To ask about stuff from your childhood that is strange in retrospect?

[TheCatOfAthenry]

My late grandfather used to poke us in the head with a pocket knife and say "bees bees bees". He used also give us coffee and home-brewed beer in our bottles from the age of about 10 months.

Unrelated, he used also come out with statements like "a minute is a very long time" and "nobody can hear you scream if you're lost in a chasm."

When we were ill, the crystals came out. They hoped to undo my scoliosis before the orthopaedic surgeon saw me. Had abscesses treated with funny poultices and homeopathic sweeties. One particular cure involved massaging your own nose and coccyx simultaneously. (For one condition, the school got involved to ensure I got real medical care.)

We had the archangel Michael's sword carved on our front door. We were taught that if we told a ghost to go away three times, they would. I have yet to utilise this information. And we went to Catholic mass for good measure.

Spent many a night in public houses - Dad's a musician. Was reared in a cloud of tobacco smoke. Holidayed in caravans and essentially ran wild on a halting site every summer.

Mainly nice memories. Lots of lovely people around us. I grew up into a very skeptical medical doctor, but I still enjoy all sorts of people. Get out the guitar from time to time, but only enjoy crystals as decoration these days.

Would love to hear others' retrospectively strange experiences.

When I say 'normal', I mean, he did it to loads of girls and we were kids, so didn't know that not all headmasters did this.

Buying fags from the shop. Parents smoking in the house despite my brother having very serious asthma. Parents smoking in the car- no wonder I was so travel sick! Walking home from school for lunch alone when I was in reception (very close, but had to cross a road!). Playing out unsupervised and generally roaming around.

Ilovemillhouse that reminds me of out headmaster in the early 1980's. He would be very touchy feely with us girls and we'd be summoned to his office to read. He'd make us stand next to him whilst we read from a book while he held our bottoms in his hand.

I honestly thought nothing of it until I became an adult and asked around my friends. We were all apalled and weren't sure whether to find it funny or not! He's dead now but many people still talk about what a wonderful man he was on the schools Facebook page. The fact he was a pervert seems to be glossed over.....

Very strange looking back risk

If I had an inkling this was happening to dd, I would be ringing the police.

As we all got older and spoke about it with friends etc., we cannot believe we never to our parents, and the same as you, didn't know whether to laugh or report him.

I am assuming he is dead now, and luckily he had left by the time my younger sister started. This was also the 80s.

*never mentioned it

Our PE teacher used to slap our bottoms with his trainer. Never really thought much about it at the time.

My mum was (still is) a great proponent of healthy eating. This was largely fine - and I'm grateful for it now - but wholemeal pizza with a topping of pilchards was a step too far. She also refused to have Enid Blyton books in the house and to this day I have never read a Famous Five book.

A neighbour had a Ford Escort with a spoiler and used to allow children to stand on the bumper trim on the rear of the car holding onto the spoiler and go for drives. We thought this was great.
I also remember knocking on peoples door asking to take their baby/dog out for a walk. They always seemed very grateful, we were only about 10 at the time.

I also remember my db going on a scout trip and as a reward for good behaviour a boy would've allowed to sleep in the scout leaders tent for the night with him. I can't imagine that happening now!

In the 90s on a school trip a teacher was complaining that I didn't want to go with them to the pub!!

We were reminded by our teacher on a school trip we shouldn't smoke in the dormitories, there was a smoking room in the hostel. We were 16.

Standing in the footwell of the passenger seat with my nose pressed against the windscreen while my Dad was driving...

Going round the entire estate knocking on strangers' doors for sponsorship for a walk I was doing with the school (I was at primary school at the time)...

Climbing over the back fence to play in the fields all day - if we were really lucky and the farmer had recently been muck spreading we might find a dead chicken to play with...

On holiday, after breakfast, leaving Mum and Dad in the chalet to - um - wash up ;blush] and going down to the swimming pool, just me and my brother. I must have been 10 or 11, he would have been 7 or 8, and we spent the whole morning in the pool unsupervised until our parents came along and bought us a packet of crisps and a bottle of Vimto each.

Happy days!

Spending the day with my uncle who I now see had significant mental health issues . He had a new car he was very proud of and he took me to some remote road on Yorkshire moors where he literally drove the car as fast as it would go.

I went to a catholic primary school. Our teacher when I was about 7 had a 'holy table' (a table at the back of the classroom filled with statuettes, books, rosary beads etc) which we had to pray in front of each morning. She insisted we all had to have one at home or we'd be damed to hell. My poor dad had to put a shelf above my bunk bed. Even weirder, when a girl in our class got leukimia and was allowed to rest on a camp bed at the back of the classroom, said teacher would make us stand over the poor girl and pray.

