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

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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!

DM asked me what forest school was, I told her it what we used to do with our friends in the holidays 😂

On a Wednesday afternoon in Year 5 of Secondary we had something called Design for Living. I have no idea what it was really.
We all had to go out into the community and help people in their homes, so the elderly and disabled predominantly.
Me and my best friend got assigned to a lady with mobility problems and she had us doing all of her housework
My other friends got assigned to an elderly gentleman who would ask them to make him a cuppa then they just sat and watched TV for the afternoon with him.
I have no idea if anyone vetted these people...

Playing on building sites at weekends when the builders had gone home; if I saw a dog in a garden I'd knock and ask if I could walk it - owners usually said yes; hitchhiking when we were 14 /15.

Another one
Going to the door of anyone who had a baby and asking to take it out in the pram they always said YES 😂😂

Going on holiday to relatives and having to get a boat/train without your parents ,they relied on the kindness of strangers to help
travelling in the back of trucks on the motorway hidden under tarpaulin with your parents knowledge
All so normal back then

From probably age 6/7 turned out after breakfast, be home when the street lights came on. If you weren't quick enough getting out after breakfast you'd have a younger sibling to look after too. Didn't matter what the weather was doing and there was nothing to eat until evening meal unless you managed to sweet talk one of the "aunties" aka any old friendly woman in the village who might give you a biscuit.

It was also rare for anyone in 1st year primary upward (yr 3) to be walked to school by an adult. Pretty normal for younger children to only have a sibling who may just be 7 to walk a nursery age child to school.

Being allowed to collect cigarettes for my parents with a note.

No seatbelts in the car, unless you count my youngest sibling who sat in my lap so had my arms wrapped around them.

Allowed to play in/around the river with no supervision. This was an ex mining village so dread to think what was in the water!

The one thing my mother did thankfully fret over was sun care, not sure why given everyone else seemed to be proud of having burnt skin to peel off but she was meticulous about suncream and appropriate clothing/drilling in the need for shaded play. She was bloody scary so we'd always listen and the worst we would get was freckles.

That being said, I had a ball growing up. Nothing bad happened, and oddly the accidents that landed us in casualty as it was then known were done under adult supervision! (Although my father couldn't have predicted I'd jump put of the 20 ft tree when he told me it was time to go home so not to blame really)

Gang rivalry over who had the biggest bonfire pile before November 5th- stealing each other’s stuff. Then on Guy Fawkes night burning really toxic stuff like old sofas and mattresses( after someone’s dad had thrown a load of petrol on the pile) …. next day spending all day playing on the smouldering leftovers and melting our wellies

I just had this conversation with my mam yesterday. I went on a caravan holiday at 15 with 2 friends for a week about 50 miles away.

Paying child fare on the bus and then going round town and getting wasted (would have been 14/15)
Going to cinema and watching films that were adult rated (aged 14)
Going to weekend parties at friend's house who lived with foster parents when they went away Friday afternoon to Sunday morning most weeks leaving their own dc and foster dc all under 16 alone. My dps had no idea there were no adults there.

Taking bags out to give to the Rag n Bone Man. Usually given a donkey stone or balloon in return. (Preferred the balloon)
Making evening meal for family of five whilst Mum and Dad working late. Might involve making chips. Peeling and cutting potatoes before putting them in the chip pan, half full of boiling fat. I was 11.

I grew up in the 80s but my mum had been a children’s social worker, and had seen all sorts of stuff you don’t even want to think about, so she would never have let us do most of the stuff on this thread!

I can honestly say I wasn’t allowed then to do most of the things people have posted here; and as a kid my upbringing wasn’t that different to my 8 yo DD’s now. I was maybe allowed to play out of sight a bit more, but not that much tbh.

I spent a long time in my childhood and adolescence being annoyed that my mum was so careful, and thinking that because everything had been fine, she was being neurotic.

I only very later realised that nothing bad ever happened to me precisely because she was very vigilant, not despite it.

Oh and yes to often being left in the car for hours.
Once my uncle left my cousin and I while he went and got drunk in the labour club - was gone for about 3 hours and staggered out at one point to give us a bottle of pop each. When he came back he made us promise not to tell my auntie and instead say we'd "been at uncle Ken's".

Also often played on building sites and would climb over fenced off areas etc to play without a second thought.

My dh grew up in a house that backed onto the railway and remembers playing on and around the rail tracks from about 6 years old!! His parents are very nice, sensible people so I can never get my head around this!

if I saw a dog in a garden I'd knock and ask if I could walk it - owners usually said yes

I used to knock on doors asking if I could take their kid for a walk! Owners usually said yes. They’d strap them in a buggy and hand them over. I think I was about 10 years old.

