The school summer holidays are here again – prompting thoughts of how the break was spent if you grew up in Aberdeen and the north-east in the 80s and 90s.

Feel free to tell us your suggestions and we’ll trawl our archive to see if we can dig up some old photos.

Codona’s

The Codona’s of today is a lot more hi-tech and up-market than the Codona’s of the 80s and early 90s.

Much of it was housed in what seemed like a draughty aircraft hangar, making your luminous Nevica anoraks crucial.

Two attractions we remember most The Sidewinder (how many of you lost the contents of your pockets to this crazy ride?) and the shooting range (remember the old bloke you had to shoot as he sat on the bog?)

One of our team still has nightmares about the coin-operated laughing clown.

Ramboland

Also housed in Codona’s was this adventure playground that we all used to love (even though we were probably a bit too old). Naming a children’s play area after a notoriously violent film series is the kind of thing you could do in the 80s and no one batted an eyelid. We’re surprised no one invented a Freddy Krueger creche.

Radio One roadshows

Every summer the stars of Radio One would rock up at Queen’s Links with a pop-up stage and youngsters from across the North-east would flock there in their thousands.

If you want to know what some of the DJs are up to now, tune into the home shopping channels at about 1am.

Summer movies

Summer’s the time when Hollywood puts out its biggest movies and cinemas are the perfect places for parents to dump their kids for a couple of hours. Sadly all the cinemas we remember visiting (The Odeon, the ABC/Cannon and The Capitol) have bitten the dust.

Here’s something that will make you feel old – Batman came out 27 years ago this summer. Did you queue outside the ABC like these fans to see the Tim Burton blockbuster?

Even more depressing? Ghostbusters came out 35 years ago.

Rollerland

WHERE better than to go after a visit to The Odeon than the nearby Rollerland? If you were aged between five and 15 in the 1980s chances are you spent at least one birthday party gingerly making your way around the slightly-to-small-for-comfort roller rink.

Wimpy

Another popular place for birthdays was this burger restaurant on Union Street (Where Burger king now resides). Some of us at the EE still contend that fast food burgers reached the height of perfection with the Wimpy quarter-pounder. Mmmmmm…

The Tall Ships

For one week in 1991 and 1997 the Granite City went Tall Ships crazy. Hundreds of thousands of people walked the docks, in awe at the spectacular ships. (To be honest though, as children we found it all a bit dull).

Aberdeen Beach Leisure Centre

The leisure centre opened just in time for the holidays in 1989 – and it was the flumes we were most excited about. Even completely false urban myths that someone once put razorblades halfway down them couldn’t stop our glee. Just remember though, big swimming shorts slow you down Speedos all the way!

Bon Accord Baths

The opening of the leisure centre didn’t halt the popularity of this city centre swimming pool because it boasted one thing that no other pool in the city could really high diving boards. Not that you really got to try them level three was as far as we ever got (although everyone had a friend who SWORE they’d jumped off the top one).

Radars

For the older kids of the 80s, the cool hangout was Radars on Belmont Street where hormonal teenagers could act all grown-up up while wolfing down, er, ice cream sundaes.

And finally … who can forget THE summer crazy of 1989. We’ll say no more just watch this video…