What do you remember from your youth that would never happen today?

The barbers opposite GEC Traction (my apprenticeship years) had a massive stack of gentlemen’s’ periodicals to read while you waited. One had to put the magazine down at the right time to avoid an awkward walk to the chair.

More scout stories. Used to make potato cannons and catapults and set up battles with the local sea scout group. Cue a few hours of being pelted with high speed potatoes.

Used to pile about 10 of us into the leader’s Vauxhall omega and go up onto the ridgeway on salisbury plain. tie a massive tractor tyre to the back with a bit of rope and drag us along the ridgeway for a couple of miles at what seemed like rediculous speeds.

Then there is jumping off of large things just to see if you can make it. Like the stones at Avebury which we were allowed to climb on.

Lol at making ninja stars in metal work.

We spent our time making double headed pennies, to always win the toss.

Scouts, knives, massive fires, climbing up huge trees to the thin and bendy branches at the top. Building tree houses 20 feet up with old pallets and big nails. Sturmey Archer 3 speed hubs, oilskin capes. Endless summers getting skint knees and thumped for tearing clothes. Sitting on the engine cover of my dad’s Albion truck every weekday of the school holidays delivering to Galbraith’s shops around Scotland, the best ones had delivery chutes to slide down. MB bars, spangles, tizer…. Happy times.

Like my kids do?

Making increasingly dangerous things out of pipes, ball bearings and bangers/fireworks.

Very high power catapults.

Two of my friends who involved me in the above also built a “powerboat” out of an old found ( washed up ) 6ft glass fibre dinghy with some big holes in to (repaired with fibre glass resin bodge) with a 20hp outboard motor and the donated handlebars and gear cables from an old shopping bike, we tested this on the river Dart during a gale and rainstorm….great fun and flipping quick, if a bit wet,…no lifejackets or indeed adults were involved 😀

Andy R

Getting 4d bounty for each “longtail”( we’re not allowed to use the “R” word) tail that we brought to the local Police station. When we were threshing we’d collect hundreds of them. I bet the copper at Andreas loved having to count those…..

The name Kissak, Longtails and Andreas says your a Manxman 🙂

Awesome thread

Lots of fireworks – the best was collecting all the duds after the 5th and making the mother of all firework

Airbombs in a jar of ketchup

Burning aerosols

Copper pipebombs

Getting caught at school with loads of 12 bore cartridges. Mr Maddrel, the Deputy Head, called my Dad to have a word. Dad told me not to do it again – legend!

Building dams in local rivers

Big rope swings over big drops – you’d easily be 40ft of the ground at full swing

Stretching an old fishing net between 4 tree trunks, tie them tight and jump out of the tree

Climbing on the cliffs around the local beach

Breaking into deserted houses

Susan Hoffman from the Bangles

Not being allowed to watch Grange Hill, but being allowed to watch Terminator 🙂

Learning how to do wheelspins in my Mum’s mini

School trip to the cricket, found they had drink dispensers that sold cans of beer. We weren’t allowed to go to the cricket next year.

Being given our own sodium in chemistry to drop into water in the fume cupboard.

Guy Emm’s porn sale at the Langdon lockers every lunchtime.

Mr Bunny seriously hurting a pupil with a thrown board rubber and managing to placate the situation with a psck of Polos.

My best mate shagging a fit teacher on the school ski trip, then shagging all the girls I fancied, then coming out 2 years later. Cheers, could have done it eralier and saved some for the rest of us.