again, I wonder where the squeaky window noise is! I used to tape the charts and would have to sit quietly so it didn't record any other noise. (cue mum yelling that there a cuppa tea downstairs!)

Ameanstreakamilewide · 04/01/2022 07:45

@Tillymintpolo

SMP Maths cards in different coloured boxes, there was an English version called SRA. Peter, Jane and Pat the dog
The SMP cards were an absolute joy! I tend to buy 'old' things like that for my brother's birthdays and i actually tried to buy some SMP cards for him a couple of years ago, but i found sod all.

And they're only thing in the thread that I feel remotely nostalgic about.
Some of it is making me anxious, quite frankly.

I was born in '79, so I can easily relate to lots of the examples, but I don't take the rose-tinted specs view that it was better back then.

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