Inspired by another great thread. Can I ask what things you did as a kid that were pretty outrageous?

[Winter7]

Not sure if I am allowed to reference other thread but op's son was involved in a pretty brave but funny prank.

Got me thinking. When I was about 14, a group us us planned to camp out in our school overnight. Up in the rafters of a very old building. It was more of a ghost watch adventure than anything more troublesome. We packed a picnic, sleeping bags and torches. No phones or such at the time. A couple of our parents wouldn't let some of our group 'stay over' at our make believe sleepover and our plan never went ahead. I still shudder when I imagine the trouble we could have been in. Never once did we consider alarms going off!
What youthful mischief did other mumsnetters get up to that as adults you now think was a terrible idea?

At 8 my mum would shoo us out the door and tell us lunch was at one if we wanted it but MUST be back by six !
I went next door (1/4 mile away, got the ponies out with my 8 yr old best friend , groomed, saddled up and went off on the road for 3 miles to 'the gallops' . Great fun. No mobiles. Mum had no idea till we were back. Even when I told her she just said 'that sounds like a fun day' ... can't begin to imagine that now. With mine. Although they are quite good a taking a tent and buggering off for a night.

At 16 I hitched round Europe with my boyfriend. France to Amsterdam through Germany to Switzerland then south of France then Home... mum thought we were at his Aunts in Margate 😁.. kids today are just soooooo good and compliant but god they are dull !

We used to go through the phone book looking for married couples, eg Mr & Mrs John Smith, and call them from payphones. If the wife answered we’d say ‘Is John there? Can you just let him know that I’m pregnant and it’s his?’

Harry!

We used to go to phone boxes, dial the operator and ask to speak to Busby.

We thought we were hilarious!

My dear late granddad was a massive socialist at the time. Used to tell me and my brother that if we were ever to go on the rob, we must only steal from rich corporations rather than small independent shops. From then on, every time my brother and I were in a chain supermarket we would always steal one or two things (just packets of biscuits etc) thinking we were like Robin Hood 😂 my DM went mad when she found out! Didn't speak to my granddad for a month.

Also aged about 8 I witnessed a drug deal from the balcony of a council estate. At the time I wanted to be a detective so I decided to follow them and take notes for the police. They saw me but luckily didn’t seem to care!

I’ve actually gone and NC for this - my sis is on here and this is so obviously me to anyone who knows me!

The Summer when I was 11 me and my friend were obsessed by flying and the local light airfield. We cycled up there loads and loitered around for hours on end. We befriended a couple of old blokes who had a plane. Long story short, they started taking us for trips in their plane. It started off with a couple of circuits and then we did a couple of longer trips - North Wales near Llandudno and several to near Scarborough. The last trip we did to Scarborough we got into a car (no idea whose!!!) and went for ice creams on the harbour. It was all amazing but we for some reason didn’t tell anyone about it.

A few days after the ice cream trip my auntie came round. She had been in Scarborough and spotted me. She innocently asked my mum how our trip had been and why hadn’t we said we would be there too.

I went to boarding school after the Summer hols. The family “joke” is that I was sent away because of my plane antics.

Part of me thinks how amazing that Summer was. The Mum in me is filled with horror about it all and wants to get tracking devices fitted to my kids!!!!

It started off with a couple of circuits and then we did a couple of longer trips - North Wales near Llandudno and several to near Scarborough.

^
Wtaf with two old blokes you didn't know!?

We had known them for a few weeks. When it’s written down it sounds appalling. It really wasn’t though, they were lovely and kind - nothing remotely dodgy apart from flying 2 11 year olds 50 odd miles in a plane without parental knowledge

We used to of to the beach without adult supervision from around 7 years old. Swimming to the raft, jumping of the pier and ringing the bell for Uncle Peter so we watched Punch and Judy for free, During the holidays a beach mission ran play sessions too.
At four I walked two miles to the bus with my sisters aged 5 and 7. We went the six miles on the bus without an adult supervising us. There was no back door and the best conductors used to let the slightly older ones (10/11) sit dangling their legs off the back.
We sometimes walked home so we could go scrumping.
At secondary, my chemistry teacher taught us to make fireworks and explosives. Using boots weed killer and sugar we blew great craters in the school field. Such fun!

I used to spend far too long on internet chat rooms when i was a young teen.

Me and friends used to go to pay phones and ring chat lines:-o do they still exist lol.

Oh yeah i had numerous "nights at a friend's " why mum and dad didn't demand to meet said friends i dont know haha

One more... we used to ring this helpline for missing people and they'd ring somebody for you we thought better than using our phone credit. God i feel awful!!!

My friends and I spent a few weeks in the holidays exploring an abandoned factory. So dangerous and so so stupid.

One stupid episode of mine in more detail: i was 12, and on my way home, top deck of the bus with my mate on sat afternoon. We were chatted up by two older lads, 17? 18? and they pestered and pestered us to stay on the bus past our stop and come with them to 'have a coffee' at theirs. GOD knows why but we agreed and stayed on the bus and got off at a stop at this awful sink estate and walked (what felt like) miles into the narrow passages and up a load of stairs to this nasty dirty flat. Did we refuse to go in at this point? Nope In we went.

