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.

We use to shout I see the sea, and the sea sees me!

I used to steer for my Dad when he was lighting up!

We did this too! Had big lists of number plates! Why?!!

The packs of roaming dogs is probably where I picked up my fear of dogs as a kid

A tramp called Mr Eagle used to come to our house about once a month in the early 60s. My mum gave him a hot meal which he ate on our front step and some bread and cheese to take away. My mum inherited him from the previous occupants of the house. He didn't take the piss and come too often. He had a round.

We did this (late 1960s) but the chant was something like "this is the art of levitation and the ring of magic must not be broken".

My husband and I still do this 🤣 we don’t even have kids 🤣

This is a weird one. I grew up in Australia but my parents were English so it's unclear where this might have originated. We'd have boiled eggs and soldiers, if you had just butter on the soldiers that was 'English soldiers' and if you had vegemite on them they were 'German soldiers'. I suspect it's more likely to be an Australian thing because using vegemite/marmite in this context seems less widespread in the UK. But either way, I've never heard it anywhere else, maybe my parents made it up!

I often point out cars with number plates that have a name or a word. I like trying to find private number plates that spell out a name as well ( even if I think they are a bit naff)
Just a bit of fun isn’t it , especially if you’re on the bus and need some distractions.

I'm still doing this 😂

Only started it again last year and I've been stuck on 38 for ages!

I loved Virol, used to get at my aunts house for some reason, we didnt ever have it at home and she didnt have any children so I dont know why she kept it. Maybe her and my uncle had a spoonful each day, its malt extract I think.

My mum bought me ‘ brewers yeast ‘ tablets ( you could buy huge jars of them for about 80 p or less )
It helped with period pain, one a day.

When I was a child, only the boys were allowed to play British Bulldog (60s). When my kids were at primary school, British Bulldog was banned altogether (90s).

Can anyone remember those little tiny books and every page was a black and white photo of a baby? - me and my friends used to go round selling the photos for 10p each and then you gave the money to your teacher who sent it on to a childrens charity. I think they were called Sunny Smiles.

It was banned at our secondary, mostly due, I think to complaints about damaged uniform. It definitely got rough. I remember a couple of broken arms/collarbones, mostly among the boys.

However the known rule was if you wanted to play it was go down to the bottom field where the teachers rarely went.

Tbf I suspect the teachers knew anyway, a bit like they knew about Smokers' Wood, as we called it, just didn't bother going down to stop it. There was one teacher who did one patrol normally through lunchtime of 80 minutes so plenty of time to do whatever you wanted.

Agreed. I'm not old enough to remember dogs being free roam in the UK but they were definitely allowed to free roam in rural Italy in the early 2000s.
I spent two summers there as a teenager and I had to avoid several dogs packs that frightened the life out of me. My parents would tell me not to be dramatic but it's scary as a young teen when a pack of barking dogs just come racing toward you out of nowhere.

I don't remember it being a thing at secondary school tbh but we had a similar situation with The Wood, which might as well have been called Smokers' Wood. I suspect if any staff member had gone up there, it would have been to have a more convivial smoke themselves than they got hanging around the back of the buildings. The girls' PE teacher used to stand leaning on the wall outside the door of the gym (separate building), puffing away while she waited for the next class to arrive.

The tunnel of torture.
Aaron group of children would stand facing a wall and put their hands on it.
The victim had to run through and try to avoid being kicked or unch. The only rule was one hand had to stay on the wall. For the life of me I can't remember how the victim was chosen.
Similarly, weak horse someone, generally a boy would bend over and put their hands on a wall. A line formed behind, up to 30 people long. Someone would launch themselves at the line and land on the back.
If that person moved a allowed the jumper to fall they would be the weak horse.
I have no idea why it was so popular

I have a photo of me holding a monkey at a fairground so the definitely did exist. The monkey was wearing knitted clothing. I was probably about 4-5 years old (mid 1960s)

We did the Yellow car thump. Had i-spy books and looked for new numberplates.

French skipping/elastics was a craze when I was at junior school. At senior school we played with tennis balls against the school wall reciting numbers (I think?) and throwing the ball differently each time and seeing how far in the number rhyme you could get before you dropped it.

There was a lovely black dog that roamed our village. It sometimes sat at the bottom of our drive and would follow me around when I went out to play. I loved dogs so gave it a lot of attention and sometimes I brushed it (with my hairbrush). We kids all roamed freely in the village with the only rule being to come home before dark. There was a policeman who lived in the village and sometimes he would tell the boys off if they were fighting. We girls were a bit scared of him.

Love the idea of brushing the coat of a random dog

Yes, I remember those. It was weird, really, but fun. The only other charity collections seemed to be those Blue Peter appeals where you collected various bits of stuff - milk bottle tops? newspapers? stamps? - sent it somewhere and it was sold to raise money for RNLI

I hated rounders at school, probably the thing I hated most, but your post made me laugh.

Playing with a grass stuffed orange might have made it more fun 😂

Andrex toilet roll did a collection where you brought the end of a packet (I think it was a sticker) which went towards a guide dog.

I took the information in to the head and asked if we could do it - I'd have been about 7yo at the time and he went totally overboard about what a brilliant idea. He had me up in assembly and let me make choices for the day for the rest of the school and gave me extra playtime with a group of friends of my choice...
And every day I could choose someone to help me count all the new ones that had been brought in after assembly. We did that in the staff room with a plate of biscuits and, you can imagine, it took ages to finish the biscuits

I was rather bemused because we had a fair number of people suggesting things like that and he never did that before or after. Dsis was very put out, as you can imagine.

I don't know whether it was just a cause he particularly loved, or I think mostly that sort of thing was normally suggested by the older pupils and he was pleased a younger one had suggested it. I was a little embarrassed (but was popular for one day as everyone wanted to join in what I was allowed to do, which didn't happen often - maybe that was his plan!) but enjoyed it.

The monkey photo man (which I also remember - in Clacton on Sea!) reminded me of the punks in Trafalgar Square. You could feed the pigeons with these pots of seed that could be purchased from a seller. There are so many childhood pictures of me clutching a seed pot and covered head to toe in rancid feathered rats, absolutely loving it. 😂

Once I’d had enough pigeon exposure, I’d often get my photograph taken with a group of punks. That’s where I saw my first ever Mohican hairdo. They were a group of young people dressed in very “extreme” punk gear who would happily pose for photos with people who thought they were a novelty. Not sure whether money changed hands, but I think so.

We drove past my old school recently and I was telling DS about a metal climbing frame in the playground, no colour, just a metal pipe frame, about 8-9 feet high, seriously it was huge, and it was straight onto the concrete ground. No padding, no soft bark to fall onto. Fall off the monkey bars? Shame, straight onto the concrete for you.
There was also a park nearby with a seesaw like this with perfect teeth marks in where someone has crashed into the metal. It was the 80’s!!