What were you doing instead of rioting when you were a "youth"?

[GoldWithFalmer]

i used to love going out "garden hopping" .....once did a street with 2 others of about 14 back gardens......a big rush for any 13-15 year old for sure. advice: start off with front gardens to get warmed up.

rush-i can still recall it now...

 

[Seagull over Canaryland]

Good post - been having nostalgic thoughts of my youth. What innocent times, life seemed so simple in the late '60s / early '70s:

Mum's cooking
The Albion
Subbuteo
Playing footie
Airfix kits
Getting a part time job to pay for my first motor bike (took about a year...)
Endless school homework
Discovering girls
Discovering beer
Monty Python
Match of the Day
Sportsnight with Coleman

Not a stolen play station, plasma tv or laptop in sight..... happy days.

Didn't feel the need to be in a street gang to get respect, my mates and I just got on with life. We felt good because we set out with the attitude to work hard and play hard. If I wanted something new I got another part time job to pay for it, which made it feel good. Might sound rather dated and boring to modern youth but those values stood me in good stead and haven't done me any harm since. Got into a few scrapes but I didn't scrounge off society or go on a trail of destruction. I like to think I have given at least as much to society as I expect back.

 

[Publius Ovidius]

Making air fix etc models ( still do)

Apart from that playing football and cricket in the park and enjoying life

 

[Meade's Ball]

I used to play dead a lot at the bottom of swimming pools, my inspiration initially being grangehillian. Fortunately, i'm beblowholed, so although i looked like i'd passed away, the leady chunks, used as ballast unseeable in my trunk-shorts, cementing me to the watery floor, i hadn't at all. I was fine. I giggled underwater, as i could, having the lungs of a dolphin, and flippered at speed out of the pool, sometimes through a hoop i'd hung for show, waddling to my self-made aquahome less than a nott away. Doug Reeves, the manager of Silicon Waves, the pool most used in Aberystwith where i was raised, had a picture of me in full flip and a close up of my big grinning grey face hung by the entrance to make sure my tricks there came to an end.
Now, of course, i'm Terry Nutkins' privates secretary.

 

[Colossal Squid]

I used to play dead a lot at the bottom of swimming pools, my inspiration initially being grangehillian. Fortunately, i'm beblowholed, so although i looked like i'd passed away, the leady chunks, used as ballast unseeable in my trunk-shorts, cementing me to the watery floor, i hadn't at all. I was fine. I giggled underwater, as i could, having the lungs of a dolphin, and flippered at speed out of the pool, sometimes through a hoop i'd hung for show, waddling to my self-made aquahome less than a nott away. Doug Reeves, the manager of Silicon Waves, the pool most used in Aberystwith where i was raised, had a picture of me in full flip and a close up of my big grinning grey face hung by the entrance to make sure my tricks there came to an end.
Now, of course, i'm Terry Nutkins' privates secretary.

 

[cyanide-sid]

Like you Mr Squid my formative years passed by in a cloud of marijuana smoke.

If only you could have stopped at that catty old boy.

 

[cyanide-sid]

Used to catch eels from Worthing pier early in the morning and then throw them over the wall into the pool at the Lido (the outdoor swimming baths)

They would live plenty long enough even in that water to scare the crap out of all the early morning women bathers.
I can still hear the screams.

 

[Cian]

Driving around the place ("going spinning" as it seems to be called now) listening to music, which is probably generally seen as anti-social enough but doesn't involve nicking or burning things. Only petrol being used was what a 1.1L could go through...

 

[HoveHorace]

Getting carpet burns on me knees.....................
















playing subbuteo .

 

[otk]

Being an apprentice, being a boy racer, then co-habitee, which was just round the corner from The Goldstone, so footy, beer and Posh aplenty for two years

 

[wunt be druv]

Look at my elder brothers "art" magazines whilst enjoying my own company!

