Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms When I was a kid

A thread for all those things we used to do but kids don’t anymore, inspired by some comments on the joke threads.
None of those copy and paste I was a child of the19## and I survived type lists.

6 or 14 or 20 a side (but hardly ever 11), often uneven numbers, football matches sometimes with “rush goalie” that went on for hours invariably with a score of 27-19. At some point the kid who’s ball it was had to go home to a cry of “next goal wins” irrespective of the score.

Picking teams, really inclusive no kid missed out due to (in)ability, race, colour or creed. Even the thick kid with leg callipers and a finger up his nose picking bogies got a game. Although his selection was normally met with “ you can have the last two cause you’ve got Nobby”

Getting a wack from your mates mum for messing about then getting another one when you got home

Getting into arguments or fights with your mates, promising never to speak to them again.
Then knocking on their door later on to see if they are coming out to play, and they did.

Jumping (and falling in) ditches

The park keeper, “look out here comes parkie”

Metalwork and woodwork classes with knives and chisels. Making an ashtray and a fruit bowl, then combining the two skills to make a wooden handled trowel.

Earning your pocket money, milk rounds, paper rounds, car cleaning.

Saturday morning pictures. All of a sudden the cinema emptied out and 200 Lone Rangers or Zorros riding imaginary horses were let loose. B Films before the main film. Having enough money to either get the bus home or a bag of chips but not both.

Free bag of scratching with your chips. The bits of batter that fell of the fish when it was fried.

Sitting on the top deck of a bus pretending to drive it.

Hell Neptune, did you live in my street?? These things you mention are so real to me they could have happened yesterday. Without looking too far back down memory lane, can I add to your bus memories thus:- someone looking out for the "Jumper" and getting off quickly before he found you had no tickets. Happy days which are still ongoing thanks to sites just like this.

Great fun was had swapping over neighbouring gardens ornaments and provided limitless entertainment as the neighbours argued .

Riding your bicycle backwards whilst sitting on the handlebars was good fun when racing your mates.

Bike racing round an oval dirt track with your fixed wheel bike with no brakes were the rules, still got the gravel rash.

A quarter pound of sweets from the jar, then trying to make them last, they stuck together to form a huge sweet which had to be chipped apart. They stuck to white paper bag And the fluff in your pocket.
Still ate them

Air rifles in the back garden

Yep, cycle speedway, got a scar on my chin where I went over the handlebars and used my face as a brake

There weren't many Mint Humbugs in a quarter and they truly stuck together..

Crying with laughter here as so many memories of what your excellent list contains.

Plus ‘Tappy Window’ a favourite game in the slums of Birmingham. Steal a reel of your moms cotton (not white) and a button, find a very small nail, panel pin type as we didn’t have drawing pins.

Pick an old ladies house, push small nail into wood above window (easy as all the houses had rotten wood frames), tie the button 12” from the end of the cotton, wrap the end around the nail and knot so it hangs down close to window pane.

Unroll cotton and hide across the road (this dates it as no cars to cut cotton)

Wait until all clear and pull the cotton a few times and the button taps window..... little old lady comes to door..... looks up and down street.... wait and tap again.

If your good at it you can get her waiting behind the door ready to pounce on whoever is playing ‘knock and run’ but of course no one is ever there no matter how quick she opens the door.

Prepare for a walloping when she visits your house to tell your mom.

Happy days
Colin

Teachers were so accurate at throwing blackboard rubbers without appearing to look (maybe they just knew where I was sitting) scoring a direct hit and leaving a chalk mark.

Sherbet Lemons that lacerated your mouth

Remember finding in a shed a slightly rusty air rifle my Dad borrowed from my Uncle many years before. Discovered what a crack shot I was (not). Also finding that if you pulled the trigger with the gun broken (spring set) it locked the barrel back into position smartish. Probably very dangerous but it still worked afterwards.