To ask you to remember a time when Health and Safety hadn't been invented (lighthearted)!

[CulturePigeon]

My work has always involved careful risk assessments for children doing a range of activities and of course, I've had my own children to bring up so I would like to emphasise that I'm not in favour of turning the clock back to a more reckless era!

But I'm horrified when I think of the things which I experienced as a child and the reaction they would get now. One example: I went to a schoolfriend's party (age 11) and her dad got 11 of us into the car by putting 3 girls, curled up in the foetal position, in the boot (not a hatchback boot - a big saloon where the boot was totally out of sight and sound contact with the rest of the car), 6 into the back seat, sitting on each other's knees, and 2 in the front seat. This was all long before seat belts were either compulsory or even commonly used. He then proceeded to drive at a good lick along some very hilly roads until we got to a local forest. I remember we were all helpless with laughter.

I think I knew this was not a good idea - and that my parents wouldn't have done it - but at the same time, I was happy to join in and didn't really question it. It makes me go weak at the knees now!

Any other horrific memories of hair-raising activities in those far-off days before H & S?

@PrachtStück Neither my junior or senior schools had fences around them either (70/80). When I went back to visit once, I thought the fences made them look like prisons.

No foods had ‘sell-by’ dates on them. You used the food until it smelt awful, went mouldy etc.

When I was at primary school my parents were farmers. When my Dad was delayed in picking me up (cow in a ditch type thing) I'd just play in the stream next to the school and passers by would say "Your Dad late again?"

After swimming lessons I'd be dropped off by the club minibus at end of my road and walk the remaining mile on my own (aged 10)

We drove from the midlands to the Isle of Wight with four children (two ten year olds and two eight year olds) 'double strapped' in the back seat - each seat belt stretched across three children to clip into the other side. This was only 1995 so hardly the dark ages! Our mums smoked all the way there, too...

Ha!
Went to a 3rd world country a few years ago.
In the area I was no "hotel", well just about nothing, would pass anything H&S related. The "electrics" were an eye opener.

A boy at my school threw another boy's shoe on to the roof and the teacher made him climb up and get it down. He got scared up there and started to cry and the teacher told him to stop being a big girl. We were about ten.
At secondary school the less academic boys didn't have to do lessons in the final year and instead 'helped the caretaker' which involved chasing the girls round the field on the lawn mower.
The less academic girls visited older people in their homes and cleaned for them. One elderly man put his hand up my friends's skirt while she was cleaning his windows. The teachers laughed and said he was a dirty old man and she should wear jeans next time.

I once spent a summer being looked after by a group of university students - mum worked at the University. They had no regard for H&S. If most of us were there in relatively one piece at the end of the day that was OK. It's a large green campus site and I vaguely remember swimming in what's clearly an ornamental pond, for example. They'd also drive us round in a clapped out van, especially fast over the speed humps- I remember the doors swinging open with a kid hanging out of the back of the van and they just drove faster rather than stop. We used to play in the disco and eat lunch in the student bar as well. Even in the 80s would you take a bunch of infant and primary kids to a bar?

Oh and when I was 11 I went to a summer fete with my church youth group; it was an hour or so away. Four or five kids squeezed into the rickety old Ford belonging to one of the 'youth leaders', who was a random 18 year old who definitely hadn't been CRB (predecessor of DBS) checked. He drove us at 100mph down the motorway when we asked him to go faster. Great fun, can't believe no one was killed 😂

Didn’t a study recently show that rates of playground injuries in children have stayed completely consistently the same despite the installation of all those safety surfaces?

Two of my friends mums had estate cars. We went most places rolling around in the boot, even when no one was sat on the back seat

My friend's dad was a builder. When I went out with him and his parents, his mum used to sit in the cab of his dad's pick-up truck and friend and I would sit on cushions in the open back.

We were too poor to have a car, but my DF got the opportunity to buy a motorbike and sidecar at an absolute bargain price. The idea was that he and DM would go on the motorbike and me and the dog, a German Shepherd, would go in the sidecar. DM hated being on the back of the bike, so we ended up with her and the dog in the sidecar and 4YO me on the back of the motorbike. No crash helmet either, they weren't compulsory until the early 70s iirc.

DF got another motorbike when the first one gave up the ghost and for the last 2 terms of primary after we moved, I used to get a lift to school on the back of it, rain or shine, no helmet or protective clothing.

At 6 or 7, I was allowed to "camp out" alone in the garden all night in fine weather, with an improvised tent that was actually a clothes airer on its side with a tablecloth over it. Sometimes I had the dog for company.

At 10, I used to walk about a mile and a half, across a busy main road and a park, to my friend's house. We'd take a packed lunch and get a bus to some woods and open countryside a few miles away and play there all day, then get the bus home at teatime. No adult supervision whatsoever.

We also used to play in big derelict houses that were waiting to be redeveloped, and on building sites at the weekends when the builders weren't working. Building sites were rarely fenced off in the early '60s.

The thing that I was allowed to do that still gives me heebies was going down the hill by the flats where we lived on my roller skates. The hill got steeper as you went down it, so you went faster and faster, and there was a reflex angle at the bottom where, if you didn't make the turn, you'd go down the kerb and probably land on your face in the road.

DM told me years later that it used to worry her so much that she'd hold her breath when she heard me stomping up the hill, and not breathe out till she heard me round the corner safely at the bottom. I asked why she didn't make me stop, and she just said "You always did just what you wanted no matter what I said, so there wasn't any point".

