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.

Yes in Scotland. My grandparents both have photos of themselves as children with one of these dressed up monkeys.

Where I grew up, they all ended up scratching themselves outside the bookies.

Dogs roamed free. We called them by their given names and surnames - 'Fido Murphy', 'Snoopy Sullivan'...

Punch Buggy - a game my DCs and their friends played in the car.

They all held their breaths when driving past a cemetery too.

We called the elastics German Jumps.

Clackers were eventually banned at my school.

It was much easier for kids to play car games when there were no seatbelts as you could twist around and look out the back window.

I saw a re run of an early episode of Eastenders and Roly, the Watts family poodle, was let out of The Vic to go for his wander.

From age about 4 to about 11 everyone went to birthday parties that were the same format with the same games and the same kind of food. People didn’t hire anywhere or have entertainers or go to the cinema for birthdays at that age. It was in your own house. The girls would wear long dresses and the boys smart clothes. In fact my boyfriend at the age of about 4 was admired by me because he wore a nice tie to a birthday party, he was aged 4 as well. My liking for his tie has gone down in family folklore.

Do you remember the stickers that oil, petrol and car companies gave out? Petrol stations usually had some to give away. Some of them were really flash with intense colours and metallic foil. My weird but long-suffering parents took us on long road trips around Europe most summers, and all the foreign petrol stations had exciting new stickers we hadn't seen before.

i remember having my picture taken with 2 small monkeys circa 1979/80ish in a shopping centre in the North West. I look absolutely terrified in the picture and still remember being terrified of them.

Oh you’ve reminded me of another one - I wasn’t allowed to walk on grass verges because my mum was convinced it was all full of dog poo that was hidden by the grass (because of the random dogs). I still struggle with letting my own kids go on grass. 😅

Thanks @scaltand @SomeoneIsWrongOnTheInternet A 35 year old mystery is finally solved! 😂

As children (and actually still now) me and my sister, whenever we saw a monkey puzzle tree would try to be the first to nip the other whilst saying “monkey puzzle tree nip for luck” no idea if it was a thing or not but it was for us in the 80s/90s

Yes. In. Northern Ireland, my great grandmother had one at the end of her garden along with a metal bin.

Or as Brick Heck would say, A SWIRLIE.

There was a rumour that if you wore shoes without socks, you might find that your toes had disappeared when you took the shoes off. When I wore my trainers without socks in the summer, or when we walked from the classroom to the hall for PE in shoes without socks as we were made to, I was always wiggling my toes to check they were still there!

My Grandma would never let me kick or even walk through autumn leaves for the same reason 😂

I used to get ear infections a lot as a child and lie on my side, bad ear up with cotton wool in to keep the ear drops in/make them drip down into my ear via gravity. So that probably was the advice my parents were given but I didn't walk around with cotton wool in my ears at school 🤣 they have sprays now which squirt deep into the ear so a cotton wool plug isn't needed.

No smoking areas and smoking areas inside a restaurant. Seems obvious that wouldn't really work.

I remember playing " cats cradle" with elastics and " jacks" ( was brilliant at that)

Hah, with my mother it was specifically grass in autumn when it was covered with leaves. I would want to go kicking them about and she would say "Come off there. It'll be full of dogs' mess". She was usually right. 😊

The grass verges near me are usually dusty dirty and some don’t pick up after their dog , so avoiding them makes sense! The council cut them back and leave the bits everywhere as well.

If you bumped your head at 'our' primary school, the dinner lady would give you a bit of cotton wool with witch hazel on it. I bet the smell of that would take me back. One of them would play a skipping and singing game with us sometimes, There came a Duke a-riding.

I loved them books but had forgotten all about them , you have unlocked a memory for me .🧡

Did anyone else have luminescent stars on their ceiling?
I bought loads and got my dad to stick them up for me , except when they were up there wasn't nearly as good looking as I thought it'd be.

Our primary school used to put pink ointment on any cuts and grazes that had a very distinctive smell. Not sure what it was , but might have been germoline?
They also had plasters that would survive the apocalypse and left a very sticky mark on your skin once you did manage to get them off! Not like today’s weak plasters.

Do you remember the stickers that oil, petrol and car companies gave out? Petrol stations usually had some to give away.

Yes! One particular promotion was for endangered animals. We got every single sticker on the card, except for Przewalski’s Horse, I recall. Loads of doubles for all the stickers but the horse evaded us right to the end of the run.

Nowadays you’d be able to bid for it at an extortionate rate on eBay but in the 70s/80s you just had to live with the abject failure!

Years ago, Germolene was pink and quite oily. I miss that smell. It came in a round tin, so absolutely no waste.

Yes I have a photo of me when I was about 6 with a monkey dressed up. I was devastated I couldn't keep it. It was definitely a thing. This was in London.