[Misc] Things you did as kid that don’t seem popular any more

[NorthLainer]

Going to the local newsagents and using your pocket money to buy Panini stickers. The sheer joy of finding a silver/gold club badge, and absolutely ecstasy when it was the Albion. Swapping them in the playground at breaks "got, got, need, got, need, need". Establishing exchange rates for club badges v. Scottish Div 3 Team pics. Fulfilment of completing the whole album.

Oh, and the four new Commando comics every month. Learning a select few foreign words "Gott in Himmel" "Achtung" "Banzai"....

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Pow! Wham! Smash! Fantastic! Terrific!

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Playing in the coal bunker and licking coal as it tasted nice I am sure it was akin to really wanting some dark greens to eat you know that need for Iron I was telling the grandchildren about it only last week and they genuinely thought I was making it up

Sniffing fresh melted tar near the kerb on roads.
Going to the Albion without an adult, aged 11, with my 8 year old brother.
Crisp sandwiches

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Used to love Muffin The Mule. Right up til my RSPCA prosecution case

 

[Super Steve Earle]

Carefully extracting cards from between the lining and the wrapper of loose tea packets of trees, birds, animals, wild flowers and the like. Then carefully gluing them in to a Brooke Bond Tea album or taking them to school for swapsies.

 

[Poyningsgull]

Banging the slot machines on the pier in the sixties. We also used to stuff a rag up the payout slot and when the 'winner' went to get the engineer because it hadn't paid out, we would nip out pull the rag out and collect the pennies.
Happy Days

 

[raymondo]

Going to the local newsagents and using your pocket money to buy Panini stickers. The sheer joy of finding a silver/gold club badge, and absolutely ecstasy when it was the Albion. Swapping them in the playground at breaks "got, got, need, got, need, need". Establishing exchange rates for club badges v. Scottish Div 3 Team pics. Fulfilment of completing the whole album.

Oh, and the four new Commando comics every month. Learning a select few foreign words "Gott in Himmel" "Achtung" "Banzai"....

The forerunner of Duolingo

 

[raymondo]

Sticking Green Shield Stamps onto the pages for mum.

 

[Super Steve Earle]

Going down to play on what I always understood to be a an old bomb site (probably wasn't) between Salmons in Patcham and Overhill Way. Now houses. Not many bomb sites left for kids to play on in England now!

 

[Brok]

Has anybody mentioned going up to the old rifle range up Cissbury, and getting a load of bullets that didn't fire?
Take them home, stick them in a vice, and smash the shit out of them with a hammer hoping to fire.

Disappointed that none ever did...

 

[Seagull on the Hill]

Looking for lost balls in the undergrowth at Hollingbury golf course .
Caddying at Hollingbury during the Brighton Open.
Waiting for the Albion's result on the BBC videprinter.

 

[tigertim68]

Putting a book on a single roller skate, sitting down on it and hurtling down Bristol Gate hoping to stop before reaching Eastern Road

We used to do that as well , great fun

 

[tigertim68]

Handy for A&E if you crashed

We never crashed , and we had great fun doing it , unlike the safety obsessed society of today,

 

[Blue3]

Yep, same here. Copper bedwarmer but soon replaced with stone hot water 'bottles'.
As well as the coal fire in the lounge, we had a coke boiler in the dining room (posh council house ) which had a back boiler to heat our water.
For the very cold days we had two stinky paraffin heaters, one in the hall and one on the landing.
Hence...smell and moisture everywhere.

Yes same here I remember when my parents had some plumbing put in and we had no bathroom for a couple of weeks so as kids we were marched off somewhere near the pepper pot Queen’s Park was a public baths you got a cubicle with an old metal bath you had to shout for the attendant outside to turn the hot water on.
our house originally had only an outside toilet which was absolutely freezing in the winter and in the summer always had the biggest spiders which made sure you were never in there any longer than absolutely necessary.
we also had a wash room with a big butler sink and wooden draining and my mum had this twin tub washing machine which had a washing section then you dragged the wet washing into the spinner it had two tubes one went on the tap to fill the other was to empty the machine into the sink unlike modern machines you could not switch it on and walk away it required a lot of user interaction.
this is quite fun just remembering how it was all those years ago, just remembered we had a cold larder which had a huge air brick that allowed cold air to flood in and it had a huge thick walls and a concrete shelf which was used as the household cold storage before we got our first fridge, we also had the first phone in the street and neighbours would ask to use it I recall that a number of them who at Christmas would be calling relatives in Australia or America which my dad was always worried about the costs.
I remember 1966 World Cup final I was a child of 6 but again the street all came in as we had the only TV

