Marbles all the way to and from school and sitting at the window in the front bedroom at night with my catapult, (slingshot) trying to put out the street light.
Used to be referred to by neighbours as, "That little s..t next door".
If there were records kept for school canings I reckon I would have to be at the top, or close to it!
-- Edited by Magnarc on Monday 28th of August 2023 07:58:12 AM
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Those who wish to reap the blessings of freedom must, as men, endure the fatigue of defending it.
most of us had 22s, air rifles, or a bb gun, sling shots at the very least. makes you wonder how we got to be so old
Ah .17 air rifles playing war amongst the salt bush, shooting at one another, the along come the .22 air rifle which could fire darts steel projecties.
Building something really dodgy with 4 (sometime 3) wheels, limited steering and no brakes, taking it to the top of the nearest hill and see how far we could get before we crashed or it fell apart.
We all made some formof " Billy Cart " when i was a king. We had a big hill and a endless source of bearing for the wheels ( there were a few enging re manufactures in our area !!. Problem was little to no steering and brakes. Ball bearing wheels do not like to turn on ashbelt or conceat. Scared the **** out a few of us at the time, but we all lived through it and survived !!
I made one of those billy carts with 3 ball bearing wheels. The neighbours must have really enjoyed the noise of metal on ashphalt going on endlessly.
As for all surviving through I am not so sure. I recall one occasion visiting a group of friends in Paddington, a nearby suburb. The go there was billy carts made with 4 pram wheels. They went much faster. Whether it was bravado and showing off or just routine I don't know, but a race was organised. The goal was to get down the road to the bottom of the hill the fastest. The problem was it was done in the middle of the road and through intersections with no chance of stopping. No incidents or close calls that I recall but it would only be a matter of time.
When I was about 14 I had an air rifle .... a Gecado 25 (why do I remember these things from 6 decades ago?). There were two incidents. In the first one, I was with a friend at the beach. My friend decided it would be fun to fire a shot into the sand near my foot from the top of the beach stairs. Unfortunately my leg was in the way. I had to have the slug removed in hospital ... still have the scar. We invented a story about a group of older boys but the police turned up at the hospital. I'm sure they suspected something fishy about the story but we never heard any more.
In the second incident, I had a local girl visiting and we were doing a bit of target practice in the back yard. A friend was riding past on his bike. Inexplicably this girl called out "Hey Phil .." and shot him in the temple, thinking it was a joke. He was momentarily knocked out and landed on the road. I have no idea what went through her mind in that instant decision. Phil recovered fine with a little blood. But his parents called the police. That was the end of my rifle.
Like AWL and others billy carts were always getting pulled apart and remade. Pushbike with paper flappers, making skateboards from roller skates, cubby houses, remember battling tops where you'd wrap string around a top and had a small plastic arena to battle each other, certainly woke up everyone 3am xmas morning.
We had a long hill near us so we always tried to run our bikes as fast as we could down it. Once I got distracted and rather than go around the FJ parked at the roadside I hit the bumper and before flying onto the roof the yoke on the centre handlebars hit my bread basket... lesson learned as to a boys priorities. But unlike AWL I was never shot lol
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Be nice... if I wanted my school teacher here I would have invited him...
Remember riding our push bikes out to the local tip, to find good stuff to build billy carts or trailers for our bikes, always had fun scrounging at the tip.
Yesss! Especially when played with a few young ladies and lots of beer! Cheers.
Completely forgot Spin The Bottle, don't know why, as we still get on. The best were with some cousins with a "trusting" relationship, better leave it at that, nice memories!
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Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!
50L custom fuel rack 6x20W 100/20mppt 4x26Ah gel 28L super insulated fridge TPMS 3 ARB compressors heatsink fan cooled 4L tank aftercooler Air/water OCD cleaning 4 stage car acoustic insulation.
I remember playing Australian jacks (nucklebones) through primary school. I was a master at it and could get through the whole set of actions, such as ones, twos, threes, fours, scatters, dumps, clicks, no clicks, juggles, etc., without losing a turn. I'm still pretty good at them now!
A push bike with no gears, back peddling for breaks and no helmet
French cricket in the street.
Elastics in the playground
Go home when it was dark or if needed sooner mum would go looking for our rubber boots lined up outside of whoever's house we ended up at (was a pommy kid).
As Apprentices/Trainees we were issued with a tool kit that included a pocket knife.
One of the favourite games was to spread your left hand out on the table and have races stabbing the pocket knife blade between the fingers. Try it with a pencil to see how you go. Resulted in lots of bandaged fingers!
Another game was to throw the blade screwdriver handle first onto a concrete floor & catch it as it bounced up in the air. The object was to see how high it would bounce. Screwdriver blades through the hand was not uncommon.
To pass time on the long train journey to work we would play 'knuckles'. To play, the contestants would place their clenched fists together with knuckles uppermost & touching. We would then take it in turns to wack the other person's top knuckles with your lower knuckles. Your turn would end when you missed. The receiving person could withdraw or move their hand as much as they wished but had to come back to the touching position until the attacker actually made a strike. Sometimes your knuckles got so sore & red that you had to change hands & they stayed red & blue for days.
When we got sick of these games, we would wait till the train stopped at a station and then all jump out of our compartment and race in one direction or the other amongst the exiting & entering passengers and jump into another compartment before the train took off. The object was of course to see who got furthest along the train. It was not uncommon for the guard to stop the train and eject any of the offenders that they could identify.
We got back at the guards/Inspectors who waited in number at our terminal station to check for valid tickets. Very few of us could actually afford valid tickets (but some of us did have forged week numbers on old tickets). When we saw the Inspectors, we would all split up and run in different directions. Those with valid tickets would run a little slower and finally get caught. They would make a great pretence of looking for their tickets holding up the Inspectors until all of the ticketless had disappeared into the distance.
Of course, most these shenanigans ceased when we suddenly discovered Girls & our attentions were diverted forever, particularly on the way home where sometimes 1st class divided (sleeper) carriages were hooked up on the train. edit.. We were all rather innocent in those days & it never went past kissing or perhaps tongue kissing at most. At the end of almost an hour of frenzied activity the lips actually got a bit sore.
-- Edited by Cupie on Sunday 3rd of September 2023 10:45:32 PM
