Things we did as Kids

[Fynger 841]

Was talking earlier after having eaten a bag of crisps...

We used to put the empty packet under a warm grill and watch it shrink down into a solid plastic small crisp packet then stick a pin on the back and make them into badges.

Also made 'tanks' ( as we called em ) out of wooden cotton reels with a laggy band thru the middle and a round lolly stick on one side.

Also made boomerangs out of two sucker sticks and a laggy band connecting them into a cross.

Also ...Throwin arrows..peice of garden cane with playing cards as flights and launched with piece of string with a knot in it..they went miles once youde got the flights right an the weight on the front.

Also made cardboard tanks out of fag packets. ( the push through kind ).

Must be loadsa other things that kids nowadays wunt consider as entertainment.

[katyjay 5,091]

We made stilts out of tin cans and string, and winter warmers out of tin cans, with holes punched in, string round the top. Make a fire in there and swing it round.

[Ashley 288]

used to race "snails" out of school milk bottle top moulded around a marble, nothing snail like down a slope though

[Beefsteak 305]

'Telephones' out of yoghurt pots and string

[katyjay 5,091]

Conkers. I read somewhere recently that they were trying to ban kids playing this as it might put their eye out! Didn't see many one-eyed kids when I was young!

[Paulus 541]

!rotfl! Girls (& some boys) at St Teresa's (Aspley) would make knitting machines..............4 nails in the end of a cotton reel, weave the wool around the nails and through the reel!!out the other end would come knitted 'thing', bl**dy useless!! but knitted...............

[Ashley 288]

saw lots with sticking plaster over one side of glasses though!

[katyjay 5,091]

Paulus, you are describing French knitting, I made miles of the darn stuff. But what can you do with it when you're done, you can only have so many potholders, etc. I think my mum made some of mine into a clothesline.

Ashley, I remember the kids with sticking plaster over one lens of their glasses. I think they had a lazy eye and so covered up the good one to make the other straighten out. I think they called it a squint. They don't seem to do that over here, just leave the kid with a wonky eyeball. [unless you can afford surgery of course]

[Beefsteak 305]

I had a lazy eye as a kid , sticking plaster over my good 'un to try to make the lazy one work properly , never worked, stopped me getting my commision in the RAF that did!! Didn't stop me learning how to fly though !!!!

[loppylugs 8,429]

Making catapults (slingshots for our American friends) with a Y shaped piece of wood and cut up bike tire inner tubes for the elastic. This would attach to a piece of leather from and old glove or other item to hold the stone.

If you shot one at an angle onto a piece of concrete the ricochet used to sound just like the bullets in the old Western movies.

Sometimes wonder how we didn't do ourselves in but everybody I know of survived.

"Fynger" I'd almost forgotten those cotton reel "tanks." Thanks for bringing back a happy memory.

Us geeky types of those days used to enjoy making crystal sets out of old radio parts. Stretch a long piece of wire across the clothes posts in the back yard for an aerial and it was amazing the stations you could hear, especially at night.

[Fynger 841]

Did you 'notch' the edges of yer cotton reels to make em rumble ??

Also used to make our own kites with sticks and polythene sheet.

Playing cards pegged onto your pushbike back wheel to make an engine noise.

Smartie lids of dif'rent colours in the crossovers on your spokes ( a more recent one that kids did was to put the plastic bread tags on their brake cables ).

[loppylugs 8,429]

Did you 'notch' the edges of yer cotton reels to make em rumble ??

Also used to make our own kites with sticks and polythene sheet.

Playing cards pegged onto your pushbike back wheel to make an engine noise.

Smartie lids of dif'rent colours in the crossovers on your spokes ( a more recent one that kids did was to put the plastic bread tags on their brake cables ).

Sure did! Used to put a big pile of dominoes on the floor for 'em to climb over.

[RWK 0]

Loved reading this thread. All the things I've seen others doing or done myself. The winter warmer springs to mind as I always did like to play with fire!

I think I used a Nescafe café tin for mine as it had a lid and the usual fuel was pieces of rag that were set to smoulder. A quick spin would soon bring it back to life.

For my contribution – what about the pram wheeled go-cart?

