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 😂

Oh definitely. And the plastic "cigarettes" that you blew into to produce 'smoke'. Used to wander the streets with my cousins blowing into them age around 12 thinking we were really cool. My mum saw me from our house once & went mad when I got home. She asked to smell my breath!

Being the youngest (well one of 2 youngest) so being allowed to sleep in a makeshift bed with a duvet and pillows in the boot of the Volvo on the way home from the theatre.

Being hit with a slipper or cane at school for any major misdemeanours (1980s).

Cycling down through France to our villa (near Biarritz) with no fancy bikes, gear, or helmets, just my father and uncle carrying a haversack each (note haversack not rucksack or backpack!) with a tent and supplies. We would just cycle til our legs almost fell off each day and then camp at the aires, children and adults in together, and eventually turn up at the villa to meet the mummies (who had sensibly driven the inevitable fleet of Volvo estates down there). There seemed to be no planning, just a general consensus of who wanted to cycle and who was too young (poor cousin Hugo was always too small in my memory and had to go like a baby with the mothers, but I’m sure he did come along with the jumble of cousins at some point 😂). Those trips were very fun, but I can’t imagine many children being allowed to do that now, and if they did they’d have all the specialist gear.

Also, we were allowed to drive my fathers small boat around by ourselves on holiday - the only rule being that someone in the boat had to be in double figures, which often meant my 10 year old brother was the ‘responsible person’ in the boat!

Being allowed to ride my pony out on the road alone from the age of 8, and I went off for miles by myself, riding through villages and remote bridleways. This was deemed perfectly reasonable as long as I had my chinstrap on my hat done up! Heads were obviously only allowed to be unprotected on bicycles but not on ponies 😂

All local kids making a den in the middle of the bonfire they'd made for bonfire night, complete with old sofas and chairs. One child dressed up as Guy and was pushed around the streets in a wheelbarrow collecting money outside the pubs to buy fireworks.

Going 'fishing' in the local steams and ponds aged about 4/5 - no adults with us, just a group of similar aged children.

Playing 'chicken' on the roads; who could run the fastest to escape being run over!

Long summer holidays where children hung out together all day with a sandwich in greaseproof paper. No water. No adult supervision. We came home when it was getting dark or we were hungry.

Going to the off-licence to get Mum a bottle of sherry and Dad beer on a Saturday night. No questions asked.

This was in the late 60's/early 70's. We were fit and happy.

At primary school the teacher would use the “worst” piece of written English work as a learning exercise for the whole class by handing out photocopies and getting us all to go through and correct it. It was usually the work of the same one or two boys.

Was that a thing? I was so clumsy and useless at PE that my teacher would blow her whistle, gather everyone around and ask me to demonstrate the 'wrong' way of doing something (throwing a ball or jumping) if she thought I'd just done something in an especially terrible way that would be instructive to others. Looking back I must have had zero self-esteem to have co-operated, or not complained about it.

Playing in the pubs car park 🤪

Being left at home on my own at age 7 with German measles for 2 weeks while my mother and father went to work each day.

Saw a news story earlier about a teacher getting in trouble over sixth formers drinking on a school trip

We went to the pub with our teachers in Sixth Form on trips 2 drink limit.
And we drank wine on foreign trips from 14...

God that’s horrible. Maybe it was standard teaching then but yeah the self esteem of the kids whose work she used must have been rock bottom, and it probably contributed to my own fear of getting things wrong!

We drove to Spain in the 70s a couple of times in our estate car and my brother and I had two beds made up in the boot. When it was nap time we drew the curtains Dad had rigged up across all the back windows so it was nice and dark. No need to see out of the rear view mirror in the 1970s!

Yip. One of us beded down on back seat and other one on the floor. Glasgow to Bournemouth during the night.

I remember my little sister being forced to finish her blancmange at school and she was crying because it would always make her sick. The teacher stood over her while she forced it down. When we got up to leave the teacher started to say “That wasn’t so bad” and my sister hurled all over her!

There were a lot less fussy eaters in the olden days but probably a lot more kids with school dinner related PTSD. The memory of the jam and semolina thing still send shivers down my spine.

I spoke to my mother about the men who were always after little girls (or boys) and she said when she went out and others went out to play as children (1930s) they were always warned to avoid whatever his name and where he lived - everyone knew and warned their children. I doubt any were ever prosecuted.

Haha yes, driving around in my uncles big work van, my cousin and I sitting in the back on the floor in amongst toolboxes etc.

No seatbelts in the car, stretching out over the entire back seat on long journeys. Buying cigarettes for my mum from the local spar shop!! Sitting in pub gardens whilst my parents were inside 🤣

We went to France in a range rover. There were 8 of us. 2 in the front, 3 in the back and 3 in the boot! It was a fun trip!

No baby-seat in the car, and being allowed to bounce around in the back of the Landrover aged 3 or 4.
Being allowed to roam the nearby countryside, aged 6.
Riding our horse out unaccompanied at about 7 or 8 ('hack him back to the stables and I'll see you there, just be careful crossing the main road').
Riding somebody else's horse unaccompanied at about the same age.
Same sort of age, seeing the new canes being brought ceremoniously into school at the start of the new school year (it wasn't announced, we all just got wind of it and gathered to watch)
My father's secondhand cigarette smoke in every corner of the house.
Age 11 or so, climbing trees and walls on derelict land; going into a barn which was at imminent risk of collapse; learning to throw knives entirely unsupervised by anyone over the age of c.13.
Similar kind of age, swimming unsupervised in the local river.

By 13 or 14 I was cycling miles from home, DM had no idea where I was. If I was thirsty I'd stop when I saw someone gardening and ask them for a drink and have a chat over their garden gate. 'Where you come from, then? You enjoying yourself? Course you can have a cup of water, darlen...'

We lived in Singapore in the 70’s. Went on holidays about 1976 to Thailand and stayed in the YMCA. My parents left me with a babysitter they didn’t know whilst they went out (to the red light district!).

Buying baccy for my mum at around ten onwards. My mum used to leave me with some local prostitutes when she needed childcare.

When I was a kid you could get chocolate sticks rolled up in white edible paper and they came in really good replica of actual cig brands.

The chocolate was lovely.

Rolling around in the boot of our DD’s car, Hillman estate? Me and my Dsis, the eldest 4 siblings were allowed to sit on the back seat
Being smacked with the ruler , on our palms by the Nun teachers, they seemed to get alot of pleasure from hitting children…..
Doing PE in our pants/vest if we didnt have the PE kit
Buying the cigarette sweets , in cigarette packets from the sweetie van

Answering the phone at the only phone box in the road, and going to get the person they were calling (one number for the entire road!).....kids 'car seats' were big cushions so we could see out of the windows.....playing safely in the woods all day and just going home when hungry.....waiting patiently for the 'children's channel' to come on TV ('Watch with Mother')...and watching the TV at night until the little white dot on the TV totally disappeared....after standing to the national anthem....being SO happy on the day that the new 'Twinkle' (comic ) was out....choosing how to spend 3d on sweets (about a penny nowadays), pretty sure a bar of chocolate back then was about a foot long.........oh, and saving up thrupenny bits for 'something special' (is that what they were called??) Happy Days xx Lovely thread ty xx

Was it the dreaded frog spawn?