Things we did as kids--

[barcroftlad]

As I walked past a pet shop in a shopping mall yesterday I noticed a sign outside offering tadpoles 5 for $10.00 ! I couldn't believe it. What happened to going out to collect your own frog spawn and breed them yourself? I might have made some spending money if I'd thought about it! On reflection, I guess it is a sign of the times and city life. Cheers.

[eric]

You'll be lucky to find any frog spawn these days, all the old haunts of the frogs have been filled in, When we lived on Malsis Rd, we used to collect it from the ponds in Lund Park and take it into school to watch it develop, and then it was my job (with the help of my dad) to put it back in the ponds.

[Andy Wade]

We were walking in Wycoller last year and the ponds in the little nature reserve there were full of the stuff. Good to see a project encouraging wildlife being successful. And my children were of course fascinated, as they'd never seen so much of it all in one place.
I remember as a young lad, collecting it and 'growing' it into baby frogs which we then returned to the stream some weeks later.

[danewiss]

Earlier in the year I took 6 football sized clumps of frog-spawn and placed them in the reeds at the Tarn.

If in Mid-Summer, you approach the Tarn from the West Lane area and you are met by up to 50,000 frogs hopping down the road, please give me a ring as they will be heading for the pond in my back garden !!

This is if it's true that they make their way to the place that they were conceived. HELP !!

[lawkholmelaner]

Good to hear about this Danewiss as a report out this week details the greater part of our ponds in the UK are heavily polluted and unable to support wildlife.

[danewiss]

Follow up to my last posting !!

HEEEELLLLLLLPPPPPPP !!

THE POND IS 8' X 5'

I HAVE OVER 65 COPULATING FROGS !!

WILL HAVE TO HIRE A MAN WITH A VAN TO SHIFT THE FOOTBALL SIZED BALLS OF FROG SPAWN.

I MAY HAVE TO MOVE HOUSE IF THE SO AND SOS CONTINUE TO RETURN IN EVER INCREASING NUMBERS!!

RIBETT RIBETT RIBETT !!

[danewiss]

Update !!!!


30,000 taddies deposited in Redcar Tarn !!

[angler]

We have at least 9 frogs in our pond along with 12 Gold-fish. So much spawn we can see the Frogs fighting and it is making the water boil up. We have one frog who never leaves the pond. Angler

[barcrofter]

With all this talk of frogs, could not resist this joke


A six year old goes to the hospital with her grandmother to visit her Grandpa.
When they get to the hospital, she runs ahead of her Grandma and bursts into her Grandpa's room ...

"Grandpa, Grandpa," she says excitedly, "As soon as Grandma comes into the room, make a noise like a frog!"

"What?" said her Grandpa.

"Make a noise like a frog - because Grandma said that as soon as you croak, we’re all going to Disney Land !”

[angler]

I remember when I was about 8 getting a back wheel of a push bike and taking the spokes out of it to bowl it along with a peice of wood much later I got a peice of iron and my father put a loop in it and bent the loop around the bike rim. I seem to remember we called it a booler hoop can any one else remember this .I think this was 1935 ? Angler

[Andy Wade]

Ah the old hoop and stick.

My Dad used to tell us about the time he went to Blackpool all the way with his hoop and stick. Took him a few days to get there.
But in Blackpool he lost his hoop and he was found crying on the seafront by the local bobby. The bobby consoled him and said that he shouldn't fret as "It was only a hoop."
My Dad replied "It may be just a hoop to you but how the 'eck am I going to get home now?"

[barcroftlad]

Mar 28, 2010 18:56:54 GMT angler said:

I remember when I was about 8 getting a back wheel of a push bike and taking the spokes out of it to bowl it along with a peice of wood much later I got a peice of iron and my father put a loop in it and bent the loop around the bike rim. I seem to remember we called it a booler hoop can any one else remember this .I think this was 1935 ? Angler

Right on Angler-but ours in the mid-late 40s were not old wheels, they were iron hoops with a handle and a loop at the end around the hoop. They sure were a lot of fun. Cheers.

[Gaffa]

We used to go up to Parkwood quarry to get our frog spawn.
There were some pretty big ponds up there, and we would bring it home in any old tin or bucket can we could find laying around.
We had an old peggy tub that once belonged to my Nana and we would keep the spawn in there until the tadpoles hatched, then we would scoop them out and put them in jam jars and feed them little bits of raw meat until they developed into small frogs.
The ones that survived we would let go down by the beck (River Worth) by the grayhound stadium.

