To ask what stuff you did as a kid that now seems weird and/or wildly inappropriate

[CheeseyToast]

For whatever reason, today I was reminded of being three years old and lunching with the street cleaner. He drove a little cart/sweeper thing and would take his break sitting on the grass outside our house. I called him The Jigger Man.

When I spotted him, I'd run inside and say, Mim! The jigger man is here! Can I take my lunch outside?

She'd give me little sandwiches wrapped up in paper and I'd rush out to sit beside him on the grass.

Oh I loved my jigger man picnics.

Was I a complete weirdo or did other kids do stuff like this?

We live in a rural area and teens still have to watch horror films public information videos about farm safety. DD2 has a new found horror of suffocating in a grain silo. I on the other hand can remember when my friend's dad (farmer) used to drop us into the grain and let us roll down it! (Also a 70s kid) The end of the film Witness made me think perhaps it wasn't such a great idea...

Waiting for a bus to pull up outside our house (tiny rural village) at 6pm, Bus Driver obviously on his way back to the depot as it was the last bus of the day, and running onto the bus to be given a big reel of paper tickets. Then running off again with the Bus Driver laughing.

God that seems like such a weird and random thing to do!

Running around street naked.

Around the street that should say

Playing cowboys and Indians with lit bulrushes soaked in petrol as arrows. God knows how one of us didn't get burnt to death but looked good

I used to hitch hike to youth club to save 45p train fare!

@liz70 I just had a look on you tube at the apaches one, wasn't that one as was in the 90s. Was a newer version called 'never rest' not quite as harrowing as apaches!

We used to knock at meighbours doors asking if we could take their dog for a walk or take their baby out. Some neighbours we didnt even know yet they would say yes! Imagine that now!!!

I remember one where a boys ear got frazzled I think

Greasing the slide with the inners of waxed bread wrappers. You go flying off the end & get tarmac burns up the back of your legs and backside. All the play equipment was on concrete or tarmac then.

The public information film that gave me the horrors from the 70 s was the one about playing in an abandoned fridge, and getting locked inside it. Horrible

Watching Jim'll Fix It.

My parents house has 2.5 gardens - a sunken garden with a stream running through, a gravel yard and a garden with structured paths etc, all wrapping around the house. Plus a large shed/barn with all the gardening stuff in, and a garage. Opened out into country fields and footpaths.

I swear that my mum never knew where we were half the time, from about the age of four. We never went further than up the fell a bit when we were little, into the woods later, but there was so much we could have hurt ourselves. Weird thing is she's now fixated on the farm kids needing protection from all the dangers.

Cramming German bangers and quarter sticks into cracks in the "End Wall" of our estate as part of an ongoing project to slowly blow it to bits and gain an easier rout into "The Back Field".

Yes, I remember girls about eight or nine pushing neighbours' babies out in prams! And I used to get home from primary school to be told "Will you go on an errand?" usually for some elderly neighbour. And running "errands" in those days often included buying cigarettes!

There was a game in my primary school (age 5 seriously!) that was 'boys chase the girls and pull up their skirts'

buying a pack of sweet cigarettes and pretending to be all grown up. i have never smoked by the way. they were banned years ago of course.

friend up the road used to go out with an old net curtain on her head like a veil and pretend she was getting married and we were all the guests. her much older sister was getting married so i think it was just copying really, the net was filthy being trailed around the floor.

i remember a film shown to us in assembly in year 7 about not playing on the train tracks - was very gory.

I used to walk neighbours dogs too. Once I was walking a huge lab and he got away from me and ran into someone's house as she was cooking roast chicken with the door open

oh yes, the 'go up the shop for my ciggies' i was horrified when my friend asked me to go with her to fetch them as my parents didnt smoke and were very anti, even in those days. her mum used to send her all the time for 10 B and H and she could have some sweets or crisps for going. its a wonder we all survived.

we used to play 'maids' and scrub the kitchen floor with proper bristled brushes. then we'd make the tea and do the ironing. my mum loved it.

This is an amazing thread!

I remember

• Buying sugar sticks in the shape of cigarettes! (Get 'em young!)
• There was an older man (probably in his 60s) who used to come out of his gate and watch all the children on their way to school every morning. He used to decorate his entire house with lights and use sweets to try to entice children in, and no-one had a second thought about it. My friend and I actually went in for a dare one day - he made us sit on his lap, but fortunately nothing more. No-one knew where we were or what we were doing.
• Making cuts on our hands and then touching each other to mix it, and swearing that we were 'blood friends for life'
• When I was a bit older, playing in abandoned buildings, on and off school, that we were forbidden to enter. They were seriously rickety. I ended up setting one of them on fire.
• At high school, my friend and I used to bunk off school and take a boat out all day. Fortunately, he was a good sailor!

I'm pretty sure we used to play with matches and run with scissors too!

Those public information films scared the bejesus out of me too - they were still being played in the late 80s at my primary school

Just asked dh and he also remembers the train video one. His friend passed out which made it very memorable.

Grew up in a rural village.

Made fires with magnifying glass.
Carried a Swiss Army knife from the age of 9 (mainly for carving names in trees).
Swimming in the river.
Playing in empty buildings and a old army shelter.
Cap guns and bangers (used to put loads into a toilet roll tube and set fire to it).
Watch 18 horror films from the age of 9/10 (Freddie etc..).
Pinch magazines out of the paper bank and finding it funny if we found adult magazines.

My brother had a small bowie knife and we used to practice knife throwing in the garden.