Kids of the 70's/80's - what did you do playing out that would horrify people today?

[IncompleteSenten]

I grew up in a pit village and we'd play on the pit tip, including round the slurry pond. We'd chuck sticks in and try to get them round the other side, we'd climb up and slide down the tip mounds. I only remember getting chased off once, it's bonkers to think it was all mostly open and unguarded!

There was a big open sewer? Storm? Drain or massive pipe with a grill across it that had been prised off and we used to go in there. I don't really know what it was, just that it was metal and massive and a bit wet and smelly and you could crawl quite a way in.

An old pit tip that time had grassed over but was not all that stable and had a chunk out the side of it. We called it "holey hill" and would sit in the carved out bit and make it bigger.

There was a stream with a big tree next to it. We had a rope tied round a branch and a stick to turn the rope into a swing. One side of the stream had a really steep banking and we had a massive knife and took it in turns to swing as high as possible and stick the knife into the banking. The next person had to swing to get the knife and then swing to put the knife higher up the banking. The winner was the person who got it so high nobody else was able to retrieve it.

Gathering hay from the fields and making a massive pile under a tree (different tree) then climbing the tree and jumping off it onto the hay. Bonus points for fancy jumps.

Playing chicken across the new road (it's still called the new road even though it's been there 40 years now and the old road's been buried for 30)

Climbing onto the row of garages at the bottom of the estate and jumping from one roof to the next.

God, so many!

I was chatting with my mum the other day and was reminiscing about all these games when I noticed my mum had gone absolutely silent.

She had no clue what I'd been doing all that time. She'd assumed I was just in the park. (Nobody played in the park. Who wants proper swings and slides when you've got pit tops, slurry ponds and knife games 🤣)

Bouncing down the stairs on my space hopper. Straight flight of stairs, 3 bounces top to bottom!!
The thing is my mother let me. Don't know what she was thinking of

Late 1970s to mid 80s

Playing on the railway embankment at the back of the house and in disused old ww2 air raid shelters.

Swimming in the reservoir

Climbing on garage roofs

Wandering around the fields miles from home

Smoking, drinking and meeting up with boys from the other side of town by the time we were 13..

It was a great carefree childhood and teenage life to be honest.

Played on the building site for the new estate. Amazing to think no one was guarding it.

I think I'm unusual because I wasn't allowed out unsupervised until my teens and even then for a set time/reason such as a cinema trip, no general hanging around. I think my mum worried that something would happen to me or I'd fall under bad influences.

We used to push each other down the stairs in a sleeping bag 😂 Stairs meant hours of entertainment.

Omg that's disgusting. But so funny!

Very similar to you, I grew up in an ex mining village, surrounded by exciting but very dangerous adventures. Also played chicken in the road. Climbed over garages, cars (little shits).
We would camp out in someone's garden but go out all night on "adventures" at very very young ages.
Make go carts from scratch with a section of 2 x 4 wood hammered into the side as a brake. Then take them up to the highest points and go at breakneck speed in and out of traffic.
We'd get our bicycles, then make ramps. Human sacrifices would have to lay down by the ramps and we would have to clear them all.
I still remember our milkman, he had a standing board around his truck. We would all plead and plead with him until he gave in and we'd clamber on holding on with our fingertips (toddlers included) and he would take off at breakneck speed with us holding on for dear life.

Lots of things that would horrify me if my own kids had done them or my grandkids now.

Smoking from about nine years old. The local newsagent did a roaring trade in selling a single cigarette and match to kids. We often paid with the deposit from an empty lemonade bottle or two. What he didn't know was that the lemonade bottles were his own anyway. He kept the empties round the back of his shop so we'd sneak in and lift a few then go around to the front of the shop and trade them in.

Lots and lots of climbing. Roofs, trees, scaffolding or whatever else. If it could be climbed we'd climb it. I actually had quite a bad fall that put me in hospital for a few weeks but an elderly Polish man on the ward taught me to play chess whilst I was in so it worked out well.

