In My Day

[Nightjar]

Memories! layful:
Homemade hill trollies, parts scavenged from the rubbish tip.
Penny bungas blowing up neighbours letter boxes.
Dares to see who could climb the highest in the Norfolk Pine trees.
Climbing the ships anchor chains (Sometimes down when ship tied up at wharf.)
Climbing around the roof timbers, wharf side wheat bins, catching pigeons. When we got bored with that, jumping into the wheat piles, sinking up to your chest and then struggle to try and climb out.
Best one of all.
Sand crabs dropped on Sheila's backs when they were sunbathing at the beach, face down with the bra strap undone. O :inlove:

How the hell did we survive, our mothers would have had heart attacks if they knew half of whet we did...
Aching bones now remind us of all these antics.

 

[user 4386]

Couple of mates & myself used trap & sell rabbits foe 2 bob a pair. My family had a beach shack at a popular crabbing beach and my younger brother & I used to collect beer bottles. Hard to remember now but I think we used to get 3d a dozen and would get 6-8 bob at the end of the summer school holidays. pack them into a wheat bag 3 one side & 2 the other, necks to the middle then 3 on top of the 2 & 2 on top of the 3 until bag was full. Did they hold 72 ? Bloody long time ago

And the ferrets we used - nippy little buggers. My dad had a box for one on the handlebars of his bike....

 

[user 4386]

.....

.....Penny Bungers and those big Sky Rockets,

They were good days.

Did you tape the penny bangers to the big Sky Rockets and break the looped penny banger fuse so that it was double the length then place the Sky Rocket in a coke bottle and light both fuses at once AND did you work out the right trajectory so that the exhausted sky rocket with the still lit banger lobbed into the neighbors backyard 6 blocks away and exploded in or near the chicken coop causing a helluva commotion

And the bolt bombs made with match heads. I made a giant and it landed on a tin house roof further down the street - a hell of a racket! One unhappy householder shot out the front door, later a wriggle through the grass into the storm drain so the cops would not see us.....

 

[Jaros]

I bet that we all learned from our exploits and made us feel guilty but satisfied with the results we had. Turned us all into MacGyver's. :bomb:

 

[Tathradj]

Bungers were too small.

We used Basket Bombs.

For those who do not know,

They were a cracker that had cane plaited over the out side and carried a really nice explosion.

Banned in about 1967. ]

They were lethal in Letter box's.

Main reason why they were stopped. :fire:

Put it this way, You did not stand near a nice hot bon fire because of what you had in your pocket. :bomb: :bomb:

.....

.....Penny Bungers and those big Sky Rockets,

They were good days.

Did you tape the penny bangers to the big Sky Rockets and break the looped penny banger fuse so that it was double the length then place the Sky Rocket in a coke bottle and light both fuses at once AND did you work out the right trajectory so that the exhausted sky rocket with the still lit banger lobbed into the neighbors backyard 6 blocks away and exploded in or near the chicken coop causing a helluva commotion

 

[Heatho]

.....

.....Penny Bungers and those big Sky Rockets,

They were good days.

Did you tape the penny bangers to the big Sky Rockets and break the looped penny banger fuse so that it was double the length then place the Sky Rocket in a coke bottle and light both fuses at once AND did you work out the right trajectory so that the exhausted sky rocket with the still lit banger lobbed into the neighbors backyard 6 blocks away and exploded in or near the chicken coop causing a helluva commotion

And the bolt bombs made with match heads. I made a giant and it landed on a tin house roof further down the street - a hell of a racket! One unhappy householder shot out the front door, later a wriggle through the grass into the storm drain so the cops would not see us.....

They are very dangerous GR, I took them one step further with the charge in them, not going to say how I made them and I never lost any body parts (luckily) though another kid I knew blew several fingers off trying to attemp making one the same way. Lucky the bolt didn't hit him in the head.

 

[Mackka]

Ah Cracker Night (Guy Fawkes) big bonfire made up of anything that would burn. Potatoes thrown onto the coals at the edge, wait till charcoaled, open them up, burn ya fingers, get the butter if ya had some and yummo.
Mackka

 

[Bjay]

Yep bolt bombs. Bloody dangerous. Only ever made one scared me enough to not attempt another. Got on the roof and dropped it on the concrete below only to have one of the bolts go flying past my noggin. Glad I learnt from that one.

 

[fwdoz]

They were lethal in Letter box's.

Main reason why they were stopped. :fire:

My neighbours copped a few in the letter boxes. And their morning milk.