I went back a few years ago, when DP and I were in the area, and it looked pretty hairy. DP was shocked that I had the nerve to do it. I must have been fearless when I was a kid.

I remember been picked up for contacting with my dad in his work van, and literally been loaded into the back next to all the tools, and told to sit on the wheel arch. I would have been around 4 and my sister (7), who unbelievably was the most safty conscious person present, decided to bundgy-cord me to get wall as a make shift seat belt, whilst on route.

It was a 40 minute journey, including motorways, and the back part of the van was not visible or accessible from the drivers cab.

I don't remember anything massively unsafe at primary school, but the church run youth group I attended had a very loose attitude to health and safety.

A regular activity was that we'd all pile into the church minibus, which was more rust than bus, and head out to some local woods for a wide game. Nobody ever seemed to keep track of anything. One time a massive thunderstorm struck out of nowhere and lightning struck a nearby telegraph pole which was scary, but the game never stopped. When I got home my mum wasn't at all worried about us getting lost or hurt in the woods, or the lightning. No, I was told off for not taking a coat as I was soaked through. The rain was so heavy my stupid coat wouldn't have made any difference.
On another occasion a kid got knocked out cold for a few minutes but he woke up again, so no-one worried. Also, two kids got bored and decided to walk back to the church without telling anyone. That did spook some of the adults, but not enough to actually change anything.

Thankfully attitudes have changed, but there still is some grumbling whenever activities are arranged that actual laws about safety actually need to be followed.

I was at school and was about 8. We never had a school uniform (mid 80s) and I was wearing these blue slip on shoes. I did a kick and my shoe went over the fence of one of the houses backing onto our field so the teachers made a friend and I go round and get the shoe. I felt very shy knocking on their door. Luckily someone was in and they were pretty non-pluses but anyway can you imagine that now ?!

In primary school in the 70's we had a huge climbing frame, it was probably 6ft off the ground. It had monkey bars and kids would climb right to the top and walk along them.

One day it disappeared due to "health and safety" so that was probably the point that they realised that a huge tall climbing frame plonked on a concrete schoolyard probably wasn't a great idea .

Also we had several two pin plugs in our house and I had a few significant shocks off them

Boring comment. Does it matter? We didn't wear our seat belts is hardly outing or interesting.

Piling in the back of the car, no child seats, no seatbelts, sometimes with friends, so having 4 or 5 children squeezed into the 3 back seats. It was normal. 10 of us piled into a black taxi cab.

No helmets to wear on bikes (still not the law, but). On a nice day bringing all the desks and chairs onto the school field to have lessons on there, never known that to happen with my children.

Having hot chocolate and tea in primary school at lunchtime; I remember a child knocking one over and getting burned - again not something DC's school has ever done. Having the school floor slippy due to it being over polished, and just being told to be careful walking on it.

Smoking around children, going to people's homes and seeing ashtrays.
My cousin regularly being sent out by his mother to get her cigarettes from the shop (he must have been about 9/10). The shop assistant obliging.

Teachers hitting misbehaving children in class, post corporal punishment but didn't seen to be an issue?!

Meeting my dad at the end of the road and riding home sitting on the car bonnet holding on to the windscreen wipers

Playing on the building site, at night, in a big gang including barricading each other into nooks and crannies and leaving them there

Vanishing up the hills for hours, my mum used to blow a foghorn to bring us back

Climbing out my bedroom window at night to go and play with my friend

Taking turns with my sister to climb over the back seat into the boot with the dog to lie on a sleeping bag reading, on long holiday drives

The 70s were great!

Early 80’s, our playground was a building site, they were building a new estate and we used to go and play on the foundations and in the half built houses🤣

And 3 kids in the back of the car, windows closed and both parents smoking in front. Revolting but completely normal in the 80’s.

Drink driving. In the 70s the Irish Govt made it illegal to have more than 6 pints if driving. There were actual outbreaks of unrest. Even now some people think it's ok.

One for the Aussies, two words-panel vans. Aka shag wagons. My friends mum had one ( she was only in her early thirties) and we thought she was very racy. We drove up to Sydney (to see Jesus Christ Superstar) laying horizontally across the back, in a mattress of course! With the back open. And we stopped and bought a kilo of cherries and spat the stones out the back, trying to hit the cars behind us.

We played in building sites and scrapyards. Cars piled high, broken glass and fuel everywhere. Playing on railways wasn't unheard of. Still happens now

My 14 year old brother used to drive the tractor bringing haybales in from the fields, the rest of us kids (me aged 6) would ride on the hay trailer to the farm. Then when the hay was in, we would climb into the barn rafters and jump into the hay. Fantastic fun!

Being left asleep in a caravan behind a hotel while my parents went for a drink (I was 7 and my DSis 5)

Being the tea monitor at primary school making drinks for the teachers with a huge hot water urn.

Being taken swimming by my granny in an outdoor school pool during the school holidays. She couldn't swim and the pool was too deep for us to stand up in- no life guard!

Teachers smoking in the staff room.

I used to work in our local shop when I was 15 (1990s). We had a ham slicer which was like a circular spinning blade. It was my job to clean it at the end of the day, which you would do by removing the safety guard and giving it a good wipe. Except I worked out that it was marginally faster and easier if you removed the guard and then switched it on, and just held the cloth against the blade. Believe it or not, I still have all my fingers.

Oh, and we used the same manky plastic glove for handling raw and cooked meat. I think it got changed once a week.