Up at Parkwood quarry the main challenge was to climb up to the top. I only ever did it once as it was a long way down if you fell.
I think the quarry was used for clay for brick making.
Playing in the ponds, making rafts etc, we would get soaking wet and clarty ( covered in sticky mud) which was usually good for a braying from your mum or dad when you got home.

Gaffa

[barcroftlad]

Hi Gaffa, In the two years I lived on Parkwood, we were not allowed in the quarry, it was taken over by the army for a rifle range and other guns.

Here is an extract from my Memoirs of those days.

Behind Parkwood school was a large quarry. This was taken over by the Army for use as a rifle range and various gun activities. The Durham Light Infantry (DLI) had a unit based in Keighley and this was their training area. We were forbidden to go into the range of course, but we still managed to do ok for souvenirs. They used to set off rockets with flares and we would be up in the trees watching them come to ground supported by small silk parachutes. They were a good find if we could get them before the soldiers. We used to collect old shell cases and anything else we could lay our hands on. Favourites were .22 cases. These small brass cases would suck on to your tongue and you hid them in your mouth. We had a good swap activity in militaria. It was also at this time that plastic started to appear and we could buy strips of narrow coloured plastic at Woolies for a few pence which we would cut up into small pieces and pierce with a pin and make tiny sword badges which you would then stick into your jacket lapel or collar.

Cheers.

[Gaffa]

barcroftlad,

My time of playing up at the quarry was the mid to late 1960's.
I had no idea that the quarry had been used as a rifle range.
If we had known I am sure we would have spent more time digging around in the clay walls looking for ammo or shell casings than catching frogs and frog spawn and trying to drown ourselves on rickity rafts on the ponds up there.

[barcroftlad]

Hi Gaffa. I should have mentioned that I lived in Alpha Street from mid 1945 to mid 1947. Cheers.

[Gaffa]

barcroftlad,

It's amazing.
You were happy collecting bullet casings and making badges etc out of bits of cut up plastic.
We were happy catching frogs or making spears out of rosebay willow herb stalks and throwing them at each other.
Most kids today complain that they are bored and whine about not having the latest ipod or whatnot.
True, they do not have the freedom that we had as kids but get up from in front of the telly, put the game box away and get outside and play with your mates.

Even my own boys, ages 24 and 25, just shake their heads when I tell them about the stuff we did as kids.

There was a big tree down in Strong Close Park in Worth Village that had a rope swing on it.
The thick rope was tied to a big branch that was about thirty foot from the ground and tied about twenty five feet from the trunk.
To get the best swing you had to climb about twenty feet up the tree to where the trunk split and go from there.
That first drop was quite a rush. You had to make sure that the rope was taut or else you would get a big jolt that hurt like the Dickens.
A little further down the trunk someone had cut a notch where people would stand and as the first swinger came back to the tree the next person would jump on.
We would see how many we could get on at one time before it would not swing high enough for any one else to leap from the notch.
Only one time do I remember the rope breaking and about six of us came down with a big bump in the dirt, a tangled mass of arms and legs, all laughing like crazy.


We would also race sticks down the beck (River Worth) from the bridge on Dalton Lane to the weir by the grayhound track. You were allowed to bomb your opponents stick with rocks to try to sink it or force it into the bank or you would need to throw rocks at your own stick to help it navigate away from the bank or other obstacles.
The winner was the first one over the weir.

Just before the weir was Red Bridge, a wooden footbridge that gave access to the Florist Street area of Worth Village.
One of the "dares" that would be put forward was to hang from the metal tension rods underneath the bridge and make your way across to the other side. Quite a few lads fell in and that was some mucky water with all kinds of stuff floating in it.

Playing on the "island " just above the weir and on the rocks of the weir itself was great fun.
We would spend hours just poking about in the water or making dams to divert the water this way or that.

If the Dalton Lane bridge was our upstream limit, then our down stream limit to the beck was the Aireworth Road bridge.
It was here that was the best place to catch tiddlers (small minnows and sticklebacks)
We would get an old jam jar and half fill it with bits of stale bread.
Then we would cover the top with a piece of cloth and tie it on to the rim with a piece of string.
We would then cut a small slit in the cloth and tie a long piece of string onto the string holding the cloth on and toss it in the water. After about five minutes we would pull it up and if you were lucky the jar would be filled with "tiddlers" which had gone in after the bread but could not figure a way out.

Some of the fish we would take home and tried to keep in tubs or buckets but sooner or later they all died.
Most of the time we just counted them to see who had caught the most then we would throw them back.

Hours of innocent fun that did not cost us anything above a jam jar, some string and some stale bread.


Gaffa