Random childhood stuff you have no explanation for.

[Wheelchairbarbie]

This can be either something that a lot of us will remember like "where did white dog poo go", or something specific that happened that you can't explain.

Maybe we can also all explain each others wired stuff!

I'll start. How come most people I know remember that now and then a random dog would get into the school playground and just run around and everyone would get excited and run to the windows? Where did these random dogs come from, were there just more strays back then?

My kids haven't experienced this at all.

Omg same!

My parents had a picture of me taken at Scarborough with a monkey on my shoulder. So they were not just in Ireland.

A lot of dogs used to just run free like cats do. I remember having to visit a store in a large estate in Coventry, back in the 80s for work. I hated this shop as there was always a large pack of dogs, all shapes and sizes, running round the area. Frank Skinner often talks about the dog they had when he was a child in West Brom. It basically used to come back to the house to sleep, and spend the days scavenging. It was a thing.

Just remembered seeing dogs stuck together by their bums.70s.

Get the kids to play car snooker on long journeys. You have to spot cars by colour in the order you pot the balls in Snooker, so 15 red, then one each yellow, green, brown, blue pink and then black. You can add 21 white to finish on a long journey, or a white after every colour.

A spoonful of Andrews Liver Salts in a glass of water was a refreshing drink for us.

Before the polio drops, swimming and paddling pools were one of the main spreaders of the virus. If you watch the film about Ian Dury, and Andy Serkis, it covers it in it.

Mine too and they’re in their 20s!

Loads of wanking and flashers in the 80s!

@tobee
i do remember entertainers at parties but they were predominately at home, not in halls.

I don’t remember the dogs running free thing at all / l lived in quite a ‘naice’ area so maybe that’s why? Not many people I knew had dogs in the 70s/80s but the ones I did know, didn’t roam. Now they just get taken to the local shopping centre 🤦‍♀️ instead.

Elastics rhyme was ‘England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, inside, outside, inside, tread. Then the elastic would be put higher up after each round.

Also loads of ‘hand clap’ games - assume that still goes on.

Plus I had a ‘hopper’ thing which was a ring round your ankle and you’d circle your leg to make it turn, with a plastic wire thing coming out with a ball on the end and you’d have to skip over the wire! Never seen one since.

I used to cycle miles with my brother. We'd go to an animal sanctuary at a nearby village and just wander in to pet the cats and dogs. No one seemed to mind! Sadly a bypass was built round our town, blocking our route to the village, so that stopped our fun.

A game I remember at school was 40-40. I think it was a bit like hide and seek, i cant really remember. Im a Cub leader and we play What's The Time Mr Wolf and Sleeping Lions with them. They love it.

The parties I went to all had the same magician as entertainment. I was surprised when my son (now 27) went to a party when he was about 5 and the same magician was there. I was even more surprised a couple of months ago when I saw the very same magician still performing! When I was a kid I thought he ( and all adults!) were so very very old!

We didn’t have the packs of dogs but we did have a neighbourhood dog that would roam around. His owner just used to put him out for the day. Crazy when you think about it.

i remember the little red bugs we called them bloodsuckers.

I found a slug type creature once with colourful horns, I ran to get my friends and it was gone, none of my friends believed me.

For holidays in France we had a map of France with each Département number on and we'd cross it off as we saw a car from each Département - indicated by the first two numbers on the number plate. Happy days.

I was thinking of something similar this morning - the total fearlessness of throwing yourself off, over and down things and not having that adult kill-joy fear of what happens when you land. As someone who can now barely walk, the memory of it gives me real happiness. I often have dreams where I'm just running and running and jumping over any obstacle in my way. They're lovely. (I also get dreams where I'm running away from things and those are a different kettle of fish. 😊)

This thread has unlocked a memory. In my parents photo album there is a photo of them with the monkeys on their shoulders. But for some reason I always thought that they were teddies.

They were tiny monkeys dressed in tiny clothes, I must find out if they were in fact real monkeys.

Having our 13 year old neighbours daughter look after us during during school holidays when our Mum and Dad were at work. She spent most of her time hanging out with her 17 year old boyfriend,so we more or less did what we liked. It was the 1970s though.

I have a photo of myself aged about 18 months old taken with a monkey on my lap. I think it was taken in 'John Lewis' dept at Christmas. 1960s. Imagine that now!

This shouldn’t have made me laugh, but it did.
Remove the misogyny and then read the rest.
Geoffrey jealous that the puppets had more fan mail.
Zippy and George getting it on.
Rod, Jane and Freddie in a love triangle.

https://www.dailymail.com/tvshowbiz/article-16008143/Dark-Rainbow-squeaky-clean-kids-plagued-backstage-drama.html

At brownies we used to play a game called 'ladders'. We'd sit on the floor in pairs with our legs outstretched and the soles of our shoes touching. Each pair would have a number and when it was called you'd have to run down the row in between everyone's shins, then round the outside back to your spot and whichever of the pair made it back first won.

I think it took about three small girls having their shin stepped on at speed before the game was banned, which just meant we played it in the playground instead, with no less devastating consequences IIRC!!

Guide camp 1970 so I was 11, handed an axe to chop firewood. " Stand legs apart and if you miss you won't cut your leg"

I had a magic carpet!

We had no stair carpet, and clattered down the stairs on tin trays!m

Ooh I remember that elastics rhyme (although I recall the second line as inside, outside, inside, on). But the funny thing is my memory is from Australia.

We sometimes said "inside, outside, inside, on" or "inside, outside, and on the British rails". NE England.