Let them run free

[Raidernation]

I can remember flying, unaccompanied by adults, from Wick to Aberdeen to visit the grandparents when I would have been about 8 and my brother 11. Don’t remember much fuss.

I’m another that used to spend holidays out of the house for the best part of 12 (or more) hours playing football, golf, RPGs (when older), messing about on the building sites as they were building “High Ormlie” in Thurso…….

Once came home with my head split open, mother wheeched me off to Dunbar hospital for 5 stitches without so much of a second look! (I suspect she was just glad I was more “normal ” than my brother who spent most of his time in his bedroom with the door shut [emoji15] and almost never played outside)

[The_Kincardine]

5 minutes ago, Raidernation said:

I can remember flying, unaccompanied by adults, from Wick to Aberdeen to visit the grandparents when I would have been about 8 and my brother 11. Don’t remember much fuss.

My son -aged 12 in Dec 2012 - wanted to spend Hogmanay with his cousins in Hamilton.  I'm not saying he has good taste.  BUT we had a debate over him going to Heathrow on his own or me driving him and eventually he said he wanted to make the journey on his own (with his uncle meeting him at GLA) which I agreed to.  High Wycombe - Marylebone-Paddington-LHR is a journey we'd made a lot of times so it wasn't tricky and it worked out well.  His only comment was, "They were very patronising when I checked in"

His maw, after she found out, went fucking tonto - which was a win-win.

[Detournement]

 

The police are a joke these days. As ever it's a football supporter and not, say, 9 doctors who gets done for this. The boy was actually sound asleep with the door locked when the pigs found him. 

When I was 11 me and my pals used to walk miles to the cinema by ourselves or get the bus, now it's apparently a crime to be in bed unsupervised at that age.

[ICTChris]

42 minutes ago, Detournement said:

 

The police are a joke these days. As ever it's a football supporter and not, say, 9 doctors who gets done for this. The boy was actually sound asleep with the door locked when the pigs found him. 

When I was 11 me and my pals used to walk miles to the cinema by ourselves or get the bus, now it's apparently a crime to be in bed unsupervised at that age.

When my dad was about that age, maybe a couple of years older, in the 1950s he and a friend hitchhiked from the Scottish Birders to the south of England to see his sister. One of the people who picked them up was a well to do gentlemen who asked them if either had ever been up in a plane before. Of course neither of them had so he drove them to a private airfield where he kept his personal light aircraft and took them up for a short flight. 

[bennett]

On 04/07/2021 at 20:25, Raidernation said:

I can remember flying, unaccompanied by adults, from Wick to Aberdeen to visit the grandparents when I would have been about 8 and my brother 11. Don’t remember much fuss.

I’m another that used to spend holidays out of the house for the best part of 12 (or more) hours playing football, golf, RPGs (when older), messing about on the building sites as they were building “High Ormlie” in Thurso…….

Once came home with my head split open, mother wheeched me off to Dunbar hospital for 5 stitches without so much of a second look! (I suspect she was just glad I was more “normal ” than my brother who spent most of his time in his bedroom with the door shut and almost never played outside)

 

I'd to make do with catapults and home made bow and arrows.

 

 

[Newbornbairn]

A mate of mine went to visit his dad when he was 14. He managed to hitch lifts on small aircraft from Newcastle to Kuwait - 9 different planes in all, including what sounded like a terrifying flight over the Med in a WWII Dakota which had gaps in the panels on the floor and you could see the sea underneath. No passport, just going from small airstrip to small airstrip blagging lifts. 

[Florentine_Pogen]

A mate of mine went to visit his dad when he was 14. He managed to hitch lifts on small aircraft from Newcastle to Kuwait - 9 different planes in all, including what sounded like a terrifying flight over the Med in a WWII Dakota which had gaps in the panels on the floor and you could see the sea underneath. No passport, just going from small airstrip to small airstrip blagging lifts. 

This is obviously a discarded first draft of 'Young Indiana the Drug Runner'.

[Thorongil]

On 03/07/2021 at 19:30, Duszek said:

Very much like my situation. My daughter just turned 15, son just turned 13. While I’m all in favour of giving them more freedom, the wife sees danger/risk everywhere, disapproves of parents who let their kids go out unsupervised at night, and generally lives in a state of constant fear whenever they’re out of sight. Whereas I’m like « f**k it ».

If they have iPhones you can track them. I’m all for giving my near 9 year old boy as much independence as possible. We live in the sticks and he won’t even cross the cattle grid on his own.

[Hedgecutter]

Don't think I was ever given a distance limit, just a case of 'dinner's at 5:30, be back for then'.

I can still remember walking into the next village when I was late primary school, a monumentous mile away.  I came home, told my mum about it in excited fashion, and I'm still disgruntled about the underwhelmed "that's nice".  I've already done a similar walk to the shops and back today without thinking anything of it tbf, but passing the roadsign to another settlement felt massive at the time.  Especially when you don't know a single person that lives there, making it a great unknown.

Don't think I'd travelled any further than 10 miles by myself until I was 17.  Oh how that quickly changed.

[maicoman]

must have been 12 year old i stopped going on family holidays as they bored me out of my tits so was left home alone for a week every year Would go to a farm and do a 12 hour shift lifting hay bales so got well fed at the farm  Was allowed to do what i wanted within reason and was never told what time i had to be home at The only thing i was never allowed to do was to go to a Beith-Kilbirnie game but would go anyway Can remember one Saturday morning out shopping with my mum and someone i knew shouts to me" Going to the game today" Me "I"  Mum -"Who are you playing today" Me "Kilwinning!" knew if i had told her it was really kilbirnie i would not get to go  All was well until the following day when the Sunday Post arrived and on the middle of the front page there is the a small paragraph with the headline "Trouble flares  at junior football match" Would have been sweating like a pig for the rest of the day incase my mum had decided to read the paper