I don't think they would believe it nowadays?

[DBT85]

One thing that is abundantly clear is that I'm one of the whippersnappers around these parts!

 

[Chris70]

This was before they put the girl inside the circle. When you fine-tuned the channel you aimed to get the best resolution you could on the bottom rectangles within the circle, realistically impossible with 405 lines

 

[Jacob]

We all carried knives, and a few of my friends at ten or twelve years old owned their own shotguns. I've carried a knife all my life.

We all had flick knives when they were fashionable and illegal. We were a peaceful lot though - no stabbings at all! I guess we probably had a sharpening problem.
Then Swiss Army knives came in and all changed - only the rich kids could afford them and they were stolen on a regular basis.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I remember the fruit and veg man with his horse and cart. The manure didn't go cold before one of the village women picked it up for the roses. I remember my grandmother's neighbour at seven every morning walking along the rows of vegetables in his garden urinating as as he walked. No one thought it remotely odd.

 

[gwaithcoed]

We had two phone boxes in our village and we used to shove paper up the slot where the money came out when button B was pressed We would then go round at night to see if there was any money in there If we got 7 pence we would buy a bottle of Tizer and each have a swig One of the gang had a runny nose so he was last to have a swig

 

[Chris70]

wow 4 channels we only had one

Yeah, BBC. Not BBC1, another channel was a pipe dream.

 

[Bodger7]

& only programs in Black & White, though as a kid I seem to remember only 3 channels

When I were a lad we only had 2 channels BBC and ITV. Some people only had televisions that received BBC.

 

[Chris70]

My grandparents never had electricity they only had gas. I can remember the smell (quite pleasant) and the spills to light the lights from the open fire they cooked on (range)- though they had a gas cooker and fire was used just for the kettle - as modernity kicked in.

I remember the spills; they were multicoloured.

 

[Sandyn]

Experimenting with Nitrate fertiliser in my bedroom. I didn't think it would ignite, so I took all the heads from a full box of matches and mixed them in, then added some sugar because it should help it burn and I love the smell. I put the mixture in a Sun Valley tobacco tin. Set it on my bed and lit it with a match. It started burning a bit better than I thought, so I knocked it on the the floor where it burnt a beautiful square hole in the carpet. By this time I was thinking about the belting I would get, so I picked up the tin and chucked it out the window. Both hands were severely burnt and had to be bandaged. next day at school the teacher asked what happened. I told her something had caught fire in the house, I picked it up and threw it out the window. She thought I was a hero!! lol

Taking 12 bore cartridges to bits, getting the gunpowder and setting it on fire. My mate wondered what would happen if he put a full cartridge in a vice and hit it with a hammer. lol it took the end of the shed off.

 

[Cabinetman]

As well as milk delivered by United Dairy in an orange horse drawn float in Wanstead, then in Essex, we also had a regular Knife Grinder with his grinding wheel as part of the bike and regular French Onion Johnnies with strings of onions on the handlebars and at the side.

Could go on about 4 sweets to an old 1s etc and the big freeze of 62/63. What are people complaining about now. My father was a doctor and had snow chains so went out in any conditions!

Phil

If you remember the big freeze of 62 to 3 I think you mean four sweets to an old penny. d for dinarius children and there were 240 of them in. £1
Blackjacks and fruit salads, and don’t get me started on those sherbetty things that looked like flying saucers.

 

[Doug B]

When I were a lad we only had 2 channels BBC and ITV. Some people only had televisions that received BBC.

BBC 2 started in 64 so was on air for my earliest memories

 

[Phil Pascoe]

On the stations there were machines dispensing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paynes_Poppets
We used to open the drawer about half an inch, which it would do with no resistance, and pick the cardboard box open with the leg of a compass. A couple of knocks on the side of the machine and a sweet would roll out ... and again and again until the box was empty. When the next customer put money in they got an empty box and went to the buffet or cafe to get a refund. Before they got back we'd done the next box.

