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?

Early 90s kid. We were also show the spirit of the dark water video, I think it still has something to do with my fear of my DD falling in a river and not being able to get her. Some may say that's effective...

We used to buy fake cigarettes role up our jacket sleeves, Don some sunglasses and pretend we were cool to the younger kids in the park.

We used to regularly take sandwiches to the homeless man that lived in the woods near my friends house. Our parents knew nothing of this.

I walked to school on my own from the age of 9 because the bus route changed. It was about a mile walk. My parents worked weird shifts which meant I was on my own alot. This also meant that I could by sweets in the newsagent on the way and then sell them for double the price at our anti sweet school. That was a nice little business until I got caught.

I remember building a den on top of the garage roof which was a good 8ft off the ground. I'd have a heart attack if DD did that now.

When I was 8 my let Dad used to let me drive his van sitting on his lap, it was a new estate, unmade road, I would steer and change gear he had to use the throttle!

Knocking on doors to sell raffle tickets for the school fete

Testarossa1 my Mum used to do this for our birthday parties. She would use different coloured wool and each strand would have a small present on the end.

I think that's a really lovely memory OP

I have tons of lovely memorys,1 was our Milkman he was such a nice man I'd go and pay the bill for my Mum and Dad and he'd let me pick a yogurt or two for free,he had a Daughter of his own that was just a couple of years older than me and him and his wife and Daughter were all really lovely people,he was our milkman for years we all missed him when he retired.

When I was about 4 there were two brothers that lived in a flat below my Nan and every week when we went to see my Nan they'd always be waiting to see me so they could give me the bag of chocolate limes that they'd bought for me.After they passed away(very close to one another)I never ate another chocolate lime sweet and that was 38 years ago.

There's tons more,lifes not exactly the same for my 5DC but they do have some lovely friendships with older neighbours of ours that they'll be able to look back on when they're adults for which I'm really grateful.

We lived by the coast. If the sea was really rough my dad would drive us down to the promenade and let the waves crash over the car. We loved it but I wouldn't dream of doing that with my DCs

Two come to mind with me and my brother:

Eating dry cat food. Not letting our sister join in and have some.

With duplo- you know those house walls you could get with a sliding door on them? We would hold one of those up each in front of our faces, slide open the doors and say "Aaaalex!" To each other. To this day we have no clue why we did that!!

After the pit closed near to us the old shuttle train still used to come back and forth for a little while while they fully closed the site. We used to put pennys on the tracks, wait for the train and then compare the squashed pennies.

I remember a public safety film they used to show at the cinema. It warned against drink driving which was still socially acceptable then. It showed a girl getting dressed up to go out in a date with a man who drank too much....with inevitable tragic consequences. It stuck in my mind mostly because the girl was so very glamorous and because of the sound track, a song called 'I'd rather leave while I'm in love'

We spent every break and lunch skipping in primary school. Sometimes we'd take in elastic and do French skipping or a dinner lady would get us out a PE rope.

We used to swim in the local quarry in the summer. If we were brave we'd climb the sides and jump from higher and higher ledges. I'd have an absolute breakdown if I caught the DCs near a quarry now.

We used to play a game where we'd leap out of cupboards (everyone in our house had fitted cupboards and there was always a top section with a smaller door) we'd climb into the small top cupboard and leap out onto the bed over and over. Whoever leapt furthest was the winner. How the hell we never went through the ceiling is beyond me.

There was a river at the bottom of our garden which ran through the neighbours opposite. The lady who lived there was quite old but very lovely and her Husband built us a rope swing so we could swing across the brook and go to their house for tea. My best friend lived next door and we'd spend hours swinging across this brook and knocking on Mrs B's door for a drink.

We used to go and help out at the farm down the road during hay bailing season towards the end of summer and we'd always be allowed to ride home on the back of the trailer on a hay bale.

My brother and I would use the toilet at the same time! We thought we were very efficient with him peeing between my legs... soooo weird!

We didn't have a car until 1980 when my dad passed his test and bought a Cortina. Or Capri, I forget which came first. So holiday destinations were reached either by train, or once or twice we all piled into our uncle's (dad's brother) estate car for a shared holiday. So there was myself, my brother, our cousin, my parents, and our uncle and aunt. Of course we kids were crammed into the back. It was great fun, but definitely not acceptable nowadays.

"I walked to school on my own from the age of 9 because the bus route changed. It was about a mile walk."

