Reminiscent of my childhood days

I just saw this post on Facebook and it has to be one of the best posts I ever saw. I just wish I could also share the 73 photos to show how I remember my childhood.

No school today and your mum told you to "go outside and play and be back by tea time". If it was raining you put on your duffle coat, if it was snowing you put on your balaclava and woolen gloves. Whatever the case you went outside and PLAYED! You knocked on friends' doors, or you met them at the local park, a whole bunch of you rag tag boys and girls. There was no slide too high, no swing you couldn't jump off, and the more you could fit on a ride the better. You got bumps, scrapes, cuts, bruises, none the less you kept on doing the same crazy stunts that had gotten you them. You scrumped apples and plums, making sure to have a look-out for the local bobby who could often be seen riding his bike. You took your punishment at home and school, because you DESERVED it. You played doctor nurse, you tried smoking cigarettes. You played in abandoned buildings, scrap yards, or building sites. You pooled your pennies and shared chewing gum and chocolate bars, sometimes even fish and chips. You wandered streets, or crossed fields and went into the dark woods. Half the time you never knew where the heck you were, but you always made it back home for tea time.

I hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I did. Such happy reminiscing of my childhood.

Re: Reminiscent of my childhood days

I loved reading that LQ. I could write something very similar although there wouldn't be many duffle coats involved, no snow and it would be the beach instead of woods. Otherwise pretty much identical.

Re: Reminiscent of my childhood days

Thanks for all those memories Lion Queen. Another one here who remembers life as it was in those days. My growing-up years were the 1950s so all that is also very familiar to me. When thinking back to those days it makes me realise that although we didn't have much by way of material possessions, we did learn about life by experiencing what is described. The lives of youngsters today is sad in some respects, they miss out on so much. That includes not learning basics of life due to how they are now 'mollycoddled'. Many was the time I returned home battered and bruised having fallen out of a tree while 'scrumping' or soaking wet due to falling in a stream or pond while playing. All that may have been a tough way of learning but learn we did and it gave us the opportunity to do that, so very different from today.

Just being out playing for hours meant we ran off all our energy, that really was exercise as it should be, out in the fresh air. Returning home to a basic, nutritious meal, no luxuries, then gave us the 'fuel' for the next day's 'learning expedition'. Childhood obesity as seen today was definitely not a problem then!

The advice given in that Facebook post, to play "Those Were The Days" by Mary Hopkin really does set the scene:

Re: Reminiscent of my childhood days

I can only speak for the early seventies, I was the driving force for our gang, perhaps the rot was just setting in, without motivation, there were several peers who would have been content to bask in the warmth of the sun, unaware of the passage of time.

Re: Reminiscent of my childhood days

Until my early teens my childhood days are best forgotten especially up to the age of nine.

Re: Reminiscent of my childhood days

LQ.
You have brought back long forgotten wonderful memories. Your story fits mine almost exactly except I don,t think there things like duffle coats then but Oh! how we kids enjoyed life then. We made our own entertainment. swings with a length of rope tied onto a tree branch. A trolly from a box tied onto old pram wheels,.
My childhood days go back much further than yours but they were similar in many ways.
Thanks for the memory.

Re: Reminiscent of my childhood days

I remember those days well LQ. We lived quite close to the fields ..... and to a railway track. We were sent out after breakfast with a paper bag of jam sandwiches, to call for our friends and make our way to the fields. No duffle coats in those days, I had a check coat from a secondhand shop and knitted hat and gloves.

We had to cross the railway lines to get to the fields and stopped there for a short time to put pennies on the lines and wait for a train to go over them .... then clamber down the bank to retrieve the squashed coins.

Further on we would stop at the pond and try to catch the sticklebacks and newts to take home in a jam jar. By then we would be getting hungry so we made a den in the hedge which we would crawl into and eat our sandwich.

On the way home we would go through a field of moon daisies and pick a bunch to take home to our mums. Those were the days!

It was freedom for children in those days. Plenty of fresh air, make your own games, discover the wonder of nature, pick the blackberries to take home for mum to make a blackberry tart. We were never bored!

Re: Reminiscent of my childhood days

... and lashings of ginger beer.

Re: Reminiscent of my childhood days

Remember the Corona Man and his four bottles of squash in a wooden crate?

Re: Reminiscent of my childhood days

Oh yes mags just reminded me of the sticklebacks and newts, we used to love fishing for them in the stream in the woods. Our woods were called bluebell woods, pretty bluebells everywhere.

I remember swinging on the Tarzan swing with no fear. I never fell off!

Remember conkering? Then soaking them in vinegar to make 'em right 'ard lol .

Ah yes, those were the days my friends.