More worrying was being regularly left in a room alone with a priest for confession. Would never happen now (i hope!). Looking back i find this so strange. What could primary age children possibly have to confess?! I was a good girl and remember racking my brain beforehand to think of something and making it up if i couldn't.

I remember a lot of things I thought were odd as a child but would never have dreamt of talking to an adult about. One of the male neighbours was weird and I didn't like being around him. We all knew one girl at primary school was being abused. We used to play together for hours and my mother couldn't possibly have known where we were.

I can confirm the ghost thing does work Cat. I left a note with the address our ghost's husband had moved to so she could ago and aunt him and not us!

Not from my childhood but from teen yrs, the mid 1980s:
Riding down the Freeway (USA) in the back of an open pickup. No seat belts, no roof, no restraints. Nada. 60mph. Just WTF. How did I think that was perfectly safe and reasonable.

People always had their dogs in back of pickups, too, on the freeways. Running around tiny circles, barking at other cars & dogs.

Oh, and drunk drivers. My dad worked in law enforcement so he'd point it out. Easy enough to spot from the weaving behaviour. Even now I watch for that, except today it's not weaving I much see but dramatic no-reason slow driving due to mobile phone use.

"Clothes got mended and extended! Hems let down or extra fabric sewn on the bottom of trousers or skirts." "Buying fags from the shop. Parents smoking in the house." But then there was a campaign called "non-smoking generation" that became very popular so it was inconceivable for me to consider smoking, I haven't even tried it, not even once.

"Riding down the Freeway (USA) in the back of an open pickup. No seat belts, no roof, no restraints. Nada. 60mph. Just WTF." Um, did that when I graduated from school, the entire class, on the back of a lorry for 18 miles, to get into the nearest town, except it didn't take place in the US...

The only primary school in the village was CofE, so I got prayers, hymns, and bible there, but Abba and Enid Blyton at home. My family were crap Christians.

My nan used to stockpile all her presents, never opening them, putting them away for no particular reason.

Mum planted some rhubarb in the garden, and a few months later said garden looked like a scene from Jurassic Park. She then filled up the freezer with giant rhubarb. Guess what flavour crumble we ate, forever? (More was already growing)

I also remember knocking on peoples door asking to take their baby/dog out for a walk.

I'd forgotten that. People just let a gang of kids take their dog or baby for a walk. These days they would call the police.

When we were 6 and 8, my sister and I took our baby brother out in his pram. During the walk we argued about whose turn it was to push the pram (neither of us wanted to) so we just left him in the street and went home!

My mum thought I was nasal and make me lie on the living room floor and put salt water in my nostrils. I couldn't get up until i'd sniffed it up. She also picked my blackheads. I accepted it as normal at the time.

Your grandfather poking you in the head with a pocket knife - so bad, but I stifled a titter at the image in my head.

My dad used to tie me into his lorry with a bit light rope to stop me falling out (like I did once). This was pre car seat days, heck pre seatbelt days. I also remember him laughing hysterically when I fed a horse a sugar cube and was bitten, what the heck!! He was the best dad though.

I've loved reading these!

I have too many to list, really.
We lived on a teeny island when I was 5 and my mum would go to work very early. She'd get up and leave my clothes at the end of the bed and go to work, leaving me completely alone in our flat. I would then wake when I was ready, get myself dressed and go across the road to where she worked. I would sometimes spend the whole day exploring the island with my friend, mum not having a clue where I was.

I remember having no seatbelts in the car and my todddler brother being allowed to stand up and look out the back window while we drove.
My mum used to make huge pans of stew and we'd all eat it for a week. It would never be refrigerated and would be reheated once or twice a day, just sitting there on the stove the whole time.

The amount of freedom I had as a child was the most astonishing. Mum (or my friend's parents) wouldn't know where we were the vast majority of the time. We'd play and explore the entire day, doing things like making dens and collecting ciggy ends from the floor as a competition to see who could find the most. I'd never, ever be made to wash my hands so they were only washed on my Sunday night bath.
I was very loved and not neglected, it was just the way things where where I lived.

Please excuse were typo, it's early and I'm busy collecting ciggy ends outside

Going to the pub in my uniform after sixth form (aged 16!) and getting served.

Our history teacher enforcing discipline by throwing trainers or football boots at us from under his desk (he also taught PE)

My mother leaving me at home while she, her boyfriend, my sister and the boyfriends 3 kids all went to Lanzarote for two weeks. It coincided with my gcse mock exams. I was only just 16.

My family thinking a funny story was the time as a toddler I picked up my grandfathers cigar that was burning merrily on a side table, took a puff, went green and threw up.

These are the more innocuous. I don't think this is the thread for the dark stuff.

And I'm only 30 so this wasn't "back in the day"!