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?

Our teacher drank it himself. He was known to be an alcoholic (some terrible backstory about being trapped in a burning car and having PTSD, he did have facial burns but I have no idea if that story was true or if he just got a bit close to the BBQ one year).

A list of things that were dangerous in the 80s..(perhaps more so than now..and we did know that) AND I wouldn't let my children do now:

Walking down a dark (early morn/late afternoon) country road to a bus stop at age 8 (alone) to wait for a bus that was hourly.
Coming out of school and not being handed over to anyone (age 7 onwards)
No one calling if you didn't arrive at school, didn't come back after lunch.
Arriving obviously p*ssed at a school disco aged 12/13 and smelling of fags
Accepting lifts off anyone you vaguely knew in passing who stopped. Sometimes teachers/youth leaders/coaches gave lifts.
At my school..kids helping to push start the knackered mini bus every time we used it until a new one was bought years later.
Bench seats in school mini bus.
Going on school trips and being allowed off to wander around in the evening (I remember this started age 11!)
Swimming in the sea on a school trip age 9 in our pants.
Paper round in a semi rural area age 11 on bike. In dark.
Catching the train to a city over 50 miles away (no mobiles etc) aged 12 to go window shopping with just a few pounds in your pocket.
Driving round in the cars of older boys/men (age 14 upwards)
Roller-booting down steep hills that junctioned onto an A road!

And no we didn't all survive ...in fact as the years have gone on, it's become clear that lots didn't

Shame there's not a bit more fun for our teens now. But not sure back then was all great!

1960s childhood - Slides in the park so high with barely any protection when you climbed to the top. Same with the monkey bars in the school playground, fall off and you hit hard tarmac.
Children as young as 6 able to buy fireworks, 4/5 was considered a good age to start nipping to the corner shop for your parent's errands where you would hand over a shopping list and money to the shop keeper. I can remember my Dad suffering from headaches and often being sent to get a box of Anadin from the shop two streets away.
At primary school, the headmaster didn't have a separate office, he was in the hall, partially cordoned off with moveable wooden screens as were two classes.
He would sit there with his pet dog at his feet, chain smoking his pipe all day long!

just this morning I was watching video of a 10 year old girl called Mildred Unger dancing a Charleston on the top wing of a bi-plane in flight. No harness or rope. She was sat in the seat during takeoff and then climbed out of her seat and on to the top wing as the plane was flying. Mildred Unger dancing

As a mum I was definitely 😲I mean it was cool but yeah h and s rules exist because common sense isn't as common as we'd like to believe.

The equivalent to these for today's children will be "I had an Instagram account aged 10" "my parents let me watch YouTube in my bedroom with no supervision" or "I used to play computer games 8 hours a day for the whole school holidays"

It's strangely ironic that we are now all obsessed with car seats and seat belts but still think it's fine to park on pavements right outside school and sit there for 20 minutes with the engine running.

In some areas health and safety is very strong and in others it's non existent.

Another one, which genuinely makes me feel queasy to remember, is when a friend and I (aged about 14) visited her aunt and uncle at a big lake (not a little park lake) where they were running a kayaking activity for children younger than us. That's important, because the kayaks were intended for smaller people. We got there when all the children had gone home and her aunt encouraged us to squeeze into a kayak each and paddle round a distant island.

Kayaks are the ones where you are completely closed in - I think? Not canoes, where you are sitting in an open boat and can see your legs and jump out if necessary - but if I've got it the wrong way round, I mean the ones where you are trapped in tightly. I remember feeling so squashed in that I would NEVER be able to extricate myself if the kayak capsized, and having never been in one before, I was wobbling dangerously. My friend was giggling nervously whereas I was just terrified, but we both agreed to do it. There was an atmosphere of 'Don't be so feeble!' around it all. I know that I could have easily died that day, and I just don't know why I let myself be persuaded to do such a reckless thing. I did not tell my parents - I sort of knew I was letting them down in a way.

Terrifying...

When John Noakes climbed up Nelsons column on Blue Peter. Those were the days.

The whole school used to sit out in the sun all day at sports day with no hats or sun cream.
1970's.

I remember being jammed into a car, 3 with seatbelts and 3 on their laps, and another 2 in the footwell! Cousin’s parents were taking us to a water park so we all had to fit in the car, if you didn’t fit you couldn’t go. And I remember going for bike rides across the fields with a picnic, no fear of being attacked and nobody bothered us. It was a different world.

Slides in the park so high with barely any protection when you climbed to the top
I fell off a slide that must have been 15ft high, onto tarmac. I was knocked unconscious. When I came round everyone breathed a sigh of relief and didn’t bother to take me to hospital!

Trigger warning!!!

