1. My granddad used to tell me that if I didn’t dry myself properly after my shower at night, I would wake up stuck to the bed!

2. Before Toy Story, when my youngest son was about 5, I told him his toys came alive at night when he was asleep and for the next couple of months I put his action men out around his room so they looked like they had been fighting.

3. My sister and I used to fly between Wellington and Christchurch for the school holidays. Our lovely dad used to tell us we had to hurry to collect our bags from the baggage claim area because they would only go around the bag carousel three times. After that, the airline would take them out the back and blow them up. I still rush down to collect my bags whenever I fly.

4. When colour television first came out, my nana always said don’t vacuum too close to the set as it would suck the colour out of the TV!

5. My friend and his siblings grew up believing their dad’s assertion that when Mr Whippy had his music playing, it meant that he had run out of icecream.

6. With the advent of large hay bails wrapped in green plastic, I told my grandkids that they were the cows’ sleeping bags. The cows would eat grass during the day, sleep in their sleeping bags at night, and the farmer would put their sleeping bags back in their covers in the morning.

7. My dad told us that if we left our shoes outside, the fearsome Jandal Bird would come and take them away … And I’ve convinced my young niece that a sock monster lives in the washing machine, the scourge behind so many odd socks.

HT Sideswipe