Childhood Summer/Autumn Antics

[SPUGGIE J]

After reading the thread on bridges and what people got up to I started to think what we actually got up to. Part of it lies with Katex and her rhubarb exploits and my shame at swimming in the canal. Though to be fare we did also swim in what we called the Conjour up in the wooded area on the right hand side as you enter Hapton from the Huncoat side. That and raiding a certain families apple trees with glee and apprehension at getting caught.

So what did everyone else get up to as a kid at these times of the year?

[lancsdave]

Originally Posted by SPUGGIE J

After reading the thread on bridges and what people got up to I started to think what we actually got up to. Part of it lies with Katex and her rhubarb exploits and my shame at swimming in the canal. Though to be fare we did also swim in what we called the Conjour up in the wooded area on the right hand side as you enter Hapton from the Huncoat side. That and raiding a certain families apple trees with glee and apprehension at getting caught.

So what did everyone else get up to as a kid at these times of the year?

On the few occasions I was allowed to play out the best fun was ripping cardboard boxes to bits and using them as grass sledges

Then I found out about girls

[garinda]

We used to build houses on the moors, out of fallen dry stone walls, with a turf roof. They were about twelve feet in diameter, and five feet high.
Thinking back, they were better built than any Anglo-Saxon roundhouse.

Every summer hols we always had a jumble sale to raise money for White Ash school. Kids don't seem to have street jumble sales anymore. Either they are not that entrepreneurial, or they are busy selling off the family silver on eBay.

[MargaretR]

This thread inspired me to find this
Streetplay.com: The Games
-hope other old codgers enjoy it too

[Margaret Pilkington]

Oh my goodness.....how long have you got?
We used to slide down the hill on the grass, but we used heavy duty plastic sacs from the farm......we built rope swings in Priestley clough...these rope swings would go over the deepest part of the gorge which had a little brook running through it....sometimes falling off meant getting wet.
We used to collect old furniture and lino and build dens........we would raid one anothers den and take the best bits of furniture/carpet for our own domicile...and this caused many (not so good natured) fights...cut lips and black eyes.
We swam in the Water tower that used to be in Priestley clough......Ma once found us creeping back in the house with wet swimming things and we all got a hiding and a warning not to do it again....do you think we listened .......NO, erm, actually that isn't strictly true.....I didn't do it again, but my brothers did......I told on them and got the slug punishment! (they held me down and shoved slugs down my vest....uuuurgh, nasty).
Oh I could write a book.
We did the street jumble sales too....we told folk that the money was going to some local worthy cause....but in truth it paid our busfare to Whalley and paid for cakes, pop and biscuits...which we ate on the banks of the river (Calder...not the Ribble).

[West Ender]

Having had a childhood in the 40s and early 50s I, and my contemporaries, had something children today don't have - freedom to roam. In the Summer, from about age 8 onwards, my mother saw little of me from breakfast to bedtime. With nothing but fields behind our house, and a farm half a mile away where all the local kids congregated to play with the farmer's children, we spent most of our time outdoors.

There were trees to climb, streams to jump over, meadows to play in, a farmyard as an adventure playground. I remember a rope swing from a tree over a steep bank down to the stream, climbing up the outside of a stone barn to get into the hayloft, piling up hay on the barn floor and diving 10 feet into it, searching for lost golf balls near the stream at the edge of the golf course - some golfers would buy them off you for 6d a time - making dens out of brushwood, going for long walks to Rishton on the canal bank or up on the moors above Stanhill. I always had my Cocker Spaniel, Wendy, with me - that dog even went up trees (shoved and carried) - and would roam for miles with her.

There was a small tunnel under the canal, built to let the stream flow through. It was wet and slimy and populated by water rats and we called it the Roman Tunnel. I was very young, not more than 6, when my friends and I used to walk through it bent almost double, though it was forbidden by our parents. That was until the day we got to the other end and found my dad and his very large policeman friend waiting for us and looking like thunder. I remember he didn't say a word, just waited 'til I put my shoes and socks on and followed him home, in dead silence. None of us got told off, exactly, but we never did it again.

