When I was a kid........................................................

[waterfalls]

My mum often put my hair up with elastic bands and it hurt like hell getting them out....................and awful cheap plasters that became part of your skin, could only be forced of after a long soak in the bath while painfully peeling them off with a knife.

anyone else

Yeas but there used to be a knob you pulled out (fnar fnar) to put the choke on. Now it's all automatic.

yes, not yeas, I'm not that old

i remember leaving the choke out too long was a bad thing because it would flood the carburettor.(???) am i right?

I remember my step father shouting NO PUT IT IN, YOU'LL FLOOD IT!! so yes, probably!

Cartoon women used to hang their umbrellas on the choke knob (pulled out)

you can tell i'm not a driver can't you?

It had black and white quarters on it (bit like a radioactive sign)

Hi, www! I'm doing Primary Times for your new county atm - does DS bring it home do you know?

yes the choke!! my dad's cortina had one of them, he used to swear as he pulled on it.

ha ha Janh re cartoon women. Bet they were wearing headscarves too! Ds hasn't ever brought a PT home, no.

I realised alexsmum when I read back. I had to check the phone book to see if it was still in - I can't see the attraction now either

My elderly aunt spent years hanging her sodding handbag from the choke and complaining how uneconomical her car was.

My first car had a choke. I used to have to put a clothes peg on it when I started the car, coz it used to slowly slide itself back in and the engine would cut out.

Does anyone else remember Mischief Night (November 4th)?? Nobody where I live now seems to have heard of it. It was de-rigour to go out mischieving on 4th November in Yorkshire when I was a kid.

Oh yes!

Nicking front gates and doormats.

Tying dust bin lids together.

Joy

putting black treacle under door handles of houses and cars and garden gates.

It wasnt trick or treat though. Just pure mischief.

Long piece of string through all the doorknockers and then knocking on the one at the end.

Naughty stuff. And next day at school, announcements would be made in assembly asking those who stole Mrs So and so's gate, please return it. We know who you are and your parents will be informed. We used to quake in our boots.

Fun though

Some people never got their gates back - they vanished into bonfires the next night. More fool the neighbour that replaced it with another wooden gate instead of opting for an iron one.

And hiding behind a wall, popping up to throw eggs onto car windscreens as they passed. Then running like sh*t if the car stopped.

God i'd better shut up. I sound like a right hooligan.

Nooooooo, that makes me a hooligan too.

We were kids, we had fun. I really hate the 'nanny state' attitude now that stops our kids having the same freedom and enjoyment of life.

It was lovely to be a kid then. So why have we let the world change so much? Why don't we let our kids have what we had?

Putting hula hoops (crisps) on every finger, then eating them off.

School dinners, which always seemed to be mince (which absolutely stank)and tinned peas, followed by semolina.

Charles and Di's wedding - my Mum bought some special commemorative fabric with C's, D's, crowns and wedding bells on it and made me a skirt out of it!

Rubik's cube.

I blame (mainly) the compensation culture that has spread from the states.

Everyone is now so terrified of getting sued over the slightest injury that instead they stop the activities all together.

And of course the media spreads any horror stories. Child abuse/abductions/harm etc all happened back in 'the good old days' but the media coverage was minimal.

I still do that with Hula Hoops

Another problem now is the lack of community. I had countless 'aunts & uncles' that I could turn to and I knew I could trust. Whole families knew each other and were in and out of each others houses. I barely know the parents of most of my son's friends.