the simple pleasures of life that we have lost

thecolourbox

Sassafras said:

I miss the days when people used to speak to each other rather than having faces glued to a smartphone or tablet.

I'm just about old enough to remember life before phones were a thing, and I don't remember people being very talkative to be honest, other than the usual nosey parkers who only talked to get the goss or to tell you about their wonderful new stone horse sculpture in the garden.

And, to be honest, knowing the people on my train in a morning, I'm rather glad they focus on phone screens rather than trying to talk to me

SimonC

Clackers - absolutely bloody lethal.

jonnyburgo

Making dens, we were the fucking masters of the concealed den, would spend hours digging into the side of a railway enbankment, and making a roof of fern so that nobody knew even if they walked right past. We even used to sleep out in them using the old "sleeping at mates" routine.

We had miles of unused railway lines with dead electric cables running alongside, they were stripped, put in a shopping trolley and weighed in. Just made meself sound a right Clampet haven't I?

Oh, and in the days of 3 TV channels, America seemed impossibly exotic, so would love CHiPS, The Red Hand Gang and Starskey and Hutch, Rockford files etc.

And you had to wait like 3 years for a movie to come on TV, The first airing of JAWS was almost the event of the 70's at Primary School. Created a massive buzz. Now its all there in an instant, makes it all the more disposable because we can gorge on the stuff, no mystery or anticipation anymore.

guitars4you

TonyR said:

Spangles!

forgot about those - Was it them, or something similar that had a coca cola or fizzy cola taste

guitars4you

Japs n commandos in the wood - Finding 'machine gun posts'

Have we done conkers

Hop scotch - only needed a stone or chalk to make the 'pitch'

French cricket on the park with a few mates

Those early attempts at a 'fumble' round the back of the bike shed/bus shelter/alley way or indeed her parents house (hoping you did not caught)

WiresDreamDisasters

guitars4you said:

Japs n commandos in the wood - Finding 'machine gun posts'

Alright Danny Baker, chill out!

TonyR

guitars4you said:

TonyR said:

Spangles!

forgot about those - Was it them, or something similar that had a coca cola or fizzy cola taste

Not that I remember - they were either bright coloured, fruit flavoured or my favourite, the black ones, which were liquorice flavoured!

Are you perhaps thinking of “cola cubes”?

Jimbro66

• Football in the street on home-made stilts.
• Tip-it-and-run cricket.
• 'titting up' girl guides (with their encouragement).
• Buying a 2p fag from the dodgy newsagent.
• Spam fritters at the chippy.
• Home-made scooters with wheels made from ball bearing races. Those were LOUD.
• The wonder of colour TV.
• Bubble gum.
• Youth club bands.
• Scrumping.
• Saturday morning pictures.

BeardyAndy

octatonic said:

Sherbert.
Paper airplanes.
Finding pornography in the woods.

Never a fan of sherbert or paper airplanes!

RandallFlagg

Burning ants in summer with a magnifying glass.

Making "rockets" from Swan Vestas matches with tin foil wrapped around the head, pushing them into the grass at an angle and then lighting them on the wood below the head and wait for them to launch.

Waxing the really tall slide at the playing field with my mates Mum's waxed paper bread wrappers that she used to save for us, a good Saturday's morning waxing and you would fly down it and launch off the end like a human missile! They don't make slides like that these days, how one us never fell from the top is a miracle really.

munckee

Jimbro66 said:

• Football in the street on home-made stilts.
• Tip-it-and-run cricket.
• 'titting up' girl guides (with their encouragement).
• Buying a 2p fag from the dodgy newsagent.
• Spam fritters at the chippy.
• Home-made scooters with wheels made from ball bearing races. Those were LOUD.
• The wonder of colour TV.
• Bubble gum.
• Youth club bands.
• Scrumping.
• Saturday morning pictures.

I crashed through the asbestos roof of a garage while scrumping apples from a tree and landed on the concrete floor below.  I landed on my hip and couldn't walk for days.  My mates carried me down the road and ran to get my parents and we said I fell off a small 3 foot wall I was sitting on.

Doctor's were stumped as to why I couldn't walk after such a minor fall!