We had a very long back garden and we always kept hens at the back end. At one time we had geese and pigs too, though I was heartbroken when the pigs had to "go". I still have a soft spot for pigs, but it doesn't stop me eating bacon. The empty pig sties, brick built by my dad (who was an optician + a "should 'a' been" farmer/builder), made a terrific play-place/den/"club" house. I got into gardening by "helping" my dad, who was a keen grower (especially of tomatoes) and grew my first crop of potatoes when I pinched some of my mother's from the kitchen and planted them in a spare bed.

In early teenage years there was swimming at Kemp Delph or in the lodge at Stanhill Mill, tennis at Rhyddings park and playing rounders and cricket for the Girl Guides. I wish I had a quarter of the energy now that I had then.

I think I was so lucky to grow up when I did and where I did. I was never, ever bored and could always find something to do.

[ANNE]

There is a thread similar to this in the archives the nostalgia section. We used to play ball games like Pounds, shillings and Pence. Kit Can. Queenio Cokeio.
Then there were Elastics, Stretch, Hop Scotch.
We would play with two balls on the wall, while uttering rhymes like this one.
Mathew, Mark, Luke and John, next door neighbour follow on.
Or Neberkanezer the king of the Jews bought his wife a pair of shoes, when the shoes began to wear, Neburconezzer began to swear.
When the swearing began to stop, Neburconezzer bought a shop. When the shop began to sell Nebuconezzer bought a bell. When the bell began to ring Nebuconezzer began to sing.
Clapping games.
Taking picnics of jam bread and pop to Bluebell wood ( In Preston )
Playing on the Park for hours on end.
Those were the Lazy hazy days of Summer.

[Margaret Pilkington]

and didn't we have fun?
Late summer and early autumn we would feast on blackberries...we always thought that we would bring the berries home to make a lovely pie......they never made the pie...they came home in our bellies.....our faces and fingers would be stained purple.
I once went up Sandy Lane and 'scrumped'some apples off a tree in a garden there......we ate those too, despite them being as 'sour as an old maids kiss'.......we paid though, gosh did we pay? Bellyache like you wouldn't believe....and the squitters too......and us with only an outside lavvy and newspaper on a nail behind the door. It was a long time before I ate green apples again.

[Margaret Pilkington]

I would not swap my childhood with all its perceived hardships for a childhood of today.

[junetta]

My childhood world belonged in the streets around Holland Street and Nelson Square.......sometimes we ventured as far as Gatty or Milnshaw Park. There must have been around twenty of us kids playing hide and seek between Dale Street and Lonsdale Street!! No wonder we never got caught.

Another good one was to tie a washing line to the lampost with one of us 'turning up' at the end. The woman who lived near to it used to hate us and would scream blue murder at our chanting. We also played statues and hopscotch.

I remember my brother, who is four years younger than me, saying 'we'll never stop playing out will we, our kid?'. I gave him my promise and I've always felt a little guilty that I didn't keep it.

[Tombraider]

I spent my childhood summer with friends making go karts out of planks of wood and pram wheels. Pity no one ever remembered to add a brake

[cashman]

not a good idea to post mine i think!

[garinda]

Originally Posted by cashman

not a good idea to post mine i think!

There should be some sort of amnesty after fifty years, for what you got up too.

[cashman]

Originally Posted by garinda

There should be some sort of amnesty after fifty years, for what you got up too.

could well be, but wouldnt like to be a bad influence on a family forum.

[mez]

playing rounders on tanpits rd at the junction .broke a window of "the witches house" police came & mum had to pay 11shillings & 8 pence ...........they did well out of us there were 10 of us at the time. haha great fun though running & hiding on injun beds on tanpits was great not telling anyone what we got up to in long grass!!! when we reached our early teen years.