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?

I had a bogey collection on my wall and I collected farts in a jar

I also had a bogey collection. On the back of my pink velour headboard.

My brother and I had a fart jar

I collected toilet roll tubes - I had over 300 of them at one point in a cupboard behind my bed. Can't remember if we ever got mice! I think I was originally inspired by Blue Peter presenters showing you how to make xmas crackers. I also remember doing PE in pants and vest and bare feet in the dining hall straight after lunch. Often the floor wouldn't have been cleaned properly and you'd get bits of mashed potato stuck to your toes. Also remember being packed into the boot of my uncle's Estate car whilst he drove over the limit on the motorway. He was a policeman and would joke that if he could pulled over he would just show his police badge and get let off - not sure if that was true. I remember one time we were at his house for lunch and I wouldn't eat the food so he told me that his police mates were going to come and take me off to the nick. I was absolutely terrified! He did mellow out a bit once he had kids of his own.

@whiskyowl - it made me shed a few tears remembering him and the simple lives we lived in the 70's.

Rumpledfaceskin "Pants and vests" was called "Music & movement" at my primary school, but we did do it in our pants and vests. Prancing around pretending to be a tree or something to a BBC Schools soundtrack

For gym, we had to wear navy shorts with a strip of red ribbon sewn up each side, or our navy school knickers with strips of red ribbon on the sides.

Two particular girls, who happened to be among the knicker-wearers, were often sent around the classrooms with a notice from the gym teachers re after-school sports or something.

The boys greatly enjoyed the arrival of these girls and perhaps some teachers did too.

Why couldn't the gym teacher have sent them around before they got undressed, I wonder?

In secondary school, btw.

From the age of 11 went off all day on my bike with a pack of sandwiches and a bottle of orange juice.

Around 8 or 9, climbing around huge piles of bales of waste paper at the local paper mill.
There were lots of little "passages" between the bales.

I convinced my mates that I had thrown a bicycle tyre over a lampost, like a hoopla. they were all v. impressed with my throwing skill.
The truth was, I climbed the lampost and placed the tyre over the top. I don't know which is the most bizzare.

There used to be Darwin Award level playground equipment such as the witches hat. There was a giant swing for a dozen kids sitting in a row with a horses head at the front, you use to have to hold on for dear life. And slides as high as a house that had no safety rail, some of them had an exciting bump in the middle.

Building and lighting a bonfire on my friends massive garden, we did it in the middle of trees where the tree house was above

Friend went in the house took a box of matches out the kitchen and we lit the bonfire.

Then we used little Potter plates and but haribo sweets on it then onto a brick cooker that we built on the fire

They were very very nice, we went inside and her dm even ate one and said we we're clever we we're about 7 at the time

We went out on bikes in the morning and only go home when we got hungry. We could end up miles away from home.
We went in old abandoned churches/villiage halls/houses
Collected stones and rocks from streams and so much more.

Sounds awful but we had a gang and we used to fight with other kids.
We also used to go and play in the river/streams all by ourselves from about 8.
We used to climb over the school wall in the holidays and play... until we got caught and the police went round to all our parents. Not pretty.
We used to go carol singing.

For PE we had little navy kilted skirts to wear, we could wear tracksuit bottoms but we still had to wear the skirts over the top. Even in trampolining, when the skirt would poof out for a parachute-like effect :S

My mum occasionally sent me round to the local parrafin pump with a jerry can, fill it up and bring home in the dark for our parafin heater. I was 8 but the size of a 6 year old.

My parents bought us fake cigarettes in Blackpool, the ones with the powder inside. Walked around all day thinking we were cool 😵😂

There were also those drum-shaped wooden roundabouts that span round at the speed of light with just a couple of iron bars to cling on to and a gap underneath, my cousin fell off and got his leg stuck under one once and broke his ankle.

I'm sure people ended up with dire injuries from witch's hats and those bucking horse things as well - so much cast iron and zero safety features, ffs, not to mention potholed gravelly tarmac underfoot! - but thankfully it never happened to anyone I knew of.

We used to play 'It Around the Houses' when i was a kid. I grew up in a rural village in a big cul de sac with 15 houses. The game was a cross between hide and seek and tag/tig/it and was played all over the street includnig the front AND BACK gardens of the houses. most people had open side paths round to the back of the house and the fences between the gardens were low (3ft) just two rung style not solid panels. so you were allowed to climb over/through the fences between gardens too.

There was only 1 house that you weren't allowed to go in (no.5) but the rest were a free for all regardless. Can't imagine how people would feel about that now!

also there was a group of 5 of use aged 11,9,8,7 and 4 who used to go off in the morning (on our Bike, skateboard,scooter, tractor and the tractors trailer respectively) and we'd go up to the woods or the few miles to the next village. we'd usually pack a lunch picnic into the trailer with the youngest and we'd be gone until the street lights came on, adventuring (climbing trees, building dens, rolling down hills etc)

I was hanging onto the end of a "bucking horse" thing with lots of other kids on it.
It dipped really low and my spine was scraped on the tarmac (the rough stony kind). Very sore.
Years later, I realised I could have had a very serious injury from doing that.

We did a treasure hunt in brownies in the 80s. We were given a sheet with 25 random things to find (an egg, a feather, a sponge etc) and turned out the church hall in pairs to find the stuff. No adults, no hi-viz vests, no health and safety lectures other than stick together and be back in an hour. I remember rushing around our little town searching for the stuff, asking in shops for stuff. Great fun!

for context I should add that this was mid-90s

"There was only 1 house that you weren't allowed to go in (no.5) but the rest were a free for all regardless. Can't imagine how people would feel about that now!"

This thread has really got me thinking. We now have a much more proprietorial attitude to public space, don't we? I don't know how much of it results from a litigious health and safety culture, and how much from a wider social change that is leading to households being more separate and potentially also more isolated.

Oh my god! That Robbie train film haunted my childhood. I genuinely still get worried crossing traintracks in case my shoelaces get caught.