Off Topic I Remember When

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Down Hendon Beach because it was eleven degrees. Get in that watta.

In the summer, we usually had some Sundays when we would meet up with my mam's family at either Crimdon or where Durham Cricket ground is now. A donkey stood on my bare foot outside the cafe at Crimdon once - bloody knacked and it wouldn't move!
 
From about 8, I grew up in the countryside so we did things like getting into people's hay barns and rearranging the old square bales to make tunnels and chambers and stuff and then hanging about in them. We'd go off across the fells and poke around in the tunnels and openings of some of the old lead mines, swim in the little reservoirs up there, wander round in the abandoned, falling down farmhouses. Surprised we survived.
 
Now that I'm in my 50s, looking back, the things I miss the most now is waking up on a Sunday morning with my mam and dad listening to the likes of Dean Martin and all the old crooner types on Radio 2. With the chicken in the oven cooking and my mam peeling the veg and my dad doing the yorkshire pudding mix cos he got them to rise better! And not forgetting the homemade rice pudding for afters.

And after the bad weather some of the country had this week, sledging down Horden bank opposite the church. There were that many kids there you had to get out of the way at the bottom before you got run over! And afterwards the whole green was like a sheet of ice
Done the same in Easington. Home made sledges bombing down Tower Street. Normally stopped by hitting the pit wall<laugh>. Great times.
 
From about 8, I grew up in the countryside so we did things like getting into people's hay barns and rearranging the old square bales to make tunnels and chambers and stuff and then hanging about in them. We'd go off across the fells and poke around in the tunnels and openings of some of the old lead mines, swim in the little reservoirs up there, wander round in the abandoned, falling down farmhouses. Surprised we survived.
Reminded me of some caves not far from us and we would happily go in there exploring. Too innocent to be scared I suppose.
 
Used to buy these
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Bought loads of them, tho can only remember 2 or 3 from those above.
'Wacky Packages' although I admit, couldnt remember that either.
Must have been the early 70s, just me?

Ps should probs have said, they're stickers, want to say they were in a packet with bubble gum but pos getting mixed up with bazooka there.
 
Summer holidays. Breakfast then out I would go. Meet with friends and whatever the day would bring was just fine. Anything from swimming in the river, to fishing, to walking the fells, to bike rides. Home for tea, no bother from mam about where I was, then out again for 20 a side on the rec till it was too dark. Home, supper, bed. Daylight and repeat. No worries in the world.
And you would put the same clothes on from the day before and didn't dream about brushing your hair before you went out, I loved the fact no one really cared what you looked like or what you wore, you were just out with your mates without the material things that the kids nowadays judge each other by
 
And you would put the same clothes on from the day before and didn't dream about brushing your hair before you went out, I loved the fact no one really cared what you looked like or what you wore, you were just out with your mates without the material things that the kids nowadays judge each other by
100% mate. I had my Sunday gear, school gear, and then a jumble sale on a shelf in my cupboard as a kid. I even remember grass stains and ripping the knee out but not worrying because mam would just patch them or let you were green stained jeans and nobody cared.
 
I remember using empty squeazy bottles "washing up liquid" for water fights.
Playing tin can alley, tallyho and getting canny excited when the ice cream van came...my fave was a 10p special which was an ice cream in a cone with an iced lolly stuck into it. Might have been a Washington thing lol.
10p mix ups and collecting "soccer stars" in the sticker album. They were 5p a pack.

I remember something very similar in Washington although in the 80s I recall it being a 50p special. Pretty certain there was a plastic cone with ice cream and a bubble gum at the bottom with an ice lolly and more ice cream on top. Would be about a tenner now.
 
I remember something very similar in Washington although in the 80s I recall it being a 50p special. Pretty certain there was a plastic cone with ice cream and a bubble gum at the bottom with an ice lolly and more ice cream on top. Would be about a tenner now.

Sounds like what we called a screwball mate.
I'm talking about mid to late 70s like...maybe into 80/81...