When I was a kid....

[andyhigham]

Whilst I was a child at primary school I had a Phillips electronic engineer kit, It enabled me to learn to follow electrical drawings to build various projects. I also built from scratch a "crystal radio" that worked, amazing that I could hear radio signals without batteries.
Still at primary school I built my first steam engine, a "pop pop" boat and re built a motor bike engine, a Villiers 8E that needed crank seals.

It beats sitting around playing computer games and smoking dope

[millman]

I had one of those, there were about a dozen different circuits printed on to card and the components were held in a fancy spring clip so they could all be re used. A few years later I had a Philips Mechanical Engineers kit, you could make water pumps and if I remember correctly, a clock, aah happy days!

[GWRdriver]

When I was a child . . . . my father gave me a crystal radio set kit for Christmas, primarily because he'd had one as a child and wanted me to have that experience, and this turned out to be one of the greatest gifts I ever received. After bedtime I would lie awake for hours listening to the crystal set, and one of the most powerful AM radio stations in the USA (WSM) wasn't far down the road. No matter how sophisticated your radio, sometimes at night when conditions were right (or wrong) all you got was WSM.

For an hour or so in the late evenings they would broadcast classical music, and after about 11pm they would change over to all-night country music. From this I developed a deep appreciation for both classical and country music, and all the styles in between, which has been with me ever since. Thanks Dad.

[jo479]

Happy memories, in the 50s, crystal set in your desk, one small earpiece listening to the cricket and passing the results round, don't know why, I hated the game ever since I got knocked out when I was keeping wicket' We used to have an army/RAF surplus radio and bits shop locally , that's where we got our bits from, the stuff he used to have was out of this world, RAF gun sights etc, kids today don't do anything that's not on their phone, very sad when you really think about it.

[lesstoneuk]

Who built a go-cart. Set of pram or pushchair wheels.... Pram were best. Three pieces of 6x1 wood, a coach bolt, nut and washers. Two screws, a few nails and a length of small diameter rope or string.
Never bothered with brakes, gloves, pads or helmet.
I came a cropper once or twice but you just dusted yourself off, checked for damage and carried on.
Health and safety never existed, we had common sense.... If we didnt, we did after the next spill.
Kids today have no idea.

[runner42]

When I was a kid we went fishing for minnows and sticklebacks over Portsdown Hill in the ponds and streams that dotted the countryside. Alas, they were long gone soon after reaching adulthood. Jumping off shed roofs was something we did for a dare just for fun. This was the boys showing the girls how brave or stupid we were.

[lesstoneuk]

Jan 17, 2023 2:39:09 GMT runner42 said:

When I was a kid we went fishing for minnows and sticklebacks over Portsdown Hill in the ponds and streams that dotted the countryside. Alas, they were long gone soon after reaching adulthood. Jumping off shed roofs was something we did for a dare just for fun. This was the boys showing the girls how brave or stupid we were.

My dad played cricket on summer Sundays and the whole family would go. My brother and I found a barn, chock a block with hay bales. In there was a gap between the bales that made an awesome slide. Problem was that the slide ejected you out of the side of the barn.... Through a barbed wire fence. Simple, just lean back and the closest wire whizzed past an inch or so away from your nose. Happy days

[ettingtonliam]

Anyone else have a 'Junero' set? You got a supply of lengths of steel flat, maybe, from memory, 1/2" x 1/32", a shear to cut them to length, a bending tool and a punch for punching bolt holes, plus a book of designs for things you could make from it. Like Meccano, but you had to make the parts first. Speaking of Meccano, I presume we all had one? I never got more than a No 4, so never got to make those wonderful cranes.

[cplmickey]

Jan 17, 2023 8:45:53 GMT ettingtonliam said:

Speaking of Meccano, I presume we all had one? I never got more than a No 4, so never got to make those wonderful cranes.

I never got Meccano and was always jealous of my cousins who did - always played with it at their house when we went round.

Had the usual lego as well as an electronics kit (not Phillips though I don't think) and I started to build circuits from discrete components in my teens including making my own pcbs which led on to a career in electrical and elctronic engineering. Maybe if I had Meccano I'd have gone into mechanical engineering?
Ian

[Boadicea]

When I was a kid, I knew 3 children who had polio.

[springcrocus]

... the trains used to run past the bottom of our garden. I was always fascinated with them, also regularly playing on the nearby station. I was forever nagging my dad for a train set and finally got a Hornby Dublo 3-rail set with a green Duchess of Montrose and two carriages for my ninth birthday. Still fascinasted.

