Daft stuff you did as kids

[ArthurBottlesworth]

Wondering what you got up to as a kid?

When we were about twelve.....

On fine sunny day We build dam across a stream, used bricks we found in bottom of stream and build beautiful curved damm about five feet across and four feet high, faced it with mud so it was 100% waterproof, based it on Aswan dam in egypt that had just been built

 

Though I say it myself it was beautiful

 

When we left the water had risen about a foot....went to school as usual next day

 

During the day there was a shower, but didn't think anything until.....

Came home from school and turned on tv, news from the north featured a flood ....fire engines pumping water, guys in dingys ferrying people across, A road closed....buses with water over their wheels .....the whole bloody works

 

Kept my trap shut till now......

 

It was a beautiful dam!

 

Wondering what you guys did

[easy-lift guy]

When I was 7 I attended a Memorial Day picnic with my family at a state park in Maryland.

Seems like the drive home was long and was instructed by my father to visit the outhouse before leaving for home. I had taken my PF Flyers and tied the shoe laces together and placed them next to the toilet seat. Just before I was ready to finish my paper work some one banged on the door and I accidentally brushed against my shoes and down they went!. All I could think of was if my dad finds out I will be doomed.

Fortunately this occurance was not that unusuall and if you can see imagine a pole say 10' long with a hook retrieving a pair of the only prized pair of shoes you had. Believe me I was never more thankful, relieved in my young life.

easy-lift guy

[Riggerbear]

One frosty morning I asked my dad if he wanted me to scrap the frost from the car windows before we went out for the day. He said yes so I went out and done so, once I finished the windows I thought I might as well do the whole car. Needless to say the paint work never quite looked the same again and my dad done the scraping from then on !

[difflock]

grew up!

[David Humphries]

When I was 7 I attended a Memorial Day picnic with my family at a state park in Maryland.

Seems like the drive home was long and was instructed by my father to visit the outhouse before leaving for home. I had taken my PF Flyers and tied the shoe laces together and placed them next to the toilet seat. Just before I was ready to finish my paper work some one banged on the door and I accidentally brushed against my shoes and down they went!. All I could think of was if my dad finds out I will be doomed.

Fortunately this occurance was not that unusuall and if you can see imagine a pole say 10' long with a hook retrieving a pair of the only prized pair of shoes you had. Believe me I was never more thankful, relieved in my young life.

easy-lift guy

 

Reminds me of a similar story Ted (though I wasn't involved personally)

After my dad had finished his 25 year career in the army he went and worked in security for the Royal Household. For a time he was Prince Charles's chauffeur.

Obviously he was privy to a lot of the goings on in the private lives of Charles and his young family.

Loads of interesting stories which I won't go into here, but one that sticks in my mind was where the young 5 year old future King of England (William) had a regular habit of trying to flush his Fathers extremely expensive hand stitched Italian brogues down the Royal Khazi. Of course no Royal hand could be seen to be fishing them out so that was one of my dads less glamorous tasks

 

 

.

[Billhook]

I cannot think what possessed my father to suggest one day that my school friend and I should make a couple of catapults. Our first attempts were hopeless with elastic bands, so he asked the farm mechanic to make a couple. This he did from Y shaped branches, (cannot remember the type of wood) some square industrial rubber band and a leather pouch for the stones. These were lethal!

For nine years old boys the sound of smashing. tinkling glass was just too much to resist.

I think we nailed a few rats around the yard as well.

I can only think that father must have done the same thing when he was a boy and had a lot of fun. Perhaps it has been handed down over the generations for hundreds of years!

Definitely banned by H & S wife now!

[Stubby]

grew up!

 

Still working on that one .....

[TimberCutterDartmoor]

Trying a smoke on paper-round aged 13 ish. Sitting on wall by garden belonging to one of 50 or so newpaper customers. Left cigarette end on wall and carried on posting papers. Fag end must have blown off wall into large pampas grass where I'd been sitting on wall. 30 minutes later when I'd finished my round, I could see all these cinders flying into the sky (now dark) and a small neighbours crowd had gathered as I approached the corner again; the whole thing was a gonner. Needed the correct pruning anyway

[kev7937]

I picked up an Adder when I was 10, whilst my father, brother and I were staying with friends in Epsom. Bite on forefinger ensued, followed by a trip to the local hospital. I thought that it was terribly amusing and good fun until I started projectile vomiting and blacked out.

 

Stayed in hospital overnight on observation, and the first my mum knew about it was when I called her in the morning.

 

The silver lining was that it was just before computers were widespread in schools, and given that my right hand was three times it's normal size and every colour under the rainbow, I got out of written school work for about 6 weeks!

 

Where did you find an adder in Epsom?

[wisecobandit]

I was brought up on a farm in the middle of nowhere so to speak.

The local village was several miles away etc so lived a bit of a billy no mates life out of school hours so from an early age of about 8 was stuck on a tractor and from about 11 given a 12 bore to go out and shoot. Best days of my life tho never felt it at the time, I wouldn't change it for the world.

Was still in the days of the local beat bobby and the amount of times he saw me driving tractors on the road towing a trailer load of 200 small bales or 8 ton of grain barely old enough to reach the pedals.... He would just stick his hand up!! He would regularly pop in the farm for his "hideaway" for a cuppa and slice of homemade cake, even if no one was in! Oh how time has changed.

As for the guns I found a hotspot once for rooks after silaging. They would come in landing on the phone line before pitching on the field. Was great fun shooting them off the line. That was until it rained a few days later and the villages phonelines started to play up and the fault was found to be lots of small holes in the lines insulation that let water in........kept my mouth shut on that one but father instantly knew and got a clip around the ear for should of known better