 

[LamieRobertson]

Dirt fights….throwing lumps of earth at each other …health n safety just wasnt applicable

Buying ‘little men’ ..building armies and having pretend battles…normally in sand (helped that my neighbours Dad was a builder)

Being outside for 99% of ‘playtime’

Watching the Test card was also considered ‘entertainment’

 

[raymondo]

Yes same here I remember when my parents had some plumbing put in and we had no bathroom for a couple of weeks so as kids we were marched off somewhere near the pepper pot Queen’s Park was a public baths you got a cubicle with an old metal bath you had to shout for the attendant outside to turn the hot water on.
our house originally had only an outside toilet which was absolutely freezing in the winter and in the summer always had the biggest spiders which made sure you were never in there any longer than absolutely necessary.
we also had a wash room with a big butler sink and wooden draining and my mum had this twin tub washing machine which had a washing section then you dragged the wet washing into the spinner it had two tubes one went on the tap to fill the other was to empty the machine into the sink unlike modern machines you could not switch it on and walk away it required a lot of user interaction.
this is quite fun just remembering how it was all those years ago, just remembered we had a cold larder which had a huge air brick that allowed cold air to flood in and it had a huge thick walls and a concrete shelf which was used as the household cold storage before we got our first fridge, we also had the first phone in the street and neighbours would ask to use it I recall that a number of them who at Christmas would be calling relatives in Australia or America which my dad was always worried about the costs.
I remember 1966 World Cup final I was a child of 6 but again the street all came in as we had the only TV

Brilliant memories, I'm loving this thread,!
Our council house (built early 50s?) had an inside toilet AND an outside one in a spider filled brickshed - posh!

Mum first had some single tub washer with a wringer (mangle??) to squeeze the water out... that was my job.
Then...she upgraded to a Twin tub as you described.
Our first tv was when i was about 3 (1957), black and white of course with a pop up lid housing controls, and knobs for horizontal and vertical hold on the back...you try telling that to the kids of today .
We spent years queueing at the phone box round the corner, even for important calls when dad was in hospital. That's just how it was. I think I was about 12 when we got a home phone.
The larder brilliant invention. Did you have terracotta covers for keeping the milk fresh? Saucer of water, milk bottle, terracotta cover over the top soaks up the water, evaporation, cooling, physics, fresh milk

 

[LamieRobertson]

Yep, same here. Copper bedwarmer but soon replaced with stone hot water 'bottles'.
As well as the coal fire in the lounge, we had a coke boiler in the dining room (posh council house ) which had a back boiler to heat our water.
For the very cold days we had two stinky paraffin heaters, one in the hall and one on the landing.
Hence...smell and moisture everywhere.

Oh you were posh….i grew up in a council house and our ‘coke’ stove was in the kitchen (it had a back boiler to heat water as well…Friday was bath night. We did have a fire in the ‘front room’, but always had to wait for dad to come home so it could be lit. Would two coal bunkers be considered posh?

 

[raymondo]

Oh you were posh….i grew up in a council house and our ‘coke’ stove was in the kitchen (it had a back boiler to heat water as well…Friday was bath night. We did have a fire in the ‘front room’, but always had to wait for dad to come home so it could be lit. Would two coal bunkers be considered posh?

Yes, definitely posh... we only had the one coal bunker .
Baths once a week,,, showers were something we only saw in the movies!
When I was a teen playing lots of school football I was allowed an extra bath after the Saturday match.

 

[Worried Man Blues]

Cardboard and pegs for your bike spokes.............

 

[METALMICKY]

Oh you were posh….i grew up in a council house and our ‘coke’ stove was in the kitchen (it had a back boiler to heat water as well…Friday was bath night. We did have a fire in the ‘front room’, but always had to wait for dad to come home so it could be lit. Would two coal bunkers be considered posh?

Luxury. We used to hafta get 'out the lake, 3 am, clean the lake, eat a handful 'o hot gravel, work 20 hours a day at mill, for a penny a month, and dad would beat us about the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were lucky.