We lived in a semirural area and most of the boys had airguns from a very early age. We spent a lot of time plinking at tin cans in the woods and nobody and no animals ever got hurt.

When I was 12 or so a friend and I went camping for a week on our bicycles. Our parents thought we were staying at each others house and had no idea where we really were.

I saw AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Iron Maiden, Whitesnake and a few other bands live just with my mates when I was as young as 13 or 14. My parents thought I was on school organised outings to the theatre.

Tried to light a cigarette on a train track. Friend and i didnt have a lighter (14 year olds😳) so we had the bright idea of waiting for a train to go pass and then trying to light the cig off the track (we thought it would be hot!)
It didn't work.

Building dens in bonfires, playing knock a door run, climbing on the roof of the local school or the precinct.

Waking for miles up the moss to the railway line, only coming home when you were hungry or it went dark.

Cat walking which was climbing through peoples back gardens without getting caught. There is a row of houses near me and we would start at one end and make your way through all the gardens to the end, which for some reason was called Logan's run. No idea why.

My favourites were exploring half built houses - no balustrades or windows, we'd climb around them for hours. Also sneaking out and going to the school pool, having a midnight swim then climbing up onto the shadecloth over the pergola (which sagged like a hammock) and smoking a few cigarettes while staring up at the stars. It was quite weird going back there recently and cheering my DC on in a swimming race.

@Xylenegy wow that sounds like my childhood 🤣
We used to roam. We got into trouble with police and gave false names. To be fair we were only hanging around not doing anything bad.
I remember my cousin taking us along a ring road and playing dares, which involved her (and only her because she was the only one mad enough) jumping in front of oncoming cars and getting back on the pavement, just in time. I was the only one crying, everyone else thought it was funny.
We ended up in guys houses watching them smoke weed. Nothing sinister, other than being offered a drag, nobody coming on to us but jesus looking back it was so stupid. Christ if my DD did that I'd flip.
We used to leave the house for bloody hours, maybe go to the corner shop for penny sweets. We had to go home when street lamps came on. We knew the shop keepers like they were friends. We never had adults with us. The shop keepers never said anything or tried anything weird either.
We used to befriend security guards because we literally hung around buildings with nothing to do.
Really it's quite sad I suppose. We had a brilliant time however. We were standing under derilict railway bridges doing the actions to Agadoo. How we didn't die I don't know.

We played in Farm buildings and on a big building site where there were building new houses. We'd climb up the scaffolding onto the roof from time to time.

Oh my God! 🙈 It’s not just the things that we did, but the ages that we were allowed to do them! I went with my brother and a gang of local kids into the woods, where they’d built a rope swing across a big pit. They put me on it and pushed me and I fell into the pit and couldn’t get out. They had to go and get my Dad to get me out. I was four years old!!! Those woods were our Adventureland for years. We’d take sandwiches and go ‘exploring’ all day, swimming in the manky river and lighting fires.

Even seemingly innocuous things stagger me now. The kids on our Close would all get the bus (which was about a 15 mile journey) and visit the swimming baths unaccompanied. There’d be a load of 6 and 7 year olds and maybe one 9 year old ‘in charge’ of us all.

We walked ourselves to school and back by 6 years old then we’d come home and then disappear to the park until tea time. I’d always be forced to take my younger (ADHD) brother with me, and he was absolutely feral. He’d jump onto the back of the bus (on the outside) when it stopped, and hang on and go for a ride until it stopped at the next stop.

It’s no wonder the government made all those public information films with a generation of mini loose cannons causing mayhem!

This was the 70's, I'd be around 8 or 9 years old, I'd leave the house to 'play out' at 9am and not return until teatime. My parents had no clue where I was and didn't bat an eyelid.

We'd walk for miles playing in woods, near rivers/streams, make swings, we'd drink the stream water!

They were the best days ever 😊

The gang bit just made me laugh right out. And reminded me I was in a similar gang and the initiation ritual was the same however I got a hefty smack as half of the gang were boys.

