Childhood memories.

I had a very happy childhood but looking back at the things my friends and I used to get up to, it’s a wonder none of us were maimed or killed.

My earliest memories are of living in an end terraced house in Swindon, not far from the football ground. At the other end of the dead-end street was our main playground; a disused canal with a footbridge.
We also played in the back alley that ran behind all the houses. Sometimes we would hitch a ride up and down the street on the milk float. There were always adults around, mostly mums and grans or retirees, keeping an eye on everyone else’s kids as well as their own.

When I was four, we moved to the village of Waltham, not far from Grimsby and Cleethorpes. I went to the local Infants school housed in a wooden L-shaped building that I only discovered a few years ago was the former WW2 Land Army Girls billet.
Everyone walked to school, sometimes alone, sometimes with parents. My Mum took me there to enrol and the headmistress said I could start there and then. Mum hadn't anticipated she would be leaving me that day, so it was shock for both of us.
She walked me to and from school for about a week, and then I was on my own. There were plenty of other kids as well as a few parents to walk with so it never bothered me.
When I was seven I moved to the "big school".

The Junior school was half a dozen houses along the road on the other side of our next-door neighbour’s house. Next to the school and bounded by a dead-end road on three sides was a field with ridges and troughs along its length, possibly a relic of the old “Three Fields” system of farming. The troughs were half a metre deep and several hundred metres long, and probably numbered ten in total.
They were great for playing war games or cowboys and Indians, or storming the castle, especially in late summer when the grass on top of the ridges would grow to about to about knee high. Real bows and arrows were sometimes used!
Between the field and school was a row of trees and a ditch that would dry up in summer, and then a two-metre-high fence. We would spend hours climbing trees, making rope swings to cross the ditch, or playing games of hide and seek along the perimeter.

The road around the field was so quiet that we would play marbles across it, and it would be rare in those days to be disturbed by more than one car in all the time we played.
On calm days, marathon games of monopoly would sometimes be played on the pavement. Other times we would career down the gentle slope on home made trolleys (soap-box) before skidding to a stop at the bottom due to the major design fault they all had; no brakes.
Most of the time our parents hadn’t a clue where we were, although I’m quite sure they knew what we got up to, well at least some of the things we did. We would leave home, play all day, or until meal times, then go back out again to play some more, quite often until it was dark.
Nowadays if a child goes missing or is attacked, it’s instant national news, but in those days it was very rare to hear of such things, if at all. As a result, parents didn’t worry about this sort of thing happening and were quite happy for us kids to spend all day out the house.

R Mar, like many others in the area was a stay-at-home mum. Dad worked five and a half days a week in a Building Society, but always made time for all of us when he was home. Weather permitting, he would take us out somewhere interesting. A walk along a wooded riverside or exploring Grimsby Docks, games in a park, collecting conkers; there was always something for us to enjoy.
I can’t remember exactly where it was, but we would sometimes go to the grounds of a manor house that had been commandeered during WW2 by the Army who deliberately destroyed the building during exercises. We had to cross two fords to get to the picnic area there. On one occasion we were walking along the river bank when Dad spotted a mortar round in the river bed. The Bomb Disposal Squad dealt with it and determined that it was actually a practice mortar shell, but could still have been lethal if it had been disturbed.

Around the beginning of October, the collection of wood for the annual Guy Fawkes bonfire would begin. There was rivalry between different bonfire “gangs” and often different factions would raid other bonfires to either steal or torch the “opponent’s” efforts.
On one occasion, one of the boys shot firework rockets at another bonfire but they all fell short and failed to set it alight.
When darkness fell, some of the boys would guard the mounds of firewood. One of the older lads had a car headlamp and a battery mounted on a trolley so he could sweep the field like a searchlight, looking for prowlers.

Grown-ups would save tree branches, old boxes, or any scraps of wood they didn’t want and we would collect them for the fire. We would even go knocking door to door asking for combustibles. It was quite common to see a group of kids using ropes to pull logs or fence posts through the village.
On one occasion the junior school headmaster donated an old upright piano so a bunch of us had great fun dismantling it with hammers and axes until the pieces were small enough that we could carry them.

One year it had rained heavily for some time such that all the wood was sodden, and we were worried we may not be able to light the bonnie. During morning assembly, the headmaster matter-of-factly told us that he had asked the school caretaker to provide some fuel oil from the boiler house, and he would then proceed to light it with a burning torch.
I can’t imagine that sort of thing happening today.

In those days there was no age limit for buying fireworks, so it was not uncommon for many of us to spend our pocket money on them.
Next to a former RAF Bomber Base was a field with a few small buildings. Cows would often be grazing and we had great fun after they were moved out, sticking bangers in cow pats and laughing as smelly smoking craters appeared after the top crust was blown off.
There was one building with some sort of pond or sump next to it about a couple of metres square, and quite deep.
By experimenting we found that once a banger started to fizz sparks, it would work underwater. We also found that a threepenny banger would fit snuggly in the holes of certain types of bricks, of which there were plenty lying around. So, once it started to fizz, the brick and banger combination would be dropped into the green gungy water.
Smoke filled bubbles would rise to the surface and then release their smoke in a series of puffs. A few seconds later there would be a muffled “wumph” followed by a large eruption of gas and smoke rising to the surface.
That was money well spent as far as we were concerned.

We made banger guns by attaching lengths of copper pipe to a piece of wood. Two nails at one end allowed a banger to be dropped into the tube, leaving just the fuse sticking out. Projectiles made from marbles, ball bearings, or pebbles would be put into the tube, and then the cannon would be fired into the base of an old tree-stump, or into a dam we had built across one of the ditches.

