Yet Another Cycling Forum

Random Musings => Miscellany => Kidstuff => Topic started by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 December, 2013, 09:08:27 am

Title: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 December, 2013, 09:08:27 am: Walk, car, a hundred and one varieties of bike(s). But two new (to me at least) ones:

Take one of those shopping baskets on wheels with a long handle - the sort that used to be the preserve of grannies in the high street but now seems to be fashionable among every one (well, every woman at least) and not just shopping. Replace the bag with a sturdy yellow plastic basket. Put small child (about 6 or 7 at a guess) inside. Cover with coat. A cushion may be added for the child's comfort.

If you are a postman and you have somehow acquired ("I thought they didn't use these anymore?" "I don't think they know I've got it.") one of those Royal Mail bikes with a flat tray at the front for letters, balance child on tray, then make like a meerkat!

Any more?
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Kim on 06 December, 2013, 12:21:58 pm: Legend has it that two kids from my primary school once got a lift to school in a milk float. I think they were related to the local milkman or something.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: clarion on 06 December, 2013, 12:29:48 pm: One kid at our school turned up in a helicopter once. It was not a regular option, and I can't recall how it came to pass.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: woollypigs on 06 December, 2013, 12:35:21 pm: A school mates dad was a limo driver so he gave us a lift on our birthdays, with flags and the lot as he drove around picking us up en-route.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: matthew on 06 December, 2013, 12:56:40 pm: ^^^^

A family friend was butler / driver / housekeeper at a local large house. He did one time turn up in the limo to provide a lift to primary school. It took a while to explain that one to some classmates who suddenly thought us more wealthy than reality. :D
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 06 December, 2013, 01:05:55 pm: When my dad worked for Reliance Mercury he was taking one of their products out for a test-drive once and took me to school in it. I was mortified.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: woollypigs on 06 December, 2013, 01:07:32 pm: Mortified then, now: how cool is that :)
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 December, 2013, 01:29:21 pm: I had to google Reliance Mercury, but on seeing, I think I had one of their vehicles - in Matchbox form. :D And - woolly is right! :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Montmorency on 06 December, 2013, 02:03:00 pm: Mine have ridden (horses) to school before. They had stables at school.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: JennyB on 06 December, 2013, 05:07:13 pm: I first went to school in a grocer's van, sitting on a sack of pig meal. :facepalm:
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 December, 2013, 05:09:35 pm: Quote from: Montmorency on 06 December, 2013, 02:03:00 pm
Mine have ridden (horses) to school before. They had stables at school.
That's good. I guess the school had a lovely rose garden? :D In reception they're probably still small enough to ride on a St Bernard - that'd be something!
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: SteveC on 06 December, 2013, 08:52:28 pm: A mayor of Southampton used to fill the mayoral car up with primary school children waiting at the bus stop on rainy days.
Not sure it would be approved of now.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: T42 on 06 December, 2013, 09:43:08 pm: For some of the kids around here something along the lines of a trebuchet would be appropriate.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 06 December, 2013, 10:22:17 pm: Quote from: Cudzoziemiec on 06 December, 2013, 01:29:21 pm
I had to google Reliance Mercury, but on seeing, I think I had one of their vehicles - in Matchbox form. :D And - woolly is right! :thumbsup:
I think it was one of these
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v379/Flossiesdoll/Random%20stuff/relianceMercury1_zps0b977a61.jpg) .
It was certainly that sort of size. How they got it from Gibbet Street in Halifax to George Street in Lindley, I will never know. I suspect there were a lot of pissed-off people stuck behind it on the Elland bypass.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 December, 2013, 11:26:48 pm: Cool as fuck! It's got a battering ram!
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 09 December, 2013, 12:11:38 pm: My kids have been transported (part of the way) in the following:
Narrowboat
Dutch barge (motorised, not sailing)
Canoe
Bicycle trailer
Long-wheelbase landrover, complete with snow, mud and tree debris on landrover.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: hellymedic on 09 December, 2013, 10:32:01 pm: I believe that my mother has taken my brother to school on a sledge.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 December, 2013, 10:36:31 pm: I've done that one! Several times - it was quite common at the school Little Cudzo attended at the time. Well, it was winter in a Polish village, so makes sense.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: hellymedic on 10 December, 2013, 12:44:14 am: Quote from: Cudzoziemiec on 09 December, 2013, 10:36:31 pm
I've done that one! Several times - it was quite common at the school Little Cudzo attended at the time. Well, it was winter in a Polish village, so makes sense.

Indeed. I was a bit surprised to be the first to mention it.
Sufficient snow to permit sledging to school is unusual in London though.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Kim on 10 December, 2013, 12:59:58 am: Ah yes. I think we did that a couple of times back in the 80s, when they had proper snow.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: peliroja on 10 December, 2013, 04:25:36 pm: When I taught English in an Ikastola in Alsasua, near Vitoria, several kids used to come to school by donkey.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Arch on 18 June, 2014, 10:12:16 pm: In Ireland, I once saw a man bringng his little daughter home from school. She was sitting, clutching her lunchbox, in the front bucket of his JCB...
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 June, 2014, 10:26:14 am: The only other person I can imagine taking kids to school in a JCB would be - you! Perhaps a steam-powered JCB?
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 June, 2014, 10:26:39 am: Quote from: peliroja on 10 December, 2013, 04:25:36 pm
When I taught English in an Ikastola in Alsasua, near Vitoria, several kids used to come to school by donkey.
What is an Ikastola?
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Jaded on 19 June, 2014, 11:12:57 am: A small guinea pig powered scooter.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 June, 2014, 02:36:40 pm: (http://animatedviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CL-R-B-GF-37.jpg)
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Wowbagger on 20 June, 2014, 10:26:59 am: Quote from: Cudzoziemiec on 19 June, 2014, 10:26:39 am
Quote from: peliroja on 10 December, 2013, 04:25:36 pm
When I taught English in an Ikastola in Alsasua, near Vitoria, several kids used to come to school by donkey.
What is an Ikastola?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikastola

You can always tell an Ikastola because every classroom has two doors.

(click to show/hide)
You should never put all your Basques in one exit

Ithangyew!
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Wowbagger on 20 June, 2014, 10:29:03 am: I used to take Dez and, later, his sister, to play group on a bicycle tag-along before such things became mainstream (early 1980s). Peter Bird, who in those days was based near Brentwood, made it. It is still hanging in the garage.

I recall going to my usual Saturday hostelry on one occasion, to which I used to cycle mostly, and another regular, whom I didn't know particularly well, muscled in on our conversation about cycling, saying how he had seen "some idiot or other" (I can't remember the precise terminology but it was disparaging) with a three wheeled bike with a kid on the back.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Arch on 20 June, 2014, 11:26:54 pm: Quote from: Cudzoziemiec on 19 June, 2014, 10:26:14 am
The only other person I can imagine taking kids to school in a JCB would be - you! Perhaps a steam-powered JCB?

I'll take that as a compliment! ;)
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 June, 2014, 11:38:47 pm: It could be nothing else!
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 October, 2014, 12:39:29 pm: My son came home from school with a Data Collection Sheet to verify Important Information such as Legal Surname and Year Group. How it makes me :D that under Travel Arrangements one of the options is Ferry. Not quite so much that I'm going to move across the river, though.
Title: Re: Taking the kids to school; unusual ways
Post by: a lower gear on 26 October, 2014, 11:40:16 pm: A friend was brought up on a farm in rural South Dakota in the 1930s. To avoid fatalities in cold winter weather, parents had a rota to transport all the children to school. Her parents, being poor, were the last farmers in the area not have a motor vehicle and so she had to endure the shame of her father collecting all the children by horse-drawn sleigh when it was his turn.