Some of my recent posts have stirred up more old memories. They made me think about how we entertained ourselves as children in the 1950s and early 60s. Here are a few of things that I remember doing:
Courtesy: Google Images
My dad was a green grocer with a huge stack of fruit boxes. These could be constructed into the most wonderful cubby houses – in fact they became a cubby city with tunnels and streets. I remember doing a similar things in a haystack on a farm I visited regularly. Many Saturday and summer hours were whiled away here.
When I was 10 or 11 I constructed my first crystal set to pick 3GL the Geelong station. Construction was a regular pastime – model “Airfix” planes which I would hang from my bedroom ceiling, and later balsa and paper planes powered by tiny 2.5 cc motors and guided by control wires.
Walking the streets of our town was never an issue – even at night. People looked out for each other and their children. In fact, if I did do something naughty it would usually get back to my parents. We would take walks along the beach collecting cuttlefish and other “treasures” or tramp through the bush behind our town known as Cuthbertsons. If we were sick of walking there were always bike rides to neighbouring towns.
Courtesy: Google Images
On a couple of occasions we went to the local airstrip to look at the planes and on at least two occasions we went up for a gratis joy ride. I can’t imagine that happening today without eyebrows being raised – to say the least.
Camping at a friends farm, playing sports at the local football and tennis clubs, playing cricket and football on the unpaved street, “cowboys and Indians” in the scrub, marbles, swapping comics, playing with a chemistry set (do you remember Ron?)… are just a few more of the things that come to mind.
Finally, as we didn’t have a TV set until I was in my mid teens, I spent some time in the evening listening to the serials on the radio or crystal set. Biggles, Dad and Dave, No Holiday for Halliday are just a few I remember.
What do you remember doing as a child in the “olden days”?
Travels from Ur 
There were quite a few small lakes where we lived so in the summer we would fish and ride our bikes around them. During winter they would become courts for our little league icehockey. Also putting on original plays in the neighbours garage, exploring the large forest Timkesbos near our house which has sadly now become a highway running straight through our former living room. Great battles were fought with nothing but snowballs. Tele didnt start till 4.30 PM, when there would be the lone ranger and robin hood, also last of the mohicans. Cub scouts and choir practice followed by trips to the cinema for the latest elvis movie. Cuntry lane hikes filling up on blackberries and being babysitted by the gypsies in their quaint cravans in the fields nextdoor, that one wouldnt happen today.
They are great memories. Gypsies!! Yes, I forgot about the Boy Scouts. I was a Patrol Leader (or Petrol Leader as my mum used to call it). My first (and last) experience of smoking occurred here too.