Were you a wild child?

[Gemini]

Well I had gone to theatre school in that there London Minny!!

[ZIZI]

Ah yes but don't I remember you saying that the ladies where you were volunteering thought your bottom wasn't quite big enough???? I don't think any of us have had boring lives, just a whole lot of different circumstances, some good, some bad.

[ZIZI]

Sorry that was for Minny.....

[Gemini]

LOL, I guessed so Zizi. I don't think anyone has ever said my bottom wasn't big enough

[Enfys]

At the time I thought I was quite daring...dancing , going to jazz clubs and a dodgy place in the cellar of one of the hotels but the music was FAB baby!!! In reality though, the most daring thing I did was to go into a pub and have a babycham with some pals from our youth club. Us girls thought we were the bees knees with our beehives, black eye make up and pale lips. I was a mod and my mother wouldn't let me out of the house in my ankle length skirt (why?) so I used to take it with me and change. Same with the make up, had to hide it in my bag and do it later. Such a simple life really, certainly no binge drinking, drugs etc, so good to look back on.

[Daisy]

At the time I thought I was quite daring...dancing , going to jazz clubs and a dodgy place in the cellar of one of the hotels but the music was FAB baby!!! In reality though, the most daring thing I did was to go into a pub and have a babycham with some pals from our youth club. Us girls thought we were the bees knees with our beehives, black eye make up and pale lips. I was a mod and my mother wouldn't let me out of the house in my ankle length skirt (why?) so I used to take it with me and change. Same with the make up, had to hide it in my bag and do it later. Such a simple life really, certainly no binge drinking, drugs etc, so good to look back on.

Enfys - there were very different times and in some familieis even girls going out in a group to a jazz club would have been considered daring!

I wonder how today's teenagers will look back on their youth in 40/50 years' time?

[Nana]

Giving this one a miss. Not many happy times I'm afraid.

[Bizzy Lizzy]

I am afraid I was a wild child from the age of about fourteen. My dad would inspect my clothes before I went out lest the boys would fancy me, no make up (well not when I left the house anyway), no short skirts (well not when I left the house anyway) I was on a strict curfew which I was forever breaking and getting into BIG trouble for. My parents and teachers wanted me to stay on at school but my parents werealways trying to kill each other and as I got a little bit more confident I felt I wanted to leave home. I left at 15 with a handful of RSA certificates which, in those days, were better than nothing but no longer exist. First I worked as a receptionist clerk for a local company and then decided there were much better places to live than Bath so I went to Twickenham which I knew as my grandparents lived there. I stayed with them for a short while but then got a bedsit and a job in a travel agency (I went to night school to learn shorthand when I was still in Bath).

The travel agency job made me think seriously about the fact I wanted to go abroad so I did, I went to Belgium as an au pair. Detested it of course (was always a mucky Trollope and cleaning up after a family that wasn't mine and for which I was paid peanuts did not suit me). I bought a forged identity card as I was too young to work behind a bar and my ID card gave me away, and got a job in a fab place called "Your Father's Moustache" which sold only beer, big jugs of it and had live music all the time. I joined a band and we had fleeting success in Belgium (so fleeting it got missed by most people!). I still have my "moustache mug" from there. I lived in a flat with a friend which was in the attic of a house in the suburbs of Brussels. I loved that flat even though it was small and had no proper walls, just half walls between the bathroom and sitting room and bedroom so we put lots of plants and streamers to hide the bathroom. Oh the loo did have walls and a proper door.

I met an American backpacker and went to the USA with him only my visa ran out and so I had to go into Canada and creep back over the border (well in the boot of a car). We came back to England and decided to get married much against the wishes of our parents. we had a little hippy ceremony at St Martins in the Fields in London. We were living in a flat just around the corner from Trafalgar Square which came with my job.

We had a wonderful time going to parties, having parties, mucking about etc. yes I did smoke weed, yes I did drink neither to excess ...... Well possibly sometimes. I went to see my grandparents one weekend and came back to no husband. Not unusual as he would sometimes go out with me and I him. BUT he had left. I didn't hear from him again for about three years. He told me didn't like living the "straight" life. I didn't really either but I thought he did so didn't say anything. Shortly after he left, having spent several mornings with my head down the loo, I realised I was pregnant.

And that dear friends ended my wild child behaviour as my son was born when I was approaching my 19th birthday. I still went out and about when I could afford it and husband and I have established that we must have often been in the same places when we were younger but moved with different crowds.

Well Zizi I have to say that your teen years sound far and away the most thrilling. Mine by comparison were very mundane. I do remember some Brandy and Babycham nights and I did smoke from the age of 16 by which time I was working in the City of London doing very boring office work. I do remember fighting off some lecherous male work colleagues which would not have been called sexual harassment these days but that was not heard of in those days. My escape from home came with a bad early marriage at 18 which lasted for seven years. Although nothing is wasted because having chosen the wrong man first time around I was very much aware when the right man came along.

[Libra Gran]

I was washing nappies from the age of 17 1/2 but think since I hit 50 I have rebelled quite a bit. Hence tattoos etc,etc.But not nearly as naughty as ZIZI of course.

[ZIZI]

Bizzy unlike myself (husbands) I got to kiss a lot of frogs before I found my prince. I married a second time to a complete bully. Then I had boyfriend type relationships and finally was with someone for a couple of years during which I met my husband. When the last boyfriend and I split up (he didn't like my son, who was the adult there?) husband and I had already known each other for a while. Ex boyfriend always went on and on about husband fancying me which I did not recognise so he was all smug and triumphant when I finally told him husband and I were together. I have to admit although I am not a violent person I did want to smack him one for all his snidey comments. for several years after husband and I got together he would do things like buy me a present and give it to me in front of husband (who didn't become my husband until a few years later).

Ex and I are OK now. FB friends and even came here for a drink when he was in the area a couple of years ago.

Sorry changed the subject............

[Daisy]

Giving this one a miss. Not many happy times I'm afraid.

Maranr* - I'm sorry it was such a sad time for you. I think quite a few of us had a 'mixed bag' of experiences, but it sounds as though your teenage years were very unhappy times. xx

Certainly for me, the worse things got the more I partied. Not the best way of coping, but I was a brat!