The lads were one in front one behind and we walked in through the kitchen. There were two adult men in there who muttered something to the first lad and then felt me and my mate's arses as we squeezed through. I was starting to feel panicy.

On through the flat and up the stairs into a grimy bedroom (I know !). The room had two filthy single beds in it, a porn poster on one wall and an overflowing ashtray on the floor and that was all. My mate and i sat on one of the beds and both lads came in, muttered to each other and went out again LOCKING us in. One then came back and sat down on the bed by me. He said he was waiting for his mate for a minute and could he have a kiss. I said no so he asked my mate who gave him a very quick snog. They came and went a couple of times more locking the door behind them. We were both aware we had to get away and next time the door was opened we bolted out of it and out of the flat. The lads chased us to the top of the outside stairs. We hid for a while till going looking for the bus stop. We saw them looking for us. Lucky escape. We were bloody silly.

Not me, but friend of a friend. They'd always wanted a dog, but their parents said no for various reasons - all very sensible. They decided to stage a break in, persuading friends to do it while the family were out one day. Friends, wearing gloves, used the spare key under the plant pot by the door, messed some drawers up and departed. Panic when the family got home - phoned police etc. It never went further as nothing missing. The teens then said "If we'd had a dog, it wouldn't have happened."
Bingo! Panicked parents got a dog. These teens are in their 50's now and they've never told their parents what they did!

Just remembered another one - at 14/15 I had a boyfriend a car hole of years older. He’d throw pebbles at my window in the middle of the night. I’d sneak out and we’d go down to the marina and take his dads speedboat out. Middle of the night, no lights, massively busy harbour. We’d go right out in the bay and shag and then he’d drop me home before it got light. His dad was always having people come and ‘fix’ his speedboat as he was convinced it had a fuel leak.

Some of these stories are wild! I am enjoying reading all the adventures of others, although some just bloody terrifying!

The dog story is brilliant! I am imagining my reaction if my kids got caught doing any of these. Maybe I will cut them some slack next time they do something a bit irresponsible. Seems it could be much worse! :0

When I was a toddler my older brothers showed me how to escape the house, apparently. I was obsessed with mail so I’d walk down the street, unbeknownst to anyone, and collect everyone’s mail and then hide it under the house.

The couple next door had blazing rows about him giving her money for bills and her never paying them - because they never came. They got divorced and moved on.

Months later my dad did some work under the house and found the stash of mail I’d stolen, bills and all...

We used to wander miles from the age of about 6/7, often through some woods know for drug use etc. One day someone in there offered us some knives to deliver 'a package' to someone in the next village, so we did, then promptly built a den for ourselves with a stash of knives and biscuits!

At about 10 we started playing on train tracks, or throwing ourselves/each other in to any open water. Amazingly no one really got hurt.

From about 12 I used to chat with some very dodgy characters online, this carried on for years! This is also about the age we started prank calling anyone and everyone.

At about 14/15 we started tarting ourselves up to look older and began drinking in town, ditching the 'uncool park dwellers' our age in favour of the cool sleaze bagmen with cars we met out in pubs who clearly weren't going to let a little fact like we were clearly children get in the way of doing allsorts . Oh it all makes me feel sick now!

We built a trench at the side of a friends house so we could have an underground tunnel to play in. Sadly they moved before it was completed (we were about 8)

We used to regularly play in the reservoir and took a boat onto it once.

We would often get into the local barns and mess about in them for hours.

We used to play in the stacks of hay bales.

Tried to steal a tractor.

Used to climb onto the school roof and mess about on there.

There was loads of other things we did that I can't remember. This would have been 2000's, we lived very rurally and we had the run of the village. No mobiles, but had to be in by 6 for tea. We would very rarely be indoors all day.

Also remembered; on our street was a house that was empty. Had been for about 4/5 months. The back door was accidentally smashed after the old neighbours moved out (it had small pains of glass in the door), we got bored, so got into the garden, and was messing about in the house when the new owners rocked up... my god we scarpered quickly. As we were crawling out the broken window, they were coming in the front door

@HarryHarry

We used to go through the phone book looking for married couples, eg Mr & Mrs John Smith, and call them from payphones. If the wife answered we’d say ‘Is John there? Can you just let him know that I’m pregnant and it’s his?’

That's amazing

I didn't get up to anything particularly outrageous, I think it's more just that the freedom I had would be inconceivable now.

During the school holidays, my mum used to shove me out of the door at 12:30pm on the dot with instructions to be home no later than 5pm but no earlier than 4pm (she worked nights and needed sleep).

For those few hours she had no idea where I was, what I was doing or who I was with. To be honest, as long as I got back on time she didn't really care too much either. There were no mobile phones back then.

I remember once cycling my bike as far as I could in a straight line before I got knackered. I ended up about 50 miles from home in a town I'd never been to before so I just kind of cycled around a bit and then went home.

I think that kind of freedom is completely inconceivable nowadays.