Old pram wheels, planks, a bolt to hold the front bit on and string to steer it with. The axles would usually be nailed on with the nails being bent over the axles from either side!

We lost quite a bit of skin back then having lost control of the cart, chucked off and then bouncing along the road.

Most times the front wheel with its central one point fixing would jacknife into the side of the cart and tip us over.

[tomlinson 879]

All the things mentioned before and 'Snobs', which I think southerners call 'Jacks'. If a pram wheeled trolley couldn't be managed, an old comic book annual on a roller skate would be used. Don't see these things any more, and when was the last time you saw a kid with a boil! Used to be quite common in those days.

[katyjay 5,091]

Boils, warts and veruccas, the joys of childhood long ago. I had a boil on the back on my neck that had to be lanced by the doctor [he came to the house to do it, I'm pretty sure I could still walk with this neck boil, but we didn't go to the doctor's surgery, he had to come to us!] Then a sticking plaster over the wound which of course stuck to the hair on my neck. Pulling that off was worse than lancing the boil. I soaked it in the bath but to no avail, my brother yanked it off as I passed him, quick but painful. This same brother had a huge wart on the back of his hand, grandma said rub steak on it and toss the steak over your shoulder. Somehow or other it worked, the wart went.

[littlebro 234]

Jetex motors on balsa wood boats.

I recall the bobbin tanks, put a slice of candle against the bobbin to reduce friction.

Also, cooking on a "real" camp fire. The H&S do not allow campfires anymore.

[Ashley 288]

"Sometimes wonder how we didn't do ourselves in but everybody I know of survived."

esp when I hit a .45 bullet with a hammer and nail!

[denshaw 2,872]

We used to explore the caves under Broad Marsh and other places in Nottingham, just a candle for light. We also used to "nip" across the railway lines or cross the train bridge at Wilford. Sometimes we would "find" detonators and set them off with bricks. Health and safety eh!

[Fynger 841]

Like the french knitting....once we'de discovered how to make pompoms by wrapping wool round two circles of card...we made hundreds of them ( all bin fodder )

Got banned from building trollies with pram wheels after we hit one of those yellow gas/electric gravestones that were on the pavement and the 4 inch of sticking out axle went through my knee.....so yep, last years christmas annual on a roller skate...take all the skin off yer knuckles on the corners.

[Limey 242]

Crossing the (main line) railway bridge to get from Trent Lock to Red Hill! Gives me shivers thinking about it today!

[katyjay 5,091]

We used waxed bread wrappers [or a candle if we could get hold of one] to rub on the slide on the park to make it faster. You'd go down there like s**t off a shovel!

[Ashley 288]

"You'd go down there like s**t off a shovel!" whilst on the toilet theme years later when I took my own kids sledging on the forest the fastest thing down the hill (over the road and half way across the football pitch too) was a plastic toilet lid! there were posh kids there with proper shop bought sledges sick as a parrot!

!rotfl!

[Beefsteak 305]

My dad made us a sledge out of wood with part of the frame work of my little brothers old pram as the runners. That went like stink ' dahn Cavvo rec. In the summer he attatched the old pram wheels and a stearing rack to the front , and Bobs your uncle a summer trolly!!

That thing lasted me that long that it was the only sledge I have ever had !!! It was only about 3 foot long and 2 foot wide, and I want you to use your imaginations here, picture my father lying on his stomach my sister sitting on his shoulders, me holding round her waist, mum sat on his bum, and my little brother on my mums back in a papoose bag, 5 of us all wizzing past the 'rich kids' on their £20 sledges that fell to pieces if you put more than 1 on them !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Happy days indeed.

[rob237 89]

Nottstalgia Oxymoron No 138:

Posh kids on the Forest?

Cheers

Robt P.

[katyjay 5,091]

LOL Rob! I suppose some could have come from the Arboretum area.

Us kids on Bells Lane Esteate used to go fishing for tadpoles and sticklebacks on either Fowler's Pond or Bulwell Bogs. A sixpenny net gave us hours of pleasure, plus we could catch butterflies with it too. Multipurpose! Spent hours with a yo-yo, hoola hoop, whip and top, skipping rope, and diabalo besides all the street games we'd play.