I grew up in a country where health and safety still isn't a huge concern. During communist times any building sites would be easily accessible by children, who would climb unsupervised on walls, scaffolding etc. I lived in the country side but I knew a little boy who lived in the nearby city but used to spend holidays at his grandma, our neighbour. He was 3 or 4 yo when he was playing unsupervised on a building site near his home with his friends when a huge metal door fell down on him and crushed him... and sadly he died. It was such a shock! I was about 10 at the time but I still have vivid memories of this little boy who used to come to his grandma and play with us in the street.

DH still fondly remembers when his mum had a mini metro and they fitted 10 kids in there (God knows where) after cubs one night. Apparently it rather struggled up the hill 😆

I also remember when our science teacher was doing a talk on health and safety at school and a shelf fell on his head and he fell over. Oh, the irony 😆

And when I was in the Army cadets they transported us around in the 4 tonners. Now apparently it’s mini busses due to health and safety. We always had a right laugh sat on the benches, practically falling off when it swerved round corners in country lanes!

It was a badge of honour locally to be able to crawl across a high pipe that crossed over a pretty wide brook. I never dared to do that one.
Local kids all used a hill leading to the only bridge in the area as a slide in icy weather. It became lethal & was great fun but must've been terrifying for anybody older!
The park had a really high slide with a cage on top. Older kids used to sit on top of the cage with a 10 meter drop onto solid concrete down below. It used to be brilliant if someone waxed the slide, you'd go absolutely flying off the end, again onto concrete.
I was allowed out alone to sample these & other delights from the age of 5. 1970s values!

No helmets on motorbikes or scooters
Being allowed to play out from early morning till tea time with no mobile phones for mum to check where we were.
In junior school a group of us would sneak off to a friends garden shed and put together a concoction of everything we could find, and someone would sip it !
Im amazed no one died

Babies used to be transported by car in a carrycot on the back seat. Once my mum lifted my brother's carrycot from the back seat and accidentally let go of one of the handles and he went rolling down the road! My Nan went apeshit at my poor mum.

British Bulldog.

conkers, the sack race.

I went on a school trip to France when I was 12 - so 1978 - and the teachers locked us in the room at night and went out.

I went on a school trip to France in the 1980s. I know we weren't locked in the room because we were able to access the communal area of the accommodation which had a vending machine that had cans of Kronenburg 1664 in it, which between the group we bought all of them, probably only a couple of cans each tbf.

We thought we'd got away with it, but we hid the empty cans on the balcony and they blew around making an almighty racket.

On a recent episode of "The Repair Shop", a lady brought in a miniature stove, with utensils, for a child to cook on; the heat source was a metal tray with wicks and methylated spirits to light up. The experts duly restored it, to the owner's delight, while making it clear that this was by no means a toy, and far too dangerous for a child to use.
I was reminded of my own version of this; the heat source in my miniature cooking stove was a row of firelighters.......
I passed on most of my toys to younger cousins, but I still have the lead figurines of Looby Loo and Teddy; the third, long-gone member of the trio was Andy Pandy. And the tinplate Mickey Mouse teaset, with its lovely sharp edges.
I think attitudes must have been changing, as my set of "accoutrements for dolly's handbag" was passed on minus the miniature packet of cigarettes; any grown-up lady of the time would have had a packet of gaspers, and these are Players Weights. I still have them; only 19 of the 20 miniature cigarettes remain.
On frosty mornings, one of the games was to buy sweet cigarettes, to simulate puffing smoke into the wintry air, just like the grownups puffing away as they walked past.
In the absence of adventure playgrounds, we had fun on the local bombsites, lighting small fires and the like; no risk of being labelled as vandals, as the Luftwaffe had already done their worst. We were most put out when new housing was erected.
When it was time for Guide camp, a furniture removal van was hired. First, the hard luggage went in, then the softer stuff like bedding rolls, then the Girl Guides. Seatbelts? We didn't have seats! Hilarious fun when a sharp bend sent us rolling around. Another company arrived in a coach; we considered them milksops.....
I guess that, as a post-war child, I was being supervised by people who had survived the Blitz, which I guess can leave you pretty sanguine.
By the time I retired from teaching, we were doing a brief risk assessment if we walked the children up to the local library.

My dm let me go to school by myself at 6. Inc crossing a main road. It was about a 15 min walk.

I fell off the climbing frame at infants and had to go to hospital as it was just ash-felt underneath.

I went on a school trip as a child and the teachers let us play in a fast flowing river with huge rocks, which were used as stepping stones. We raced to see who could get to the other side without falling into the water.

Went to Bronwnie camp and didn't sleep at all on the first night as I was just SO excited. By next afternoon I was practically hallucinating with tiredness. We played a wide game in the woods and I fell asleep under a bush. 3 hours later woke up and realised that everyone else had gone inside. Walked back to the main hut to find I'd missed dinner and nobody had realised that I'd gone!