I can remember going to netball matches in the school bus (converted ambulance with no seats so we all ended up on the floor every corner), watching the naughty kids being called up for the slipper in assembly, missing playtimes for ever as I could never get my spellings right even though I was the best reader in the class (no one every questioned the inbalance), always having to sit on the left hand side of the cinema as both parents smoked. never opening my mouth if an adult spoke and the walk of shame that was when a policeman accompanied me home to talk to my parents after I was caught apple scrumping (also go a thick ear due to the policeman bringing me home). happy days

Getting a tattoo at 15. No ID required - I just had to fill in a form and lie about my age!

Went to nightclubs regularly from the age of 16 and then to school the next day.

Got the bus home from school at lunchtime and got my older boyfriend to call in and say I was sick so would be taking the afternoon off. No one ever checked!

Seventies child here. Playing out with a group of friends, the oldest in charge, from an early age. Walking to school by myself from the age of seven, going on a bus to the next village for my piano lesson at the age of eight, sitting three to a seat on the school bus until the age of thirteen, sitting in the back section of an estate car, cycling round the countryside with my friends from the age of ten. Reading this back it looks like an Enid Blyton childhood but it was common enough then.

I remember loads of people didn’t walk their dogs, they just let them out and the dogs went home when they were hungry, there were always dogs hanging about our street. Walking along peoples walls - anyone remember the red spiders ? Massive metal slides and concreted playgrounds, if you fell it was tough. Making ice slides in cold weather, chucking all the cut grass around on the school field in the summer. Using washing up liquid bottles as water pistols, playing until the street lights came on, 10p mix and a can of shandy from the shop

Oh, and taking a neighbour’s baby out in the pram when I was eleven and babysitting from the age of thirteen.

Eighties child here. Naughty kids would be stood at the front of the school assembly, a school shoe/trainer would be borrowed from a child then those naughty kids would be smacked hard on their bums with the shoe by the Head. I was terrified by this.

I remember sitting in the passenger seat footwell on a journey home and spent many hours sleeping on the back seat, lying full out, no seat belt.

Used to go to the school youth club aged 11, one week some random old bloke (friend of the leader I think) turned up and taught us poker! My parents banned me from going when they found out. All adults are DBS checked now.

My brother and two friends went to their form teachers house at the weekend when they were 15 to help her redecorate!! She lived on her own and needed help. She fed them and they loved it but it wouldn’t be allowed now.

I miss seeing kids asking for a penny for the guy, some were really good!

General lack of supervision. My mum also worked with vulnerable children but still let me go off with random teachers (never a problem!) and leaving us locked in the car whenever she wanted to shop or see someone in peace.

Sat next to mum and dad smoking on a plane

Hitched a lift all the time so I could spend my bus fair

Collected glass pop bottles to take back to the shop for cash

Buy a big back of half pence sweets from "the van "

Find 50p for the telly

Record the top 40 on a Sunday night - finger poised on tape recorder to try keep out the talking

Travel in boot of a car when there was no room inside

Did PE in my pants

Going to the door of anyone who had a baby and asking to take it out in the pram they always said YES 😂😂

YES!!! I remember a huge gang of us in the park once and some girls we knew came along with a newborn baby in a pram that belonged to one of her neighbours. I asked if I could hold it and we were all taking turns passing it around! We were very gentle and after a while she took it home but we must've all been about 11 and I just can't fathom what was going through the mother's head!

Also I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned already but boys always doing penny for the guy - usually just one of smallest boys dressed in rags and wheeled round in an old wheelbarrow! And they'd always start about 3 weeks before bonfire night and get told to bugger off until nearer the time😂

I was getting on a school bus on my own but with other children from about 4 years old. By the time I was 7 I was walking to and from school on my own unless my DF came to pick me up. Despite not working my DM never did it.

Coming home to an empty house from about the same age despite my DMs insistent that the reason she could not work was because of me.

None of this was normal though.

We used to play on a piece of waste ground which seemed to be full of builder's rubble. Our favourite thing was jumping on old bits of asbestos roofing because they would break!

Also walking to school alone from the age of 5 and out playing all day without parents knowing where we were.

The most exciting thing was sitting up on the back of our friend's Dad's MG with our feet on the back seat when he had the roof down. I think there were about three of us and the friend's Dad was a doctor so you would have thought he might know better.

Me and my friends (aged about 10) dug out an underground den. It was deep enough for us to more or less stand up in. God knows what would have happened if the roof had collapsed on us.