Between the field and former airbase was an earth bank littered with wartime-debris such as tins, bottles, and the odd remnants of gas masks. I once scrounged enough parts to make one complete mask. It wasn’t until decades later that I discovered that the filtration cannisters sometimes contained asbestos!

School visits to various places around the village were always interesting. Amongst other things I got to go round the local volunteer fire station, and a visit to the church opposite our house involved going up the tower, through the belfry, and out onto the roof.
We also did brass rubbings in the church, and a larger group did a visit to the main fire station in Grimsby.

One of my fondest memories was standing in the doorway of the forge at the far end of the village, watching the blacksmith perform magic with white hot iron. When I eventually left school I wanted to be a blacksmith, but couldn’t get an apprenticeship, but I do have my own anvil and a selection of large hammers, so I do get to bend a little iron every now and then.

We sometimes played in a series of air-raid shelters along one of the roads near the air-base, or looked for newts around a dew pond, or watched water voles whilst we caught minnows and sticklebacks in the local beck.

I slipped on some ice one day on my way to school and chipped one of my front teeth.
About a year later I slipped whilst jumping across a pile of large diameter concrete pipes, and chipped a bit more off the same tooth. I now have a crown to remind me of those far-off happy days.

We moved to Doncaster when I was almost eleven, and had to start the process of making friends all over again.
I enjoyed growing up there, but I missed my friends from the village and all the things we used to get up to.


What sorts of things did you get up to when you were growing up?

Re: Childhood memories.

I loved reading this FC I can see you as a little boy

Re: Childhood memories.

There is supposed to be a picture of me here but Postimages is playing up.

Re: Childhood memories.

I enjoyed reading that, Fruitcake.

I had a lot of friends when around 7 & til I was about 10, mainly boys as I was a proper tom boy. We used to play on Percy Dumps, when I was a kid it was waste land, later they built the secondary school my brother went to on it.
We'd also play in Crane Park & the river that ran through it had a rope & branch swing over the river, but I was never brave enough to try it. The river was about 4 feet deep there & I couldn't swim,(never did learn).
We used to fish with nets in the river for Caddisfly lava, removed them from the boring bits of vegetation & add pretty beads & other colourful small items & watch them make homes of those, by then I had friends who were girls too. We were very into nature.
We were also out most daylight hours when not in school. Parents knew where we were, most of the time.
One year my friend David & I set light to Hounslow Heath, accidently. must have been around 10 then & a very hot Summer. We lite a fire to cook something, but it set light to gorse bushes nearby. When we realised what we'd done we grabbed our bikes & shot off like bullets for home. Someone had called the fire brigade & we passed the fire engine on the way out. Terrified they'd know it was us. They didn't, but I never played with fire again.
Sadly David's family moved & I never saw him again, but we were best friends for a few years.
Then aged 11/12 I discovered horses & spent all my spare time at the stables.

Re: Childhood memories.

I try to forget my childhood.

Re: Childhood memories.

Yes I noticed that.

I used a different browser & clicked 'Forgot my password' They sent a new one & it's working fine now.

Re: Childhood memories.

I was a weird child.

I remember crying as though I was heartbroken on my birthday & when mum asked what was the matter I told her 'I don't want to grow old like grandma'

I think it was my fifth birthday!!

Re: Childhood memories.

Fab stories .


Our happiest times we kids remember was living in Aden . We went twice with 6months in between .

The heat was intense we lived in RAF housing and surrounded by mates . Travelled to school with armed guards and windows locked with barbed wire School started at 7am collected by bus and dropped off home at 12.noon . The bearer would cook our lunch then we would walk the mile or so to the swimming pool . We collected the empty coke bottles from the soldiers as there was 50cents back , probably 10p now . We swam and jumped till tea time and walk home. After tea we played out often with no shoes , during the day heat we wore flip flops because the sand burned our feet . We would go to the open air theatre and watch cliff Richard films and Elvis Presley films . Mum and dad let us roam but there were times I now realise of possible danger as we kids often got ' flashed ' from some of the locals . I got myself into a very dangerous situation by going into a tent full of local men and my brother luckily came looking for me . I was about 7/8 . Of course hindsite makes me realise what could of happened. We rode camels and raced them with out fear at the camel races . We swam in Elephant bay and The Lido . The lido was a fenced off stretch of water free of sharks but occasionally the sharks broke through the fence and a claxon would go off we would run like hell while the soldiers fixed back the fence . Then we would all run back into the warm safe water. In the rainy season we ran outside and danced in the downpours. We slept under mossy nets or outside on the verandah. Only mum and dads bedroom was air con and sometimes there would be 8 of us lying on floor and mattresses to sleep in the cool room . I returned to UK aged 12 . We all hated the cold dark and rain . I always say I should have been born in a hot country as I so dislike British weather .

Thankyou for the memories FC

Re: Childhood memories.

You have reminded me that one of my friends went to Aden when his dad was posted there for two years in the early sixties.
When he came back he told me someone had thrown a grenade at the High Commissioner.
He was given a pair of toy Aldiss lamps one christmas with the Morse Code embossed on the back, and we used to flash messages from his house to ours.

Re: Childhood memories.

My bother and I and a friend had been playing in a mud puddle on a building site where a tree stump had been dug out. We came home covered in mud and clay so my Dad took this picture of us in our back garden before washing us down with a hose pipe.

Which one do you think is me?