 

[Sandyn]

I lived out in the country in a great community. The post was delivered by Land Rover, at New Year, the posty would have a wee dram at every house. He would get so drunk he could hardly walk, but he still delivered every letter. Someone near the end of his round would give the local bobby a call and he would make sure the posty got home safely.

 

[Cabinetman]

Our chemistry teacher who wasn’t right bright (mixed the acid and the water the wrong way) proceeded to teach us all about how to make gunpowder, and he wasn’t very careful about locking the door to the chemicals either, a friend of mine was cycling home when his stash went off in his trouser pocket, very nasty burn, and another bit that was left on the wooden shelf in the classroom ignited overnight and almost burnt right through and didn’t quite set light to the shelf above or else it would’ve been bye-bye school. An Irish boy in my class was telling us how to mix fertiliser and sugar, luckily when I mixed a 2lb bag of sugar with (the only thing I could find which was) moss killer nothing happened, it could have been curtains for Ian

 

[Terrytpot]

... Before they got back we'd done the next box.

In my teens an acquaintance of mine discovered that a stack of 10p coins , each separated by a half pence piece, and then wrapped around their circumference with insulating tape (seven times) and then trimmed apart with a razor blade , left 10 pence coins with a diameter large enough to confuse the coin mechanism in the locals smallest room into thinking it had been fed with a 50 pence piece..one got wedged and in total hysterics we emptied the Durex machine. Maybe the beer fumes contributed to the hilarity but it was funny at the time.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I remember running cross countrys in the winter. Three miles starting with half a mile down Shhhitt Hill from the farm to the river, where we ran up to our knees in frozen mud and cow dung - the dung pile was at the top of the hill, hence the name. When we got back our hands were white, our feet numb and our thighs looked like purple butterflies' wings. All this only for a games master who loathed me to tell me to run it again as he didn't believe I'd done it. They'd be in court for it now.

 

[artie]

Did anyone else make their own carbide banger from a dried milk tin with a small hole in the bottom a few drops of water, a piece of carbide and a match?

 

[threedee]

Oh my god the carbide stories i could tell One eye, 5 fingers between 3 guys, windowless greenhouse, ton of broken bottle glass flying, accidental rocket (small metal co2 bottle, carbide+water and a cork)... woof. We lived near a biiiiig building site, which was our primary playground... Also, nail gun ammo...yes ammo... blanks used to drive nails into concrete. Got them by the box. Put them on nearby train track for giggles.

On other explosive news, we found a 100kg bomb half embedded in the tree since ww2 in a nearby forest, enough brains not to touch it, but same day it went boom by bomb people, some windows in the town went We were occasionally finding ww2 boom stuff throughout the forest over the years. Mostly tank shells, spent casings, german/russian military bits and bobs. Forest was never "forbidden" to enter, still no barriers/fences, i should go metal detecting there some time, when i get tired of living

Aluminium powder from 2 component paint sets + some permanganate = diy thermite ?

Making our own knives for carving stuff, functional bows and rudimentary arbalests...

Yep, my childhood... We were bored... But no one died, or on drugs, no one in prison, no fights (well, fights, but had to be a good reason to have one).

Reading stories here is like looking at a different world though, i didnt grow up in UK. This thread is like a documentary to me (i like a good documentary).

 

[TRITON]

"Sir given enough incentive you would be able to dig that 6 foot slit trench through 4 foot of concrete wiv your navel!".

A mates army trainer told them. " We dont have to train people to get low to the ground when being shot at. In fact you would cut the buttons off your shirt if you thought it allowed you to get closer to the ground"

 

[Jester129]

BBC2 in colour - going 'round next doors to watch the High Chapperal in colour. Big John, Blue Boy and Manolito! What was the name of Big Johns brother?
Finding a ten bob note and spending it all on bangers!
Sherbet Dip - it used to turn your fingers orange.