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 remember:

• Sticking my fingers into candle wax all the time and have fun peeling it off.
• Sewing my fingers together with cotton thread.
• Getting a bobble of spit on a strand of hair and letting it run up and down the hair.
• Making dolls out of scrunched up paper, sellotape and felt-tip pens.
• Dressing my rabbit/cat up in baby clothes and pushing it around in a pram.
• Making a poo like substance out of everything I could find in the fridge.

I've always been a weird one.

I love the advice to close the curtains @ChazsBrilliantAttitude that will help.

I used to 'breastfeed' my baby dolls (until an awkwardly late age as well, I think)

I also used to pay my brother 20p to eat disgusting things - like a scab I pulled off my let, or a dehydrated lizard we found on holiday. He accepted every challenge.

Going out over the fields with a picnic with my friends and building a camp in the woods or playing near a building site
Buying cigarettes and chewing gum when I was about 14
The shopkeepers selling single cigarettes
Eating those huge gobstoppers when quite young, I’m sure they would be a choking hazard now.
Going to school on my own or with friends aged 6
This was in the 60s/70s

Fantastic thread!

Once I was about 12, my mum would often ask me to go and light a cigarette for her if she was sewing or something. I blame her for the fact that I smoke.

Getting given a small glass of sherry, slightly diluted with lemonade, before Sunday lunches when I was still in primary school. I blame my parents for the fact that I drink.

Roller skating along the main road, because it was less bumpy than the pavement.

Playing in bombed out and derelict houses a good half an hour's walk from home.

Playing on the building site along the road.

Travelling 5 miles by bus to play all day in the woods with my friend and being given a packed lunch to take with us.

Riding in the open back of my friend's dad's pick-up truck and a neighbour's land rover pick-up.

Climbing up the outside of the 4-storey block where I lived, pulling myself by the overflow pipes and balcony railings (in fairness, my mother made me stop doing this when she found out).

Roller skating down the hill alongside our block and having to make a 120 degree turn at the bottom or go crashing into the road. This caused my mother no end of anxiety, and she found herself holding her breath until she heard me safely round the corner. She dealt with this by turning the radio up so she couldn't hear me at all.

It's a miracle any kids born in the 50's/early 60s ever made it to adulthood.

JugglingMummy what a lovely story. Oh the excitement of the postman or anyone really.

I remember too that our butcher used to come to the back door, whistling loudly, to deliver parcels of meat.

I was entranced and tried to be like him by sticking a pencil behind my ear but it got all tangled and mum had to cut it out.

Another happy memory was helping the school caretaker Mr Abercrombie. We'd walk around with him at lunchtime and one lucky child would be picked to light the furnace. Lol!!

We had a little girl about 2 living next door to us, she was always out in the back garden playing on her own. Me & my sister (7 & 9) used to lift her over the fence and take her in our kitchen.
She was always grubby with a snotty nose and tangly hair.
We would wash her and do her hair. No-one seemed to mind, I wonder where she is now.

That video never rest, the farm safety video, was the weirdest thing in my childhood. Not just because of what it was about, but because if the teacher asked us what film we wanted to watch, we always chose that one. Bet she thought we were right nutters.

Spying on the neighbours! There were three of us and we were all addicted to Nancy Drew so we fancied ourselves as detectives and our imaginations led us to believe that our suburban neighbours were 'up to no good'.

Crawling over fences, creeping around the neighbours' yards, peeking in windows, listening to conversations, even going through trash. We must have been pretty good because no one ever caught us at it. But oh, the stories we used to make up based on our activities! Murderers, kidnappers, and spies, the lot of them!!!

Across we used to do that too! We wrote everyone's movements down in notebooks and also had Walkie talkies so we could radio each other from one one of the street to the other when we had someone 'under surveillance' we used to say things we'd picked up off the telly like 'Sierra Oscar this is Sierra 1. I C 1 male approx 60 years old wearing a grey overcoat and brown flat cap. Confirm you have eyes on. Over' hahaha. Such Fun!

Having my friend’s brother pull the sledge down the hill on his motor bike. I think we all got hurt.

Yes! We called it music and movement. We did this in primary school too, also in pants and vests - why??

When I was 11yo me and a friend went to London zoo. We were looking at the elephants and the place was deserted. A keeper in the elephant enclosure invited us in and we fed the elephants dog biscuits. Can’t imagine they let kids in with large, wild animals now. Health and safety, etc.

When I was even younger London zoo also used to do camel rides and also had a llama pulling a carriage for carriage rides. I saw the llama bolt once and the carriage tipped over, spilling some screaming kids out. My parents ushered me away and I always wondered if someone was badly hurt.