Regards, Steve

[johnd]

Jan 17, 2023 2:39:09 GMT runner42 said:

When I was a kid we went fishing for minnows and sticklebacks over Portsdown Hill in the ponds and streams that dotted the countryside.

The above triggered the exactly the same memory of Portsdown Hill in my childhood, also of freewheeling on our bicycles down the back of Portsdown Hill on a very long lane known as Widley Walk. Problem was the very long push up the hill to do it all again.
Happy Days

[mbrown]

I do worry about my grandchildren's reliance on iPhones and gadgets for their entertainment. But looking back 60 years or so, my mates and I fantasised constantly about having walkie-talkies to call each other up - "Hey, let's meet down the rec!", and so on... We'd have given our eye teeth for a mobile phone - although our imaginations never extended beyond using them for talking to each other.

Malcolm

[jackrae]

When I was a kid 2 bean cans and a length of string ......

[abby]

At 75 I still play computer games , been doing just that since the "tennis" on the spectrum, well can't really justify heating the workshop at present. Gave up smoking several years ago but now andy mentions a spliff ......
Dan.

[Jim]

This was one of my early trains and it gave me many happy hours steaming up the Blue Mountains where I lived. The year is around 1943-44 when Hornby Trains or toys of any kind were just not available due to everything going into wartime production.

I well remember my first grade teacher announcing that the war had ended to which my response was "Yippee now we can get Hornby Trains"
I still have this train set in it's blue box with a colour drawing of Flying Scotsman on the lid.

The station and signals were homemade by my Dad.

Very hppy memories

Jim

[Roger]

I love these old memories, reminding me of many of the things I did too. Lego and Meccano were favourites because I could make what I wanted. I did like my train set and Scalextric, but were too limited for my liking.

My Dad made me an Electric motor for my Meccano, from a pot magnet and nails for the winding bobbins. It was beautifully made with a hand crafted comutator, was very powerful and had fixings that matched the pitch of the Meccano plates.

When I was old enough, I was allowed to make special parts for the Meccano, things that could hold two gears over the outside of the bosses so you could make a proper gearbox where you could change the ratios.

Dad's workshop was a cluttered mess. He said he always knew where all his tools were because they were on the bench. He used coloured tape wrapped around things like Chuck Keys so they stood out in the pile. His workshop had a knackered Capstan Lathe that he bought as scrap, and that was a good name for it. It made parts for Spitfires in the war. It was so old that it was previously driven from a line shaft, so Dad fitted an electric motor and a Pre-unit gearbox from an ancient AJS motorcycle.

The great thing about being brought up with garbage machines is it taught me how to get far more accuracy from them than ought to have been possible. I don't think we even had a DTI in those days, let alone a DRO, but many accurate things were made by being careful to machine as much as possible in one setup, much as I do today.

Dad made me many things, a crane with electric slew, hoist and jib, a Go-Kart with Ackerman Steering and brakes and more. He also made a Motorhome from scratch, using parts from an old 1939 Austin 12 he was given, and later a 30 foot Steel Narrowboat. There was always a way to get around tools and equipment he didn't have, and it was the best ever Apprenticeship a boy could wish for. Dad passed away a couple of years ago, and he maintained that he wasn't very smart. I beg to differ.


174 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr


175 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr


182 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr


191 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr



duorf1-2 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr



PICT0004 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr



Building the van 001 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr



Building the van 002 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr



Building the van 003 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr



Building the van 004 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr



The van as completed in 1967 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr

[simplyloco]

All my Dad ever did was make me cross...

[Nigel Bennett]

That boat build is amazing; I would imagine it's still afloat. As for the camper van, built from Dexion... Can you imagine building that today and being allowed to drive it on the roads?

I had one of those bogies as a kid and after a disaster when executing a fairly tight turn at high speed, I extended the axles by about a foot each side and that stopped it turning over so readily. The steering was "interesting" though.

I had a nudge from my long-departed Dad yesterday; I picked up a toolmaker's clamp - one of several I have. I had made a couple myself as apprentice pieces but I was amazed to find one engraved with my Dad's name; clearly it, too, was an apprentice piece from about 75 years ago... and I never knew that until yesterday.

[ettingtonliam]

Yes, I wondered about the acceptability of the dexion framing even in 1965! The other thing I wondered about was the conversion from 'normal control' with the driver sitting behind the engine, in the original car, to 'forward control' with the driver sitting alongside the engine. Try getting that past an MOT tester today!. I think the MOT test (then known as the '10 year test' had been introduced by then.

Roger's dad must have been a very ingenious man!