I seem to have, growing up in London, missed out on all this mine play mentioned up thread.

Knock down ginger, playing in derelict underground car parks, stealing my mum's car when she fell asleep and so and so forth.

I remember playing on a building site with my friends. It wasn't fenced off or secured in any way. Just left open for local kids to injure themselves on of a sunny evening. Ah, the 70's!

I did a lot of these as a kid in the 70s (completely unbeknown to my parents, I might add 😄). In hindsight it's no wonder the govt had to make all those terrifying public information films 😂😂 Makes my blood run cold in hindsight, the things kids used to get up to then.

This sounds just like my childhood. I'd be sent to the shop for 1/2 an oz of golden Virginia and a packet of papers. My dad always let me buy a Frys chocolate mint cream!

Such a carefree time wasn't it, no phones, no social media and no drama 😊

Making dens
Roaming miles from home without telling anyone where I was going.
Playing on a footbridge over the M62
Tree climbing
Apple scrumping
Knock a door run
Prank calls from phone boxes

Was about to give my own stairs saga and realised that, my mum also, must have been aware.
We'd get my little sister's baby bath and sit in it and use it like a sledge down the stairs. We didn't escape unscathed as my brother broke his collar bone and I damaged my leg!

We also used the top landing and created a 'rope' out of blankets and would lower each other down and try and kick my dad (don't ask me why!) and then pull each other back up. It never worked.

Lots of similar things that have already been mentioned, kids were feral back then and parenting wasn’t a thing for my parents of lots of my friends parents. I think it was only luck that meant I, and more kids were not hurt.

One of my friends was burned badly and another was sexually assaulted, aged 8 and 10. As teens, some of the kids I knew ended up in hospital as they drank too much alcohol in the park, a couple of girls were raped, one lad died after getting in a stolen car with a drunk friend who had stolen it.

My kids had a very outdoorsy childhood but they were parented and had boundaries. I wouldn’t want them to have had my childhood. I don’t see it through rose tinted glasses, it was horrendous.

I was born in 1982 and remember playing on building sites, climbing up to the top of houses and dangling out of first floor windows. I also remember breaking into the garden of a local house that had a little chapel in the garden that was thought to be haunted and being chased away by the owner.

Building sites
gasworks
More building sites
playing out all day in absolute isolation (we found dead bodies… twice!), rattlesnakes everywhere.
Cycling through rocky, hilly terrain in bare feet, even after my foot was sliced open inside the tire spokes mid ride (pillion on my brother’s bike). Didn’t stop me.
Skating down steep roads on metal wheels. I swear sparks flew!
Lying in the middle of the road playing dead to surprise passing drivers (in my Larry David voice, that is pretty, pretty, pretty messed up).
ALL of the playground equipment was lethal (I was a ‘death drop’ master on bars… with asphalt underneath!).
My mom would drop my brother and me off at Redondo/Hermosa/Manhattan beaches in California, where I grew up, and just leave us there all day in summer (which is just mental… I was 7/8/9 years old).
My summers were spent wandering around and playing outdoors all the time.
We had lots of weird stuff happen. I was sexually abused by a neighbour. Another neighbour pulled a gun on me because I picked a flower from his garden.
Dog attacks were another occurrence and constant fear.
I felt very lost inside my childhood. It felt strangely lonely. I was aware that we were kinda left to it in not such a nice way.

I grew up in East London and we had an old disused gas works near us that was completely unattended so we used to go and play over there, loads of climbing and hiding places! There was also a huge "haunted" house which we walked to one day (different area), climbed through a hole in the fence and explored but how one of us didn't end up falling through a floor/ceiling I'll never know! I'm 45 now but I'll never forget that day, was probably one of the best of my childhood. My Mum never had a clue about any of this! When the DLR expanded all local residents were given free travel cards so we used those to just jump on and off going to places we had never been to before, met some boys in a random park near Greenwich who had dirt bikes and let us ride with them, no helmets, zero safety but the best days!!