Did we all have that one dodgy shop back in the day?

[OSTMusTisNT]

Another thread has got me thinking about my High School years between 1990 and 1997.

This was prime time for kids smoking and pretty much every one of us at High School could be found in the dodgy paper shop next to the school at lunchtime buying our 'smoking lunch' then we headed of to the public toilets to sit in style 😳 until it was time to return for the afternoon.

Once we were a bit older and hit the magic legal smoking age of 16, we hung out in the school carpark with the smoking teachers 🤣.

No one batted an eyelid, no one cared that the creepy alcoholic guy in the shop was selling fags to under 16's in school uniforms and porn mags to the boys. There was one unpleaant episode when he was showing a group of us girls some gay porn. Pretty sure he would be arrested nowadays but obviously none of us girls mentioned the gay porn incident as it didnt seem that big a deal at the time.

(The guy is long dead now as he was quite old then and a well known alcoholic).

Not a shop but my old English teacher used to have a pet name for me and sit with me for hours in his tiny study smoking. He wouldn’t give me a cigarette because of my age.

I didn’t know he was an alcoholic then. He died drunk, fell into a road and got killed by a passing car.

Yes, we had the dodgy local shop run by two old guys and their grandson. We were allowed to buy cigarettes in ones and twos.

For me it was the ice cream van that sat outside secondary school that sold us cigs ..late 70s.

The shop near the school used to sell single cigarettes, we used to wait for the school bus there and smoke our cigarettes on the top deck. This was the early/mid 70s

Oh that reminds me our ice cream van was rumoured to have spliffs for sale, no idea if it was true.

My BF when I was 13 had a cannabis plants growing in his house. His Dad was a single parent and he didnt seem to parent very much. My Mum was always feeding my BF as she thought he needed fattening up 😂.

Yep, one near my house and one near our school train station. In both cases they would sell alcopops and cigs to us and then give us a free lollipop/sweeties!

We just used to buy cigarettes unchallenged from any shop, or vending machines in pubs (who also served us alcohol), or off people that had been on holiday. I brought back 4 cases of duty free L&B when I was 16 and on holiday with my (actually very conservative and non smoker) parents!

But there was a clothes shop in town that sold dope from under the counter, so I guess that was our dodgy shop!

Ours had little barrels of sherry and you could take in a lemonade bottle to get them filled up, he also sold ‘singles’ cigarettes, Merrydown cider or lager but you weren’t allowed to buy spirits 🤣

We had a dodgy hotel in town with a bar. The landlord / owner used to serve us alcohol in our school uniform and put the pool table and juke box on free for us. He then used to chat to us all really inappropriately. Strange times

We would all be horrified if these things were going on now but for us, they were the best of times 😂.

Most of the shops in my area sold fags to underage kids.

We also had a local shop that sold ‘singles’. He’d crack open a pack of 20 B&H and sell you one at an inflated price. Handy! 😆

They were pretty good!

Yep dodgy corner shop just next to the village green. Sold penny sweets and fags underage to us school kids. Started smoking when I was twelve.

There was a rumour that the owner was a pdo , but I’d already moved away by then so no clue if there was any truth to that rumour.

Same here. DM used to send me round with a note for cigarettes. Used the same method with a forged note from a friend's mum quite often at a different shop.

Could buy alcohol from around 15. Worst night ever when the police caught up with us and took it all away. The thought to run off into the trees took hold but it was a very heavy bag of cans slowing down an already scrawny 15 year old me.

They didn't give a shit did they they shopkeepers.

Same for us in the late 80s.