What did teenage boys boys do before games consoles?

[LynetteScavo]

DS1 has momentarily brought his head up from a screen.

He is annoying his siblings. He has tried playing DDs flute (cue her screaming). He has demanded that DS2 "GET OUT THE HORNBY" that ended more peacefully than I expected.

I have suggested he played the ukalaly he bought, and has never played and was told "I tried it once, I was crap." Then challenged DD to a play fight.

I've now instructed him to lay the table to keep him out of mischief.

Give me strength.

He was reasonable for the length of the meal.

This is what he was like as a toddler. But now there are siblings involved.

Actually I just need

I've told the DSs they need whipping soundly and sending to bed.

um, smoking?

[thinks back to my brother's adolescence]

War games.
Dungeons and dragons.
Evangelical Christianity.

Kicked a ball against a wall.

Hung about on street corners and got into trouble with the police?

Went down the mines?

During dinner DS told me us he definitely isn't Catholic (his baptism certificate suggests otherwise) DD told me DS1 is " a nostic" (agnostic?) so I don't think Evangelical Christianity is the way forward here.

joan has it. I was going to say dungeons and dragons but she's spot on with the other ones too.

Before that, perhaps it was painting model aeroplanes, building radios, imitiating characters on the Goon Show and forming skiffle groups.

My brother played with dangerous chemicals and did experiments which resulted in trips to a& e several times

I have a vague recollection of my brothers having something to do with the missing lead on the church roof but that may be hearsay. We did use to roam the streets in packs though - I remember burning the thrown away hymn sheets in the church dustbins on one occasion

With hindsight, I thnk I quite like the amount of time DSs spend on the Xbox!!

Bounced bikes up and down and over everything and played tennis in the road, same as the girls. Only there were a lot more girls on our estate. Hence tennis rather than foot ball

Played on the railway lines.

Bridge (slightly posh school - it was a 6th form common room craze)
Reading dogeared science fiction paperbacks
Listening to heavy metal
Forming terrible garage bands
Masturbation
Airfix (nb that combining those last two can result in glue related disasters)
Origami
Rocketry

Masturbation, probably.

1 DBro played rugby, the other was a plane spotter

I have a few years until DS is a teen. I suspect I will prefer the glassy eyed stare of a gamer to dealing with the erm products of another RSI inducing pastime beloved of teenage boys

Oh and one friend was a bus spotter.

Wank themselves silly?

in the 40s and 50s they played with meccano and trains
in the 60s they played with airfix
in the 70s they played with subbeteo
and in the 80s (before sinclair computers) they played with action figures

what catinboots said

train sets

chemistry sets

listening to heavy metal

train spotting

plane spotting

stamp collecting

ha ha catinboots got there first, I was going to say wank oo oo o whilst looking at pants and knickers in mums catalogue.

There were computers (of a sort) when I was a teenager but I seem to remember the males at school went to the football a lot, played a lot of football, hung around taking the piss out of each others teams etc. Football was cheaper then and we lived in North London so the Arsenal and Spurs fans had a lot to argue about.

Some didn't like football, dunno what they did.

No, don't suggest the sort of antics my DH and DDad got up to. Suffice to say both still have 10 fingers.

Rode bicycles and skateboards.
Played football, Subbuteto, darts, pool
Built dens
Used these dens for smoking and under age sex.