What do you remember of your childhood that would be unacceptable now?

[Happyspendingthedayinthegarden]

I'm thinking smoking

We had sweet cigarettes.

Doctors smoking in their surgeries whilst examining you.

I remember when I first started working for the (then) DHSS we used to be allowed to smoke. Managers had glass ashtrays (with 'property of DHSS' & the HMSO (Her Majesty's Stationery Office) mark on - now they would be worth something on eBay now, I wish I'd kept a few) Clerical Officers & Assistants had foil ashtrays & there were large column ashtrays fixed to the floor in the public areas for them use. In the afternoon there would be a fog of smoke hanging a few feet from the floor on the floors where the benefit processors worked & the public area. 😨

Some of the much older girls (so aged 11, tops!) had those when I hadn't long started primary school. I thought they were all so cool and was deeply envious of them and their Walkers badges.

We had a music teacher who used to throw a glass paperweight at children

Schools just being open - no fences or locked doors etc (we actually had a public footpath through the middle of our primary school site). This was pre-Dunblane.

Definitely smoking.
I have a photograph of my christening party where I'm in a little carrycot thing, and the adults all around me are smoking.

I don't mean they're standing over me smoking, but they're all in the same room; at least half of the people in the photo have got a cigarette between their fingers.

Didn't that come from inviting friends over for cocktail hour?

My mother always had cocktail hour and would insist on having l'apéritif before dinner (she was French). I also think people drank more then as my father often had Cognac after lunch, other times whisky after work... They both smoked all the time. My mother would cook with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other while chatting with her friends. I remember one time she'd got so drunk she'd forgotten to light the oven - which was only discovered an hour later when all the guests were starving! She liked to drink. She smoked menthol cigarettes.

The mascot on the marmalade jar in the 70s

Parents driving drunk. No seatbelts. At 5 being left in the car for a couple of hours while parent went shopping. Getting the bus across a city I had just moved to every day for school alone aged 7. Being smacked with slippers, mirrors and hairbrushes.

So did we! I remember having to pause a game of rounders once to let the ramblers association pass through. As you say all pre Dunblane.

I know a primary school that still has a public footpath that goes through the playground.

Flashers. You never hear of dirty rain mac wearing men in the subway now
Most of my primary school friends had come across a dirty flasher

Everyday commonplace racism eg the corner shop being called the p**i’s. Really shameful.

@IzzyHandsIsMySpiritAnimal I don't mean they're standing over me smoking, but they're all in the same room; at least half of the people in the photo have got a cigarette between their fingers.

I think every photo I have of my christening features my parents or godparents holding me with one hand and their fag in the other.

How that christening robe and my lungs didn't turn yellow is a mystery.

Most did. Quite a few didn't, from the seatbelts and the smoking at least.

5 children and two adults (2 children in the boot) on long distance trips in a Saab with no seatbelts with both adults smoking and all windows child locked shut. On the return journey the driver had always had ‘several’ pints and had drank them inside the pub while the kids sat on the pavement outside with lemonade and crisps.

-Do PE in my pants and vests

• kids kocking on people's door asking if they were coming out.

-sent to buy cigarettes for my mam -people telling jokes without people getting offended. -tv shows/movies not offending everyone. (Only fools and horses ect) -4 of us kids jammed into the backseat without a seatbelt -going to the shopping centre in the next city from 11 by myself -coming home when the street lights came on.

I can’t remember very much from being a young child, but I remember having the idea to raise money for charity (it was during the Blue Peter leprosy appeal) by washing local people’s cars. I reckon I was about 9 or 10. I gathered a posse of kids and we went around knocking on random people’s doors and offering a car wash for a couple of quid. We had loads of takers, the tallest children put the smallest (who couldn’t have been older than 4 or 5) on our shoulders so that they could wash the roofs. The thought of allowing my DS to knock on strangers’ doors is unthinkable now, but we had a lovely time, the little ones enjoyed being taken along on an outing, and came home absolutely soaking wet and very happy 😆

We were definitely expected to pitch in more, I could confidently and competently change a nappy and burp a baby while at primary school. I can still remember being left to supervise several small babies at a party while the adults enjoyed themselves, and babysitting for other people’s tiny children when I was about 12.

Being allowed get the groceries from a very young age at the local shop. I'd hand in a short list and the woman would put it on Mums account. My Mum getting clothes or shoes 'on appro' so she would try on the outfit at home. I sometimes wish my kids could experience such a trusting society.

@Charlize43ah happy days!!

PE in vest and pants

School showers which were always freezing

Wooden climbing apparatus used in PE with the ropes to swing on that gave you blisters on your hands.

Out on our bikes all day exploring the woofs and fields (we lived rurally)

In and out of friends houses and our parents didn't know where we were.

Panda pops fizzy drinks in vile, vivid colours that would have been loaded with E numbers and God knows what

Smoking everywhere

Standing up in car and looking out of the sun roof

Oh and those big plastic bins with a scoop in the shops full of cereal and flour etc and you helped yourself. So unhygienic!

Woods and fields I meant not woofs lol

And on planes!! 😲😲😲

Oh god probably most of it. I wonder what will be looked back on with horror about kids now, in fifty years' time? Internet browsing and tiktok, hopefully.

i remember playing on the stairs with my cousins when I was 4 years old, we would go down the stairs with our legs wrapped in a duvet

My daughter is 4yo now and one of our rules is not to play on the stairs

Makes me laugh when I think about how two faced we are 😂

Oh that just opened a memory of when a supermarket just started doing this ( Fine Fare ?)In the supermarket with my mum and a mother with a crying baby taking a dummy out there mouth and dipping it into the open sugar barrel and putting it back in the babies mouth 🤢 my mum was livid and talked about it for weeks 😁