Things you remember from your childhood that would not be ok today!

[Starlight1984]

Light-hearted and inspired by the comments on the baby in the pub thread (and TikTok!)😀

But what are things you remember from your childhood that people would be absolutely outraged at today?!

I remember being babysat by our neighbours child when I was 4/5 and she was about 12/13. God knows what she would have done if anything went wrong as there were no mobile phones to get hold of our parents?! 🤔

Also remember going to the pub in the summer but kids weren't allowed inside so we sat in the beer garden with a coca cola and bag of crisps whilst the adults were inside 😂

Spending most of the summer holidays paddling at the brook across the fields, jam sandwiches and a bottle of squash all we had the entire day. Parents didn’t worry about us as long as we stayed in groups. Evenings spent playing in the street (few cars then), sometimes roaming the area chalking arrows on walls or pavements to make a trail. A rather dangerous game of “split the kipper”? when you stood on the grass with your feet apart, the other person threw a penknife between them and each time you had to narrow the space until your feet were nearly touching, or you got hit by the knife.
Going on the bus by yourself into town aged 7 or 8, or walking the mile or so to spend the day at the park. 10 foot high slides embedded in concrete, seeing how many different ways you could think of to launch yourself off. Probably making a nuisance of ourselves going to the only 2 shops in town with escalators, the height of fun!
Being allowed to go to the swimming pool by ourselves from about 10years old, even though it was several miles away.
Taken out of school for a couple of days to go potato picking as a family when my parents needed some extra money. When I could barely move from all the bending after the first day, I was told not to be so soft.
The deputy head of my junior school couldn’t be bothered to learn names so all the girls were called “Jane”. He was very tall and if one of the boys were naughty, he’d pick them up under his arm and smack their bottom
Plus, as many others, lighting cigarettes for my dad when he was driving, “steering” the car through the country whilst sat on his lap etc

Did anyones parents let them have a little steer of the car while going along?

Yep mine did. And I was also allowed to change the gears although was a bit older then.

Being made to strip down to your underwear and get changed and back again how many times until the teacher told you to stop if you forgot your PE kit....and stand in the doorway of the classroom each time which was just off the main hall, regardless of who was in there. Horrendous to think this was a rule and this was only around the late 80s early 90s.

Sweets for children which looked like cigarettes. Anyone else remember those?

Aged 14-15, went on a youth trip. The whole group Ended up in the instructors caravan drinking Blue Nun.

My husband was dinner money
monitor in year6 primary school. He and another kid had to take the dinner money down to the high street bank every Monday - this would have been 1966

Walking to the shops (primary school age). Sat in the Internet cafe in the "char rooms" I can't even remember what we used to talk about 😂.

Watching Alf Garnett on TV.

not a bloody chance that would be on these days!!!

Well I'm 68 so I don't think there's much that happened in my youth that would be acceptable/ recognisable today. From being force feed school dinners, sleeping on the back seat of cars all the way to Cornwall, obviously without seat belts, walking to school on my own at primary school along a main London bus route, left alone in the house all evening or during the day in school holidays. Out all day with my cousin in London going to the Natural History Museum etc on our own at about 10. All seemed perfectly normal at the time.

I remember, along with a classmate, being told to look after Form K (ie 4/5 year olds) during lunch hour whilst the nun/teacher had a break.
The inevitable happened. The class ran riot, completely ignoring us, and a little boy fell over and had to be taken to hospital . The other girl and I were 11 years old at the time and this was a private school!

Lots of my friends mums had estate cars. The boot was the best place to travel, especially if you had the dog in there with you

The bunking off thing I find hilarious in retrospect.
I hated PE with a special loathing. My best mate (still mates 40 years later) literally never went. She said (and was right) that if you never went, no-one missed you. She spent large chunks of time in the nearby countryside reading Smash Hits.
On her report for PE she got the one word classic "satisfactory". As some one who actually went I got "barely satisfactory"
If ever there was a life lesson learnt early it was that one.

Love the quote from the book
' better drowned than duffers - of not duffers, won't drown'

Being smacked whilst trying to run up the stairs.. I didn’t cry so got smacked harder.

being left alone whilst my mum and step dad went to pub.

letting myself and my younger sister in the house as a very young child - small enough to climb through the cat flap.

Riding around with my friends in the back of my DDs Mini pickup. Collecting rent from lodgers on behalf of my DD from his boarding houses 😂 I was nine! Being lifted up and down in the bucket of a JCB on a building site …yep DD again. My DM worked evenings and she only ever knew what we got up to when she processed the films from his camera.

Oh and the Liberal smacking that all parents did.
Both my mum and dad smacked us frequently, as did all my friends parents.
I smacked one of my children once and felt terrible.
They have grown up to be responsible citizens.

A couple just from primary school. Brand new state of the art school (1973). Two concrete sewage drains set in the tarmac of the infants play ground...called the tunnels...just the right night for an average 5 year old to run into and cut their head, so protected by a heavy rubber strip, held on by steel bolts.

I teacher used to walk around the class with a wooden dowel about 18 inches long and an inch wide. He would sing Ian dury's hit me with your rhythm stick as he smashed it down on your knuckles if he thought you were misbehaving.

We were on holiday at Butlins in Ayre about 1965, I was about 8years old. In the theatre on an evening they used to announce “ baby crying in chalet xxx” and the parent would get up and leave the theatre to go to the baby.

Knitting class at school, I was about 8 and we were all knitting gollys

Going swimming at 9 with a friend even though I couldn't swim!

I was thinking about the McCanns and how much stick they got for doing much less than these posts. People saying that nothing happened. But it could have - just luckier

Playing on bomb sites in London. In the 60s there were still lots of bomb damaged buildings around before any redevelopment took place. They made marvellous play spaces with half standing walls, many to first floor level and underground cellars. We had huge fun and there was no regard for health and safety.

Yes they shouldn't have left the kids,but they where just outside

I've popped outside (no further than my garden) to bring in washing or to put the bins out while the kids have been in bed

They made a massive mistake-and paid the price

My parents went much further and it's by the sheer grace of god,this woman didn't try to snatch one of us

In fact they where bloody useless parents and I'm amazed none of us siblings ended up dead-heath and safety just didn't enter their heads

That fact really is the grace of god-we came close many times

There was this one time my mum had to work but couldn’t get any childcare, so I had to go to work with her and sit in the car all day. 😂