Anyone remember late 50s early 60s Car spotting

I was sat in traffic today and why it popped into my head i don't know, but i remember going out with a pad and pencil sitting on a low wall on Hough Lane and taking car numbers. You could sit for ages without seeing another car.
Someone on the top of the snicket from Foley Avenue had a Cosmopolitan with the rear spare wheel in a round box, I loved that car and aspired to one.

God, but i'm showing my age.

 

Simple pleasures! Now they're spotting pokemons!
Am younger than you but a similar thing i liked to do were the I Spy books!

 

Oh yes, I took car numbers, plus:

British Road Service lorry spotting - they had a narrow nameplate on the side of the trailer which told you where they came from. We used to go up Wakefield Road occasionally on Sundays to spot what was parked up at the BRS depot for the weekend.

Trainspotting, although you had to travel to Sheffield, Leeds or Donny to spot anything decent. I did though used to enjoy sitting on top of the air raid shelter at the bottom of the Donny Road school playground taking the numbers of the filthy black engines as they trundled past with their coal wagons or other freight.

Simple pleasures in the 1960s and it never worried the parents if you were gone all day. No need to say where you were going because they knew you would be back in time for tea. Imagine doing any of that these days!

 

I would do lorry spotting for about an hour a day standing at the front gate. Makes of lorries mind. Foden was my favourite. I would then draw up some graph for each day so I could see the variation in different lorries that had gone past throughout the week. Proved nothing but at the time I thought this was highly scientific.

 

As a youngster I'd take Tracky bus reg No's in the early to mid 80's when most had the prefix SHE or THE back then I seem to remember, now recently I've started going trainspotting with my son and it's a great way to spend quality time with him as despite my best effort early in his life he just never showed an interest in football so least now I get to enjoy an hobby with him, which is great

 

I once remember walking the length of of Gt Houghton in the middle of the road, around 1973ish.

 

we were only talking about that at the weekend!

 

Sorry, finger trouble.

 

Ah... simple days before internet forums, Tik Tok, Twitter, etc

How the young are missing out.

 

Cheap entertainment as well.
Notepad and a biro - pennies
Train or bus ticket to the mainline stations near us - a few more pennies, but not much

Compare that to the cost of a smartphone or home entertainment system. Nobody ever tried to mug me for my notebook and pen

 

We have coach/bus enthusiasts that visit our place on a regular basis. They are pretty sound on the whole but if I ask them to send me their photos you'd have thought I was the devil.

 

Haha yeah that sounds about right, I didn't realise how serious a hobby it could be, I've seen some proper arguments break out over someone getting in way of someone shot the older guys are the worst, some real aggression and anger, sad really

 

In the 70's we would sit on the corner of Carlton Road and Rotherham Road looking for the new reg plates when they came out in August - simpler days!

 

A poor man’s train spotting.

 

Its nice to play the Eddie Stobart game on the motorway though...

 

Don't do what I did when trainspotting. Whilst attending infant school I would trainspot from the bridge that spanned Burton Rd between Monk Bretton pit and Redfearns Bros Glassworks. I only ever got 2 numbers, the Barnsley to Cudworth old pull and push and the pit loco that shunted coal wagons around the pit top. Old Tommy Randerson who drove the pit loco told me I was wasting my time as the old pull and push was the only train ever to use the line. And here endeth my time as a trainspotter.