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

[newlabelwriter]

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!

Born 1972.

I used to stand/kneel up on the back seat of DF’s car and wave to other drivers out of the back window.

Playing out all day and only coming home when the streetlights came on.

Had Bacon Grill and fried egg sandwiches for breakfast cooked by DF with a fag dangling out of his mouth.

Going to the shops for DF’s cigarettes and giving the shopkeeper a note from DF asking him to serve me.

Loads of other stuff too!

Once went on a school netball away match, as the minibus went round a corner the back door opened and half the team fell out. No drama, tied a rope around the door and carried on.

I’ve laughed at so many of these! But this one’s just brilliant. Can you imagine if that happened nowadays? The outcry!

Spending Saturday afternoons eating chips and scraps watching Big Daddy take on his opponents wrestling on TV.

Or spending ages figuring out what sweets I wanted, was it 2 mojos or 2 fruit salads for a penny or blackjacks followed by sticking out our tongues to each other to see how black they had become.

Oh yes, also searching local estates for glass bottles and at times also the yards of shops! To then take them in to the shops to get deposits back to spend on more sweets?

Going to the Lake District sitting in my Dad's pick up truck when we were children 4 kids with 3 border collies with us in the back, wind in our hair, cheering when we reached Hartside as we knew we were nearly there. There was very little traffic on the country roads then, and far more tractors and horses than you see now.

[quote liveforsummer]@foxgoosefinch sadly this still happens, despite different parenting styles [/quote]
What still happens? Accidents or sexual abuse? Yes they do, but childhood accidents have declined massively since the 1970s, from RTAs to home injuries like burns and scalds or bleach drinking. Take a look at ROSPA stats. Why do you think we have childproof tops to bottles nowadays, for example?

CSA too - I don’t know exact statistics as so much abuse was normalised in the 70s and 80s, but I don’t think “it still happens” means we should think it was all great freedoms and risk-taking for kids then. There’s a whiff of Enid Blytonism about all the “we roamed in the woods all day and never came to harm” that minimises all the very real harms that came to children and women during that time. Girls and women, and boys too, often just disappeared without trace and there was no serious police operation to find them; equally, so many children and young women were abused, flashed at, taken advantage of, and this was socially minimised and acceptable in ways we wouldn’t permit now.

Walking to and from school on my own from age 4.

Playing out all day going miles on our bikes with no helmets, no money, no cares😊

Taking babies out in their prams for a walk. Just knocking on doors and asking and they'd hand over their baby to you. I was about 9 years old!

Asking people in the street for money and then going to the cinema with it.

Walking though the woods in the dark.

Born in 83.

Car one - 14 people (6 adults and 8 kids) in a Peugeot estate for coming back from a wedding.

Forgot your swimming kit etc at primary school. Year 5 and 6 you could walk home with a friend during school time to collect it!

Walking to school alone aged 6 onwards,it was a mile away
playing in the fields ,woods and exploring tumbledown buildings till it got dark
turning up at friends or neighbours houses and being let in to play
riding side saddle with my brother on his bike
on knees looking out of rear car window as dad drove down the motorway
Oh those care free days!

Being able to go in my dads lorry when he was working, often staying overnight in the lorry.

Also being in the trailer of a lorry with many others to get to a pub, as part of his works fun day.

Life was so much better then without all the rules and regulations and really did much happen to people without them??

Sitting in the cinema all day, watching the film several times.

Witches hat on tarmac
Teachers giving lifts to people
10p mix was a large bag of sweets
Liquorice pipes and candy cigarettes

Occasionally I would go into work with my Dad for the day if childcare was an issue. His secretary would look after me and give me colouring etc to do. He was a civil servant

Being packed off on a 300 mile train journey with my little suitcase at 9 years old and my mum asking the train guard to keep an eye on me.

Also, travelling hundreds of miles by coach on my own at the same age, and having to change coaches halfway through the journey in a massive coach station with hundreds of people milling about.

@evilharpy

Being allowed to lie across the back seat of the car with no seatbelt and have a nap when I was maybe 5 or 6 in the mid 80s.

A big open paddling pool in the park with no supervision (nobody ever drowned in it).

Public paddling pools were fairly common and the greatest thing ever. Shame they don’t exist anymore as councils don’t want the liability.

@SmallElephant

Occasionally I would go into work with my Dad for the day if childcare was an issue. His secretary would look after me and give me colouring etc to do. He was a civil servant

I used to walk to my dads work after school. It was outside the main town so a bit of a hike. He was a CPN so often out on house calls so I'd sit in the office and id frequently answer the phone for the receptionist. 'Good afternoon, team for the elderly' Can't imagine a primary age child free to answer NHS phone calls now 😆

@SmallElephant

Occasionally I would go into work with my Dad for the day if childcare was an issue. His secretary would look after me and give me colouring etc to do. He was a civil servant

I had this too! I remember sobbing my little heart out while the secretaries tried to placate me with sweets.

Going on faraway camping holidays with us children sleeping in back of the Ford Cortina estate during the long journey.

@AutumnAlmanack

Life was so much better then without all the rules and regulations and really did much happen to people without them??

I can see what you mean but when you think about all the big stadium disasters/ferry disasters and so on I’m pretty happy that we have slightly higher health and safety standards nowadays.

(Although still not perfect as Grenfell and MCR arena have shown)

In last year of primary school I was regularly summoned during lessons to help in the office with stuffing envelopes and stapling and labelling paperwork.

Another mid-70s child here.

Biggest differences between my childhood and my childrens are:
Playing out with all the other kids in the street, literally in the street because people only usually had one car and didn't drive up and down all day. No delivery drivers every 5 minutes, no huge camper vans and white trade vans parked along every scrap of kerb. We had the street to ourselves most of the time and would be rollerskating, biking, skipping, drawing with chalk, Sindy dolls in their yellow car all over the path/road, Sindy on her horse riding all over the pavements/roads. We spent all day just 'out' playing in summer hols, no playdates or holiday clubs, all the kids just came 'out'.

My Mum also walked everywhere and we always had birthday parties in our house with a decorating table covered with a bedsheet to seat umpteen kids around a table with jelly and blamanchexyz, iced gems, and egg sandwiches.

Posh kids always seemed to have Lemon squash at their parties. We had orange!

@AutumnAlmanack

Life was so much better then without all the rules and regulations and really did much happen to people without them??

Sorry to be the annoying funsucker, but yes.

So many comments here on not wearing seatbelts, for example. Take a look at the more than 90% decline in child casualty rates on the roads since 1979, impacted most by child seatbelt and child seat rules and regulations:
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/442236/child-casualties-2013-data.pdf

People who say “ooh life was so much better without all the rules and regulations” - well you try telling that to the people whose kids died in car accidents in the 1970s.

Yes to most of these, out all day unsupervised, no seat belts, going to the shop for mums cigs with a note.
Also knocking on doors to ask if they needed bottles returning for the 2p.
Walking dog and never considering picking up the poo.
One of my teachers smoked a pipe in class. Another took a few kids home at lunch to do his cleaning - it was a privilege.
Teachers regularly hitting kids, 1 in my class was hospitalised!

I don't think life was 'better' for not wearing seatbelts, cars just didn't have them so the memories we have involve not wearing them. Slididng about in the minibus or stood up on the back seat. We didn't know any different.
By stating them on this thread it is acknowledgement that it would never happen now after all.

Ringing the phone box at a certain time to speak to my friend and hoping nobody was in it making a call. Then once I was speaking to her a queue would form outside it.