 

[The Rivet]

One day in my youth, the 70's, cracking day out up at selhurst park! Have to admit by the time we reached Norwood Junction I was already swilling about with a few pints (hic). Palarse fans were there to greet the train as it was the days of mindless hooliganism (which I was by then after a few pints aged 15!!....but only at Selhurst you understand) Anyhow we weren't done drinking yet so staged a mass break out of the station across the railway lines and up over the railway perimeter fence. We soon found a pub (I think it might have been the Swiss or like Swiss cottage or something.) Many more strong brews went down in that place. When we arrived in the proximty of the ground it was heaving and police were everywhere including on Horses. The stadium (sorry, shite-hole to give it it's proper name) was packed. By this time, fueled by intoxicating liquor my friends and I are singing like mad. Some trouble occured down the stand in front of me and I saw a girl being carted off bodily to be thrown out! I lambasted the coppers in a good old achohol rage and ended up being thrown out myself! The worst part was when I went to sympathise with the girl sitting on the curb only to find out it was a long haired hippy geezer!! Now that was like a red rag to a bull so I promptly vaulted the ground wall and was back in my spot within 5 mins only to discover they had put purple dye on the wall and it was all over me! Lol.......fortunately I saw the game and avoided arrest.......that was me in my youth at Selhurst.............I'm a good lad now (Grin) but I still hate the Palarse

 

[gully is my god]

I would have no respect for any fully sized adult who swings at a 6 year old. Therefore I would say that's more fear than respect.

You earn respect. Even parents have to.
Not like that.

 

[HovaGirl]

When I was in my early teens...Gnome-napping in Mile Oak was popular.

It was you!

 

[HovaGirl]

As a moden day youth, i would say from personal experience - if dad hit me, even with a belt - hed get it back as hard if not harder.

My generation has learnt not to be scared of parents as we can easily fight back.

Parents...the police...its all the same- authority figures that dont assume the worst of you, so you may as well prove them right.

Not that I approve of any of the rioting, that being said. I can just understand why its happened.

How sad.

 

[HovaGirl]

In my day it was scrumping (nicking apples from the trees in people's gardens) and running up the street and ringing all the doorbells, but hiding so they didn't see you.

 

[BadFish]

Oh and a bit of "Garden hopping" just as it's getting dark,go though peoples back gardens,bit like the Grand National style,no thieving,or intentional damage,just try not to get caught-admit by the time your half way through 20 gardens with cuts to hands and face it does get a little scary,as you have no option but to continue,getting weaker and weaker you get to the last garden,where,stood in the back garden is Basher bill,6 ft tall,swigging larger,no top on.

On near hands and knees,you summon up the last of you energy,as you realise he's seen you,in his garden,and you think,shit-a burst of energy is found and a lifetime of charter is built as you survive to tell the tale.

Kids today-no character.

Did you grow up in the Beano?

 

[Deleted User X18H]

Just shaging birds really! Or playing Brian Cloughs Football Fortunes with a few mates.

 

[El Presidente]

I was in Manchester in 1981, and it was pwopa naughty rioting that year.

 

[Seagull27]

Good post - been having nostalgic thoughts of my youth. What innocent times, life seemed so simple in the late '60s / early '70s:

Mum's cooking
The Albion
Subbuteo
Playing footie
Airfix kits
Getting a part time job to pay for my first motor bike (took about a year...)
Endless school homework
Discovering girls
Discovering beer
Monty Python
Match of the Day
Sportsnight with Coleman

Not a stolen play station, plasma tv or laptop in sight..... happy days.

Didn't feel the need to be in a street gang to get respect, my mates and I just got on with life. We felt good because we set out with the attitude to work hard and play hard. If I wanted something new I got another part time job to pay for it, which made it feel good. Might sound rather dated and boring to modern youth but those values stood me in good stead and haven't done me any harm since. Got into a few scrapes but I didn't scrounge off society or go on a trail of destruction. I like to think I have given at least as much to society as I expect back.

I said it earlier in the thread - but again, none of this is old fashioned or 'dated and boring' to the modern youth - the vast majority do all of these things (substituting Monty Python with something more recent and subbuteo with fifa maybe). Funnily enough, the majority of youths still get jobs to pay for what they want, still discover beer and girls, still do homework. It's only a minority that scrounge off society or go on a trail of destruction in gangs.

No disrespect meant to you sir, and not saying you are, but it does get me a bit when people label all youths with the same connotations and stereotypes. It is only a very small proportion of kids that behave in the way you suggest.