Some fond memories there.
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Yes, they can certainly do some damage. I did have airguns when I was a bit older and used them for plinking which was great fun, I spent hours shooting at all types of different targets.
Hopefully when I move to Scotland next year I’ll get one although I’ll have to apply for a licence from the police.
You don’t need a license in England.
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This was my gun of choice when I was a boy, a Dianna 7 .144, it was actually my Dads sort of ‘handed down’ and it wasn’t the only thing he handed down, a clip around the ear if I didn’t use it responsibly… 
I used to buy these paper targets and fire darts into an old blackboard and easel down the end of the garden with it. Eventually fitted a telescopic sight to it and Dad said I looked like a proper little sniper…I think that’s what he said ? 
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Sounds like good times.
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I had a Diana rifle and a pistol (both .177). Not very powerful but the cheapest and most of us had that make. A Webley was to be really admired.
Four of us had a club room in my mate’s house cellar. We were sitting around a table chatting when the friend sitting opposite me suddenly pulled out his pistol and shot me in the chest. I was more incensed than injured and asked why he would do that!? He said he just wanted to see how it felt. I got my pistol out to return the compliment and he sprang at me. We fought for a while and I eventually managed to fire a shot into his clothing, far enough out so the barrel shooting out wouldn’t hit him. So lucky these things were low on the powerful scale.
He asked if we were quits. I agreed and that was that. Still stayed good friends surprisingly.
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Vivid memories, Bob. Unbelievable that you started biking at so early an age. I had to wait a little longer until I was tall enough to ride one of the two bikes in our home which were left somehow intact after the bombing. There used to be only city bikes with 28" front and rear wheels and , mostly, with strange-looking Dutch-style “sit up and beg” handlebars, too high for a young boy. The height of the bike was adjusted from two directions: by mounting a thin saddle with no springs or shock-absorber directly onto the frame and by using wooden pedal blocks. But still I was shifting around on the saddle for some time. No pics, unfortunately. As funny as it may have looked, it was great to ride them and to become mobile. Now I could cycle to lakes for bathing and, as my major achievement, at the age of 8 or so I cycled to my grandma’s home which was 13 km away. That was a big journey for me. I never fell off the bike which was a little short of a miracle.
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My younger years I grew up around the world. I remember learning to play marbles in Turkey.
Then when my dad went to Vietnam, me and my 3 brothers had to help my grandpa on the farm. When our chores were done we had to walk about a mile down to my uncle’s farm and see if he had any chores for us to do.
If my grandpa was plowing or planting we had to walk the field and look for arrow heads, spear heads, etc, we found around 50 or so. The year we stayed there. On our free time we would go fishing or swimming in grandpas lake.
Then we went to Germany for 5 years. That is were I learned to ice skate. Me, my brothers and other kids would go and explore the Siegfried Line. We would explore the bunkers and the fighting positions that we could find. We found nazi coins, medals, helmets and a lot of ammunition. My brother found a machine gun and another kid found a bazooka and the MPs those those.
We would make forts in bomb craters. We would race down Exit road, that was about a mile and half down hill, until a boy wiped out and was in the hospital for a long time. During the winter we would snow skate down the hill that was beside Exit road. It had a lot of bomb craters a small wooded area and a few barbwire fences going down the hill, which made it fun and dangerous. And at the bottom you had to make sure you stopped before you got to the river or you would get all wet, then cold.
We had a basket ball meet, a baseball team but we had to go to Bitburg to get enough kids for a football team.
Then we moved to Mississippi and I consider that my home because that was the long time I had spent in the States in one place. That is where we pick up hunting and fishing. Plenty of swamp land and rivers for fishing. Where I got my first job that paid for the work. 5¢ per bale of hay to get it out of the field, to the barn and up into the loft. We could move around 100 bales in a trip. Where I learned to pick tobacco and hang it in smoking sheds.
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Swapping beads … my collection was kept in a Golden Virginia tobacco tin.
Riding my bike …
Building dens
Springtime …picking Bluebells primroses ,cowslips and collecting Tadpoles.
All very un pc now, but then the fields and woods were full of ponds and flowers
Reading Enid Blyton , Frances Hodgson Burnett .
and others…I remember crying over Black Beauty…
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I was 10 or 11 when The Beatles were releasing consecutive hit singles: Please Please Me, She Loves You yeah yeah yeah. They were on the radio, screaming Beatlemania on the BBC news. I was so excited I wanted to scream. Me and my three brothers formed a band: guitars made out of wood from an old smashed up piano, cardboard boxes for drums. We attempted growing mop tops during the summer holidays, but a short back 'n sides was required when back to school.
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How can I ever forget playing hop-skotch?
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O yes, we played that as well. It was usually the first game we were playing in spring when we were allowed to wear shorts again although it was still too chilly. 
We needed to play something that kept us warm. We often didn’t need chalk but scratched the grid and score into the ground with a little stick. Thanks for reminding me of the rules which I wouldn’t have remembered nor would I have thought that those rule would be available on the internet.
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Riding my Bike…
Helping Dad in the garden…
Sorting out them Injuns…
Getting a good strip wash after a busy day…
And finally off to bed with Ted…
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That brings back memories Foxy.
When I used to stay with my grandparents I’d have to have a sink wash, they actually didn’t have a bath.
I took it in my stride and didn’t think twice about it. I couldn’t be quite so accepting today, and certainly no piccies…there are some members selfies we could do without! 
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I did all the usual things that children did in the 1950s. I also seem to remember a game called ‘Stick’ where we stood with our feet together on the grass then someone would throw a knife into the ground inches from one of our feet and we would have to move that foot to where the knife was and then it was thrown next to the second foot. This would continue until we couldn’t move our feet any further apart without falling over - the person who could get the furthest distance between their feet without falling was the winner. No-one was ever stabbed by the knife I hasten to add! Wouldn’t be allowed today for sure 
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…or trike if you like. That must have cost an arm…Great photos, Bob.
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What we were all into could depend somewhat on the area or environment we were brought up in but reading through the thread, there looks to be interests and pastimes that were common to many of us.
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Absolutely Margaret but we called it ‘Stretch’…
‘Tin can Tommy’ was also very popular. We used to stack tin cans up in a pyramid and throw a ball at them to knock them over. Two teams, one would run like mad when the cans went down and the other team would try and hit the opposing players with the ball…Once you got hit, you were out…
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I had a lovely childhood growing up on the coast. We swam and played on the sands in summer, when we got cold we ran over the marshes and jumped creeks to warm up. We made mud slides to slide down into the water and we covered ourselves in mud from head to foot to show off to holidaymakers who used to gasp “look at those kids”.
We had a very good playing field in the village with slide, swings, witches hat, climbing frame etc. great gangs of kids would gather in the summer evenings and we played rounders or had horse pepper fights. We all had penknives and pulled horse pepper up by the roots and then chop it into chunks and throw it at our opponents. Some people may know this plant as Alexanders.
Other times we played skipping games in our road. Bigger girls would have a huge rope across the road and would turn it so us younger ones could skip and we would learn all the skipping rhymes.
A friend and I used to sneak to a lonely field where a family kept ponies. We used to pretend they were ours and we would ride them bareback. Nearby was an old wooden Shepherds hut which we took over as our den so it was good to use when it rained.
I can’t imagine kids today had such a carefree childhood.
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They were great times back then. Almost without a worry, parents not fretting over what might happen. The days of innocence are long gone.
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