MagicPigDetective

I used to have a lot of fun with snails. I kept a snail farm, where they would lay and hatch eggs.

But, I also used to cruelly line up snails across the road in front of my house. It was a quiet single lane. So the game would be to see which snails made it to safety, and which would get flattened! 

Playing swingball and french cricket in the garden with cousins whilst having a barbeque in the sun. Happy memories. 

Mark1960

Spangles!

The pop wagon

Croggies (two on a bike)

Riding on the back / being towed on your bike, by the electric milk float

Making a sledge, and sledging down a road with a hill

Snogging on the park bench

Action man

Pop guns

Pea guns

Balsawood planes

Flying a kite

Comics

Jam sandwiches

Faggots (before it meant something else - PC brigade)

White dog shit

I could go on..............

bodhi

Spinning top battles.

Like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKZxvDNw0r4

guitars4you

TonyR said:

guitars4you said:

TonyR said:

Spangles!

forgot about those - Was it them, or something similar that had a coca cola or fizzy cola taste

Not that I remember - they were either bright coloured, fruit flavoured or my favourite, the black ones, which were liquorice flavoured!

Are you perhaps thinking of “cola cubes”?

can't remember - I know I didn't like them

Dave_Vader

RandallFlagg said:

Waxing the really tall slide at the playing field with my mates Mum's waxed paper bread wrappers that she used to save for us, a good Saturday's morning waxing and you would fly down it and launch off the end like a human missile! They don't make slides like that these days, how one us never fell from the top is a miracle really.

Ginger Pete fell off the one in Victoria Park, Bideford in the early 90s.

They took it away and they've been disappearing ever since.

North Devon is the place for people injuring themselves in playgrounds, Lynton saw off the witch's hat forever after that kid died on one.

I still blame Ginger Pete for the massive slides though.

guitars4you

Summer annuals or special holiday versions of your favourite comic - Roy of The Rovers - Tiger n Jag

Not getting told of for diving in the swimming baths

Going back even further in time - 'watch with mother'

When still a youngster at school - Watching the 6th form girls netball or hockey matches

Just before 5 or 6 o'clock news on BBC - can't recall which time it was now - But always had a 5/10 min cartoon slot - Tom n Jerry or Top Cat were my favourites

Philly_Q

TonyR said:

guitars4you said:

TonyR said:

Spangles!

forgot about those - Was it them, or something similar that had a coca cola or fizzy cola taste

Not that I remember - they were either bright coloured, fruit flavoured or my favourite, the black ones, which were liquorice flavoured!

I think the black ones were one of the "Old English" Spangles flavours.  They were all dreary colours, black and sort of olive green and one which looked like mustard.  Can't remember what they tasted like but I know I preferred the fruit flavoured ones.

midlifecrisis

i was 7 o 8 when the first boy we knew to get a colour television. everyone else still had black and white. we use to pile round there on mass on sunday afternoon to watch HR Puff n stuff and a coujple of other programmes that were marked in the radio times as  being in colour.most programmes were still in black and white

Shrews

Just remember always being out as a kid, usually playing football or out on our bikes somewhere.  Fit as a butchers dog back in those days and thin as a rake!

 - Tiswas vs Swap Shop on Saturday mornings
 - Merrie Melodies cartoons
- Dogs roaming the streets and playing fields in packs
 - Nicking Mum's fags and sitting around a fire on a field somewhere having a sneaky smoke
 - Sitting on swings and thinking it great to wrap the thing around the frame to piss the smaller kids off
- Boxing in front gardens
- Athletics races around the block
- Out on our bikes, with very little traffic compared to nowadays. Hardly ever see kids now out on bikes like we used to.
- In mid-teens - finding the delights of Carling Special Brew and an off-licence happy to serve under age drinkers
- Renting video's and looking forward to new releases
- At Christmas looking forward to the premiere of a 'big film' on Christmas Day
- Milk in infant school
- Catalogues - always good for wank bank material if unable to find aforementioned porn material in the woods - lingerie section, showers and solaria sections always good for a bit of nudity!

It's fair to say that kids have so much more than what we did as kids and things are so much safer and more organised.  They live in a more sanitised 'cotton wool' world (not saying that's necessarily a bad thing)