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.

Liberty bodices - what were they for? I remember mum stuffing cotton wool soaked in camphorated oil( for my poorly chest) up my liberty bodice. The embarrassment when it dropped down in the aisle at Sunday school!

We're gonna need more info here

I don't think we had any specific objective in mind, beyond just collecting the numbers.

It was a bit like those I Spy books, where you just had to 'collect' your observation of different objects in the same category. I had an I Spy book of horses I think??

Collecting worthless data was a big thing in the analogue age, because it required so much more effort than it does now

Rosehip Syrup
Virol
Lucozade as an actual form of medicine.

Dunblane happened when I was in my last year of school and the changes (I went to a duel campus primary and high school) that happened between Easter and when I went back after the summer to use the pool (it was open in the evenings for locals) were massive.

Six foot high fences, gates that locked once the pupils were in and door intercom systems. One part of the playground was technically a public right of way and it was basically lost to the kids for over a year as they had to fence next to it but not impact it until they’d been to court to get permission.

Even with that, and now 20 years of working in and out English schools, I still find the determination of some English schools that they are allowed to dictate when a child is allowed to leave without an adult bizarre. It’s a parental decision legally.

Using a phone box to call when you were ready for a lift home. They all had a combined smell of paper (from the MASSIVE set of paper phone number directories housed in each one) and piss (from the pissing men pissing in them).

2p for a short call, 10p for a long call. Or you could dial 100 and ask the operator for a reverse charge call.

Yes, this! We were only rarely even allowed to use the water fountains on the way back to the classroom after lunch break running around in the sun! One afternoon I was seeing stars I was so thirsty, tongue like the floor of a budgie’s cage, begged the teacher for a drink, bfn. After a couple of hours of this, I fainted - and was treated like a massive inconvenience by the school nurse! No mollycoddling in those days..

We used to know the letters of different towns where cars were registered.

So an O in the middle of the letters was Birmingham e.g SOR34T. UY at the end of the letters was Shropshire.

We even had a little book with all of them listed!

That reminds me of the drinking fountains there used to be in parks. And the shallow swimming/paddling pools.

Why didn't we all get typhoid/polio/etc from these? Parks were so much more in those days. And ours had a fearsome park keeper who basically hated children.

We used to live on a very straight road which had a few pull in lay-bys. For fun, whenever we were passing we would all hope they were empty and if so my Uncle would floor the accelerator and drive through them as fast as possible with a big swerve and all us kids (no seatbelts) ending up on one side and then the other.

He was a bit of a nightmare in other ways (alcoholic, slightly sadistic) but that bit was randomly fun. Not sure what he was thinking tbf.

We used to enjoy falling all over the place on the back seat too, @asparagusheaven .

I also remember my dad steering with his knees whenever he wanted to light a cigarette (which was frequently, as he was a 60-a-day man). If my mum was in the car too, he would get her to steer.

We used to count the number of new cars on new car day.
Always a competition as to who spots the sea first. We still do that now, even though we're in our 50's.
Counting the number of Xmas trees we could see in lounge windows, when they first start going up.

In primary school we would sit in a group of about six girls around a friend who was laying on the grass - we’d each repeat several phrases such as ‘ we’re in a cave ‘ and then we could pick this person up using one hand each ? As I’m writing this it doesn’t seem feasible but I’m sure it was a phase for a while in playgrounds .

We played a version of that on long drives where we'd spot cars with the latest reg , let's say V, then going back in order to earlier and earlier regs.

Oh the fun we had.

Ah… the good old days-not!

I wanted some rosehip syrup this year, to take with my iron tablets.
It's really hard to come by now. I might make my own.

Every time we got Imi the car to go a journey at Xmas time we would count the Xmas trees in peoples windows

Thats good. The other one was British bulldog...loved it soooo rough

I loved rosehip syrup...it became popular during the war when people, kids mainly were paid to collect wild rose hips...full of vitamin C

I can remember a family at the end of my road, mid 1970s. Had a few quid compared to the rest of us. The dad bought a ‘luxury’ caravan to take away during the hols. The rest of the time it sat at the side of the house.
I can’t begin to describe the excitement when the daughter asked me if I wanted to stay in it with her overnight - we were only 8!
Her mum brought us fish fingers for tea and that was it. No TV or radio. We had a few board games and she locked us in for the night.
God knows what our parents were thinking, two little girls in a caravan on their own. We had to wee in a bucket as well.
It was a big deal being invited to stay in the caravan. I was so quiet and polite I got asked a lot and never said no.
They did have a little portable telly in it by 1980 which was pure luxury.

We had stronger immune systems from being exposed to more dirt. I’m sure the sterile environment our children now live in does them no favours at all.

We do Minis and yellow cars, with 5 punches for a yellow Mini.

I remember getting excited driving the kids when I knew we were coming up to the Mini showroom 😁

We've still got a shallow paddling pool in our park @MyThreeWords 😊

Did anyone else play car snooker? You had to spot a red car, then a yellow one, another red one, then a pink one, etc all the way up to black. The cars were more interesting colours then though. I think it might take a while to spot a pink one these days.

I remember being crazy about those little I-spy books. A big moment was when my mum stopped near the first station and I was able to fill in several items in one go. No idea why that was so important to me but it seemed a big thing. My kids certainly didn’t care about ispy unless it was played on a long journey and no books were involved.