O

 

[BigWave]

I remember most of what you guys have said - being born in 1955.
The milkman with his draught horse would let me help him every morning delivering glass bottles with Al caps. We were great friends, and was very sorry to see him and his horse replaced after many years of friendship.
I used to get 3p pocket money - largely spent on sweets or a ride at the local Anglesea fair.
There was a very old guy at Anglesea's Maid Marion's store at the bottom of Minifie St (named after my Grand Parents who were one of the first 4 families at Anglesea) who would sit outside on a bench every morning with his sulphur crested cockatoo on a rake head. We got to know it very well and it us, and was greatly saddened when he passed. Not sure what happened to the cocky.
Guy Falkes nights were a specialty, as there was an open block across the road from us which we used to build a massive bon fire and invite the whole neighborhood to a fireworks spectacular. We loved everything, from the burning Guy, Catherine wheels, bungers and sky rockets.
I learned to ride on my grandpa's very old-rusty penny-farthing bike.
I rember getting our first black and white telly, and having to pay license fees.
Later I rode paper rounds before school in all weather.
On my cousin's farm they had a party-line telephone system, where you would pick up the earpiece, crank a generator to alert the operator in a near-by town, who would then connect you to another area. There I learned to ride and look after horses. Would spend many nights in the plains with our horses tethered.
Grew up to gain the record number of Friday, Saturday and Sunday detentions in both leaving and matriculation years at private school. I was a total ratbag, and deserved them all (much to my parent's angst), but loved school (particularly being near the local girl's grammar), and achieved very high grades - go figure.
I've discussed our upbringing with my two brothers - older one neutral and younger one absolutely hating it. What weirdos - I loved it all :Y:
Those were the days erfect:
Still are great times (but very different) with young whippersnappers (but no grandkids)

 

[OzzieAu]

Bloody hell, Aussie kids in the 60s/70s hey..... makes the IRA look like amateurs :lol: :lol: O

 

[Bjay]

Most of my dastardly deeds were done in the early eighties.

 

[silver]

Posted elsewhere....

I threw a 2 foot bolt bomb down beside my pushbike as a young teen....... never ever found even one piece of it.... E V E R.
I spose they'd a called me smudge instead of silver :lol:

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=337710#p337710

 

[Bjay]

One of our favourites, Ill blame the older bro for this was to borrow 20 litres of petrol from the bowser . Find a big warren and pour it in, block the entrances and wait 10 minutes. Bit of a trail then light it it up. Quite the big woompf underground.

 

[OzzieAu]

Most of my dastardly deeds were done in the early eighties.

Us ol farts led by example

 

[user 4386]

Bloody hell, Aussie kids in the 60s/70s hey..... makes the IRA look like amateurs :lol: :lol: O

Actually the early 50s for some of us.....

 

[sand surfer]

One of our favourites, Ill blame the older bro for this was to borrow 20 litres of petrol from the bowser . Find a big warren and pour it in, block the entrances and wait 10 minutes. Bit of a trail then light it it up. Quite the big woompf underground.

We peeled the hair of a tennis ball Bjay ,filled it with black powder and had holes drilled in it ,you took the sticky tape of and rolled it down the hole and when you heard it had stopped light the powder tail, there was not much of a bang but it filled the burrow up with smoke and the rabbits came out very teary eyed and blind from the smoke and easy to pick up

 

[PabloP]

As a kid a couple of times I drilled a hole through a large cracker, and put a bit of fuse wire through, soldered it to a long piece of twin wire, tapes around the cracker, then used a Milo tin with a small hole for wire in it. Then put in under the seat of a mates old bomb of a car and ran the wire to the ignition under a floor mat. The ignition on and Bang.

One of my other builds as a 16-year-old, ended up centre page in the Herald, and a police museum for a while I believe, after I handed it in during an amnesty.

Rob P.

 

[Deepseeker]

Aside from the occasional letter box that was turned into shrapnel and launched into the air, I have a few memories of childhood cracker night. I remember visiting my cousins, and one of them had a penny bunger. We went to the shed and found a piece of metal pipe, which we hammered closed one end, with just enough gap to wiggle the fuse through. Then we rummaged around in my uncles tools and stuff until we found a ball bearing that with a little tap we got to seat down on the end of the cracker inside.

My cousins were evil (I was younger and just followed along- honestly O )

My older cousin then grabbed a G-clamp and clamped the pipe to the side of their tree house, aiming the open end at the glasshouse in the garden of the bloke next door, who they insisted was a nasty bit of work, but I suspect he was just sick and tired of living next door to my cousins. He lit the fuse, and then- BLAM!! Smash! Smash!, tinkle, tinkle. The ball bearing took out one glass window of the green house, and then took a second one upon exiting out the other side. Of course we ran, and ran, and ran......... No wonder they banned them

 

[bumdags]

We used to go eeling and sell them to the local smokehouse for $2kg. Used to make good pocket money there. Only problem was it was about a 15km round trip on the treddly, steep windie track carrying usually 10-20kg of dirty rotten eels. Dont know why anyone would pay for them but glad they did :lol: