Did a lot of Bike Tricks, Skateboarding, all the obvious merry-go-rounds, swing jumps, slides that felt like almost ready cookie sheets, monkeybars, later surfing, volleyball etc., the list goes on.... obvious 70 - 80s stuff.

How was playing OUTSIDE for you? Or DID you? For...even you people who had horses (not hating - just envious)?

Even if it was Wesson Oil Twister with Florence Henderson while watching The Partridge Family?

My grandparents lived in Laguna Beach, Ca, so every
year we went down there from the Bay Area, and
started visiting Disneyland just after it opened.

Being a huge fan of the Mickey Mouse Club, we got
ONE Mickey Mouse Hat to cover us both, me being
the younger, my sister always got to wear that
hat during the Mickey Mouse Club on TV.

So my Mother, always one step ahead, got out her
black bra, made a few adjustments and voila!
a 2nd hat!

I was so happy I wore that silly thing til I wore
it out ;-)

Side note: I had my drivers license before I hit
the height chart to be able to DRIVE their
mini car ride!

Lost some of the thrill by then ;-)

We used to play a game called "kill the guy with the ball". The rules are hard to explain, but had to do with an old deflated football, a bunch of kids with way too much energy, no desire to play on a school team, and the brains of a gnat.

Yeah, I remember playing outside at a time it was safe to with friends or neighborhood children. My parents would take us to parks to play too. Children nowadays don’t realize how fun it can be to play outside versus being inside playing video games but luckily the park close by us here gets some good use.

LMAO!! "E Ticket Ride"
BTW it was Laguna Main volleyball courts and Salt Creek surfing. Worn some bras on my head imagining they were "Annette's. (TV was slow then...even in CA)

Mowtown. I am well versed in the big red rubber ball bouncing off of the side of my face. Your whole experience sounds a bit brutal,,,,,beyond BradyGate!

Much time spent outside as kids. Many bicycle rides, Playing frisbee. Playing with the cats and dogs. A couple of the neighbors let us use their pools. Wintertime snowball fights. Weeding the garden, which was actually fun. Lots more than that.

Hell yeah, we were always out, mum and dad both worked long hours, so we were either, at school, out playing or sleeping....

Football was the favourite game, but we often wandered the canals and where we lived was a little housing estate built around an industrial setup...

We ate mud, got grazes and cuts and explored EVERYTHING lol... Now-a-days kids are wrapped up in cotton wool lol...

Bikes, skateboards, not roller skates, and later in late teens motorbikes too...

Hey Jaan Doh, from reading your posts I think you lived in the village in 'The Park', next to the 'Big House' (from the days it was called British Westinghouse). I served my apprenticeship there in the 1960s when it had become GEC. A pal at work lived in Fourth Street I think it was. I think it's more or less all gone now, replaced by many new industries.

Back on post.
I remember when as kids we used to build the wood go-carts using old pram wheels, then ones we called Bolly trucks, where we used old Ball or roller bearings (we called them bolly wheels there were lots of small garages that would give old ones to you), then pushed on to the ends of wooden axles to use as wheels, these were great because they were very noisy over the footpaths, very low, and used to slide round corners when pushed along fast, not seen any of those since the 1950s, happy days.

I wonder, do they still have the "E" tickets for
the good rides? Any anyone know if the NEW
4 parks are just the old park divided into 4?

That seems smaltzie.

Hey Jaan Doh, I'm wondering if "Latch Key Kids" was a phenomenon in the UK as well? Perhaps the terminology different? (Perhaps a cultural norm on both sides of the pond after WWII?)??