Simple pleasures....

[vampire]

I had a bow and when I was about 13 I went in the fields and decided to see how far a metal ended arrow would go so I shot it straight up in the air. About ten seconds later it embedded in the ground two foot away. I never did that test again.

Lucky you made it to 14

[nobbyathome]

Esso world cup coins eh ha ha another little trick I did when I was a scamp me and my brother had a paper Round on a Saturday night selling the evening standard and the evening news in St Mary Cray we used to meet our Man with the papers on the green and pay for them and whatever we sold we got a profit from usually spent with ten of us in a public phonebox listening to dial a disk normally rod starts Maggie may ha ha anyway I digress one Saturday we had spent all the money and didn't have enough to pay Arthur for the papers so I had the great idea of giving him the esso coins and fobbing them off as cash and it worked it was a bit dark when we met him and the few bob and the esso coins was exchanged for my papers and we got away with it but next week he was raging I don't know what one of you little monkeys have scammed me but I ain't gonna let you get away with it monkeys was not his actual words but I don't want to get in trouble with the swear filter he must have told this to about 50 boys in the orpington and Bromley area coz he had a big round happy days eh

[Fisheruk]

Aah, things going off with a bang - we had better not get into the delights of weedkiller.

That and a Jetex fuse

I had a bow and when I was about 13 I went in the fields and decided to see how far a metal ended arrow would go so I shot it straight up in the air. About ten seconds later it embedded in the ground two foot away. I never did that test again.

Think some idiot tried that trick at Lords last week

[hawkfanz]

just read this post all thro,and you no guys we were total nuts,no health n safety about but what fun,,,bonfire night time we made banger guns,piece of pipe with end hammered flat n nailed onto wood for a rifle stock,we lit 3d cannon banger dropped in like a mortor bomb quickly followed by a marble,got they were potent,but no one ever got killed.

[TriBsa]

Bangers seemed rather tame, if you could get hold of the Crow Scarers that came on a rope.

Edited September 6, 2017 by TriBsa

[hawkfanz]

ah tribsa 3d cannons were far better the normal bangers were only 1d back in 1960.

[roadkill]

i still have a lovely pair of Diana Gat guns with the nice wooded handles, shame i don't know how to upload pics as they really are stunning

[general grievous]

Just on bikes...

 

Every kid in north Hull had 2 bikes, their 'best' bike that they usually got for Christmas and which only came out for showing off and a 'bomb' bike which was made from bits of other bikes that were nicked. Mine had cow horns, fork extensions, a fairy cycle wheel on the back and a racer wheel on the front with a 5foot aerial on the back of the seat.

Down our tenfoot the best bikes were as follows:

 

Mark 1 choppers with the screw on gear knob that you had to unscrew every time you went to the shops or it got nicked.

 

10 speed Raleigh banana racers with 1/2 inch wide tyres

 

Grifters - A kid at my school wheelied his one handed around the outside of the playground whilst he was in blue gear. (Anyone who had a Grifter will know how hard that was.

 

After that we graduated onto stripped Honda CUB then as soon as you were 16 try to get a job and save up for an AP50 just to annoy the fissie boys.

 

GG

[vampire]

Just on bikes...

 

Every kid in north Hull had 2 bikes, their 'best' bike that they usually got for Christmas and which only came out for showing off and a 'bomb' bike which was made from bits of other bikes that were nicked. Mine had cow horns, fork extensions, a fairy cycle wheel on the back and a racer wheel on the front with a 5foot aerial on the back of the seat.

Down our tenfoot the best bikes were as follows:

 

Mark 1 choppers with the screw on gear knob that you had to unscrew every time you went to the shops or it got nicked.

 

10 speed Raleigh banana racers with 1/2 inch wide tyres

 

Grifters - A kid at my school wheelied his one handed around the outside of the playground whilst he was in blue gear. (Anyone who had a Grifter will know how hard that was.

 

After that we graduated onto stripped Honda CUB then as soon as you were 16 try to get a job and save up for an AP50 just to annoy the fissie boys.

 

GG

All this except the bikes we made were stripped,painted black,26" nobbly tyres,straightened out cow horn handle bars and straightened forks and a metal disc in back wheel

And yes you ap50 boys were annoying to us fs1e boys.

[ips]

Just on bikes...