Same here, it wasn't on a bus route anyway. Of course, there was a CofE primary school just around the corner, but I had to go to the Catholic one. Same as my mum and my nan and great aunts before me.

We spent a lot of time sitting on each others shed or garage roofs. One time someone jumped down between a higher and lower one and went through the roof landing on the shed floor, luckily only getting some bruises.

Another one who spent endless days riding a bike around, either on my own or with whoever happened to be out (nobody was ever fussy about who it was - boy, girl, any age. None of this 'best friends' stuff). Everyone had access to everyone's gardens without having to ask. I remember someone falling off their bike and cracking their head open, and I very helpfully said I would run and fetch the neighbour as he was a vet and would know what to do.

Otherwise, long car journeys with no rear seat belts and loose dogs on the parcel shelf.

And two terrifying public service adverts, one involving a chip-pan and the other involving an iron which falls off an ironing board and lands on a toddler's head. I'm still obsessive about keeping irons away from my DC, and one of them is old enough to have left home.

I would sometimes throw stones at army patrols, until my DF found out. I would sneak off to watch the riots. My parents were pretty good at stopping me though. Some of the other kids were allowed to go.

I was about 24 when I went to my last one. And I went with a friend who had never been before. I told them about that one.

I grew up just outside 1970s Johannesburg, not a safe place at all, and my brother and I were just left to roam the veld (grasslands) on our bikes all day, with no restriction and no way of anyone knowing where we were, from when I was 14 and he was 10. The only rule was be home by dark.

My DH, who also grew up in South Africa, has a photo, taken by his father, of him and some other children having a great time swimming in a river, clearly visible in the background is a sign saying Beware of Crocodiles!

Kids being transported on the back of a bakkie (a pick-up truck) including on motorways. No-one gave it a second thought. Of course also long car journeys with no seat belts and both parents smoking endlessly in the front.

We used to take rides in the milkman's float (mid 80s London suburb). He used to give us little presents that presumably the milk company gave him.

All totally innocent, he was (and is) a family man and was just being friendly even though we must have got in his way. Can't see any parents letting their kids do that today though!!

Play in the street generally with the neighbours children.

Set up "shop" on the street outside it house and sell silly trinkets for 10p.

I used to ride my guinea pig in my bike bag around the block age 8 or so. Animal cruelty perhaps?

So much more freedom even in relatively central London back then.

Playing hide and seek under parked cars in the dark!

I was born in the mid-1980s so was in my early teens when people started to get the internet at home.

At about 13-14, we used to pile round to one of our houses and basically lure paedophiles to chat with us and have cyber sex with us. We even lured them to meet up with us a good few tims (absolutely no intention of anything sexual at all- most often we'd just watch from a distance laughing as this sad old pervert would be waiting for his "date" with a 10-year old we'd made up).

Our parents thought we were all doing homework. I don't they had any idea what kind of stuff was on the internet and would never have imagined what us straight-laced girls were up to.

About once a term the tv and video player would be wheeled out and we'd have to sit and watch a short film about the dangers of playing on, close or near to railway lines/electricity pylons & sub stations/walking in the dark with no reflective gear on etc

The one with the welly boot on an escalator had a profound and lasting effect on me. You should hear me lecturing the kids on keeping their feet in the middle of the steps, every time

Playing on a building site.
Out all day on my bike, sometimes alone, as long as I was home by ‘lighting up time’.
We kids used to cram on to the back seat of cars, alternating sitting back against the seat or forward towards the front seats so more kids could be fitted in.
I learned to drive my dad’s Land Rover at 8, on the beach.
I used to beg to be allowed to light my mother’s cigarettes and unwrap her tampons (weird!)
I used to go on my dad’s CB for hours and chat to random men (usually truckers), sometimes putting on a sexy voice (at least I thought it was sexy at aged 10 or so!)

Bloody hell, I feel so innocent now after reading keeshy's post. Most outrageous thing I ever did when I was thirteen or fourteen was buy a copy of PlayGirl in Smiths for a dare.

CB Radio! I had forgotten that! I used to chat to plenty of unknown men when I was a young teenager. It was my father's radio and he had no problem with my using it, completely unsupervised, no-one ever asked what I was up to! I think I even had some sort of rather provocative handle (although I cannot now remember what it was!).

Also, at 17, I had a "job" selling dubious posters of half-naked women outside my father's business (organised by one of his friends!). I stood by the side of the road in a bikini top and hotpants and flirted with the drivers going by in order to sell my wares. All in full view of my father.