I remember the Robbie train safety film. Have just rewatched it and am at the bit where the policemen tell his mum not the go to the hospital to see him as she would ‘only be in the way!’

I used to come home from primary school for lunch then walk back alone.
Our dog used to jump over our garden fence and take himself for a walk and then return later and we would let him in the gate.
I used to babysit my brother when he was about 3 upwards so I was 8 to start with and we used to watch horror films.

Negotiating the 'outside' of bridges over the Mersey.

Playing with locks on the canal, learning how they worked, when holiday boats and house boats were few and far between.

Going everywhere by bike or train - or both. Sitting in the guard's van with little brother in the pram. Carriages with compartments and no aisle.

When I was 5, we moved into the first houses to be built on a new estate. Near the houses there was a big bit of land which was waiting to be built on. The builders had dumped loads of waste there, and homeowners used to do the same. We LOVED exploring it- climbing over oil drums, garden waste, etc. There was loads of smashed glass as well. I can’t believe my (overprotective) parents were ok with it!

"Recycling day" a green mum set up a system where families brought in their newspapers and they were tied up into packs. Every year it would take the juniors an entire day to shift them from a shed into a huge lorry. Best day of the year.

I remember being no older than 8 (we moved out of the house I lived in at the time when I was 8), going round to call for my friend next door (1 year older), and she already had another girl round (same age as her). They were all dressed up (short skirts, shirt made into a crop top, those sandals with a 2 inch heel for kids) and putting make up on. I asked what they were doing - they were going to walk around the neighbourhood and see how many passing drivers beeped at them!

I let them paint my face and then went home and fished out my most grown-clothes, and went to join them. My mum and dad asked why I looked how I looked, and I told them the truth. They let me go, with the proviso that I wore socks with my shoes.

And we did get beeped!!

I still can't actually believe this happened, but it did. Would have been late 90s.

I can only remember one, but looking back I think that was a lot!

Sitting in the street at Easter with about 6 chocolate eggs and other kids boasting that they had more chocolate.

So many things! Don't post much but had to join in!
In the 60s and 70s my Dad driving us all around Wales six of us in a Mini one child on the lap of the front passenger bendy country roads no seatbelts maybe even drink having been consumed!
Had total trust in him!
At work in local council in the 80s the men would compile league tables of the female staff's attractiveness! There would be many comments about tight t-shirts no touching that I remember at least!
One memorable episode in the mid 70s was going away on a coach trip to France we were all under 16. The coach driver took a shine to one of the girls and flirted outrageously with us all in full view of the teachers! He even came back to school to visit us outside! Nothing else happened as far as I am aware!
In the 80s Me and my husband took up horse-riding after going on a pony trek! We went to a stables and were allowed to take horses out with no training some were very headstrong! No health and safety whatsoever we did at least get given a hat!

I’m loving this thread!

Our PE kit in infant school was vest and knickers, no vest and you would just wear your knickers.

Riding in the boot of someone’s car, could often be seven or eight kids in the car altogether.

Going off into the fields behind or houses and walking for miles, we’d just go home when we were hungry.

Being taught at eight years old by a family friend to always wear makeup when you go out as you never know when you will meet the love of your life. (I never do but it stayed with my sister)

Going to the shops with a note from my mum to buy cigarettes and alcohol.

Walking to and from school on my own from being six.

Going out for lunch with a friend to a local cafe during school with no parents from year five. (School actually put a stop to that after about six months when they twigged we weren’t with parents)

From being ten years old, being put on the train at York and going to Edinburgh where my friends Mum would meet me. Used to talk to all sorts of interesting people on those journeys every year.

Dad dropping my sister and I at the pub in the town next to our village when I get as 15 and she was a week past her 14th birthday. We would then get a bus home at 11.20 - for a half fare!

Across and Soup yes we played spy games too. Basically stalked and harassed neighbours, recording information in notebooks and pretended to be foreign by talking gibberish to each other.

Another thing we liked to do was to drive Mum's car when she was busy. We'd sneak the keys, pile in and my brother, who must have been about 11, would drive us round the block. Can't quite believe we did this. Don't think we were ever found out!

We used to ride down steep concrete hills on empty milk float trays that we used to ask for from the local corner shop Surprised we didn’t break any bones looking back. Some probably did.

I went on YouTube thinking those videos mentioned about the train tracks would be funny and outdated but tbh that would have scared me as a child. Not as old or far back but they have tended to stop showing those shocking 00’s/90’s adverts of drink driving, the extreme ones where it shows a brutal accident with loads of blood, and they used to show them at any time in the day, not just at night. Don’t think they’d get away with that nowadays