 

Every kid in north Hull had 2 bikes, their 'best' bike that they usually got for Christmas and which only came out for showing off and a 'bomb' bike which was made from bits of other bikes that were nicked. Mine had cow horns, fork extensions, a fairy cycle wheel on the back and a racer wheel on the front with a 5foot aerial on the back of the seat.

Down our tenfoot the best bikes were as follows:

 

Mark 1 choppers with the screw on gear knob that you had to unscrew every time you went to the shops or it got nicked.

 

10 speed Raleigh banana racers with 1/2 inch wide tyres

 

Grifters - A kid at my school wheelied his one handed around the outside of the playground whilst he was in blue gear. (Anyone who had a Grifter will know how hard that was.

 

After that we graduated onto stripped Honda CUB then as soon as you were 16 try to get a job and save up for an AP50 just to annoy the fissie boys.

 

GG

That all sounds remarkably familiar 👍

[Old Boggy]

Anyone remember what this box contained ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

OB

[JohnfromUK]

Anyone remember what this box contained ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

OB

Crystal set (early radio receiver)

[Old Boggy]

Spot on John, well done.

 

 

 

 

 

Sadly the original contents are long gone but I do remember using it. Now used to house some gun cleaning stuff.

OB

[JohnfromUK]

I see you also have one of the 'vicious Turks heads' in your cleaning kit.

[Old Boggy]

There was a clue in the first picture as you can just see next door neighbour`s black cat (Crystal sets also known as cat`s whisker) who often keeps me company when pottering in my shed.

 

OB

[Old Boggy]

I see you also have one of the 'vicious Turks heads' in your cleaning kit.

Never used it, just there as a `gift` amongst other old stuff from an old friend who gave up shooting. Prefer a much kinder approach to cleaning barrels and as you say they can be quite nasty on the bores.

 

OB

[Old Boggy]

 

 

amo amas amat...."salvea oh magastri"...."salvea oh pueri"...............................somewhere i have a tin of "jacks"..........remember them ?

Tu, Te, Tui, Tibi ,Te or words to that effect.

 

All this talk of `Owzat`, Gyroscopes etc takes me back as I think that I`ve still got them somewhere although never had the Owzat tin.

 

This Latin stuff also reminds me of an incident at our school where our wretched Latin teacher would rap any miscreant over the knuckles with the edge of his ruler and it didn`t half hurt. He was clearly a sadist, who seemed to pick mainly on one of our classmates without too much excuse.

One day, he performed his ritual torture on this guys knuckles just once too often.This time, he`d had enough. He grabbed the ruler out of the teachers grasp with one hand and smacked him a massive blow to his head with his fist, rendering him unconscious for a few minutes.

I`m not sure whether it was the noise of the guy falling to the floor or all us lot applauding him, but soon the class was full of teachers and the headmaster.

He obviously got immediately expelled and we all got a detention for our response, but it was well worth it. That put an end to that particular teacher`s form of punishment, but others still used their own methods, i.e. chalk rubber (wooden type), bunsen burner tubing, slipper and of course six strokes from the headmaster.

 

In contrast to the Latin teacher, we had an art teacher who was a keen wildfowler who often used to bring in a mallard drake, cock teal or wigeon that he`d shot, mainly the male of the species for better colouring etc. for us to draw or paint as still life. He was our form teacher at the time when our form building, a wooden structure separated from the main school, mysteriously burnt down one weekend. Although arson was not suspected, it did make us wonder if our habit of trying to land a rubber on the coke stove in the corner of the room to cause an almighty stink had anything to do with it, but apparently not.

Anyway, we were asked to write down for insurance purposes all the personal possessions we had in our desks. I correctly and honestly wrote down two of the `Shooting Times` series of shooting books, `Ground Game & `Shooting Pigeons`. The art teacher seeing my list said "Didn`t you have `Shouldergunning for Duck`?. "No sir" I said. "Well you blinking well should have, it`s a good book and I know Arthur Cadman the author well, put it on your list, boy".

Obviously, who was I too disobey a senior, so I put it on the list. I still have that and the others to this day.

 

Another little anecdote of my schooldays was that I used to receive 3 bob (15p) for a rabbit from the biology teacher for use in dissection and 3/6p if it had tapeworm as it was more interesting for the class. These rabbits were shot with my trusty folding Belgian .410, which is still in my cabinet after nearly sixty years.

 

I just cannot see any of the above happening nowadays.

 

OB