RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: stonechat on Wednesday 22 June 11 16:38 BST (UK)
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I remember even on into the sixties there was a gas street light in Egham
The lamplighter came out ever evening, with a long stick with a hook, would pull a chain to start the gas
Can remember how but he light the lamp.
If you were to relate this to younger people today they would think it couldn't have happened as late as the sixties!
What are your memories of old ways that lasted well into relatively recent times?
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A couple of years ago I was taking a class in which we were discussing the environment, and were talking about how old VCRs and DVDs were difficult to dispose of. One of my students asked "how did you deal with it when you were a teenager?" And of course I had to tell her that DVDs hadn't been invented when I was a teenager, and that VCRs were a rare luxury - that not everybody had a TV in their bedroom! The looks on their faces - disbelief/shock - is something I treasure to this day ;D
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The bain of my life when I was younger was having an outside toilet. No bathroom and no bath. I didnt have a inside bathroom and toilet until 1963.
From being a youngster a toilet was up the street and shared by about 6 other families. My elder brother had to take my sister and I up the street with a torch in the Winter. People dont understand why I personally have to take a bath everynight due to the lack of a priviledge when younger. When they say kids nowadays dont know they are well off, I do as I certainly wasnt.
regards
Sandymc
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Distilled Water in a big glass Carboy packed in straw in a wire cage.
Milk in Churns, instead of tanker lorries.
Corn in 2cwt sacks (100kg), instead of bulk lorries.
Loose biscuits in large tin boxes, which were weighed out into a paper bag.
Also queueing up at each shop in the high street in turn on a Saturday morning, waiting to be served by the man behind the counter: Grocer, Baker, Dairy, Greengrocer, etc.
I wonder if some of the people who talk about the demise of the high street remember all that queueing ;D
Mike.
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I remember when most houses had an upright piano, even although no one in the household played the piano. I expect the instrument was handed down from one generation to another.
Cuthie
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They still have some gaslamps in Malvern
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/herefordandworcester/hi/people_and_places/newsid_9347000/9347187.stm
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I use my 1996 mobile phone in history lessons - they think it is a brick and were very shocked that although I had one at sixteen, not everyone had one and we rarely sent text messages.
The fact that computers made a noise when connecting to the internet and you had to wait for what felt like hours for it to load.
We didn't use MS Word but a blue screened Word Perfect to type documents
We had a black and white TV in our kitchen as late as 1985.
My classroom had one of the giant chalk boards that you rolled round, no Interactive white boards or plastic white wipe-clean numbers.
We had one computer for the whole school when I was at primary school in the late 1980s, but no ever used it because a) it only had one program on it and b) none of the Teachers could use it.
If I wanted to talk to my friends privately (or more likely, a boy, secretly) on the phone, I would have to walk into town to the red phone box and put money in it to use the phone.
Having yo fast forward a cassette tape in order to rewind the other side because not all cassette players had rewind buttons.
I teach primary aged kids, so I have this conversation all the time. I'm only 31 but so much from my youth seems alien to them, especially anything to do with technology.
Kim ;D
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We didn't get gas central heating till the mid 1970's and as my body is always cold it was absolute heaven! No more iced up windows on the inside. Telling our kids that, they just looked at us as if we lived in the dark ages, not realising how lucky they were.
My Mum who died in 2004 never had a modern style washing machine - she had one with a manual wringer on the top and when she couldn't manage to use that, she hand washed bedding in the sink- and she was 4 feet 9 and three quarters high!!!
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We had a black and white TV in our kitchen as late as 1985.
We had one computer for the whole school when I was at primary school in the late 1980s, but no ever used it because a) it only had one program on it and b) none of the Teachers could use it.
Having yo fast forward a cassette tape in order to rewind the other side because not all cassette players had rewind buttons.
My one techie boast is that I've been computer literate since 1966!
BUT we bought our first B&W TV in 1985 and didn't have a colour one till into 1990s.
And both OH and I had Reel-to-Reel tape-recorders - his is still working! (oh, the awful sinking feeling if you dropped a reel and it unwound itself as it merrily rolled down the room)
And then my first car (I owned one-third of it) had little semaphore things as indicators - none of your flashy mod things that lit up. If they stuck, you had to bang them hard on the inside of the car ....
eadaoin
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My dad refused to watch commercial TV, so we just had the 1 channel (BBC) until BBC2 came on air!
Then the new aerial simply HAD to pick up ITV as well! That would have been 1964/5?
Went to a neighbours to watch the 1966 on the new-fangled colour TV!
He still won't watch "commercial rubbish" or "american rubbish"!!
As for computers . . . . 5 schools in North Somerset shared a "computer". It was programmed in octal (base 8). Think I was the only one using it!!
Then I got a job working "in computers" - a job which I still do today!!
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When I was at school, a computer was someone who did calculations with paper and pencil.
The electronic version still used thermionic valves, I believe, and kept the room nice and warm ;D
Mike.
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Log tables :)
Slide Rules!!! :D
Packet of crisps for 3d ... and all of a sudden ... packet of crisps for 3p!!
Asking for "scraps" at a chip shop.
Cold winters. Snow in my wellies.
Paul
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I've still got my slide rule!
The year after I left Uni, my friend who was doing Engineering bought one of the first calculators. It cost £40 (a huge amount of money when beer at the Uni bar was 10p a pint), was in kit form and he had to assemble it himself and then it only added, subtracted, multiplied and divided. Within a few years, they were giving away calculators with 5 gallons of petrol!
Which has just reminded me of green shield stamps! They gave them away at petrol stations and other shops and you had to stick them into a book. When you had filled enough books, you could choose "free" gifts eg hair driers, watches, cutlery, lilos, toys etc. Each item had a price eg 1 1/2 books or 3/4 book - anyone else remember them? :D
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Oh yes! And I have a nasty feeling that if I rummage in a drawer......
There were also some pink ones - weren't there??
Linda
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Yes, you're right, there were pink ones too. Someone will remember what they were called..... :D
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In school, boys couldn't take cookery or needlework and girls couldn't take wood or metal work.
It wasn't considered befitting ::)
I worked using verniers, calipers and micrometers and I was computer literate by 1964 ... so there :P ;D
How times have changed ;)
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But I'll bet the computer would have filled a large school hall !
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Much like opening poster, I remember the gas lamps in the street and the lamplighter coming round with his long pole to hook the bar over and light the lamp.
Green and brown paint prevailed in closes/entries; there were only black cars and very few of them; horses delivering coal, the bag was weighed while you waited and us kids got to give the horse our apple core. ;D Most things delivered by horse and cart, even going "doon the water" our cabin trunk was transported to the Broomielaw by horse and cart!
Sugar weighed out into blue paper bags; cheese was cut by wire while you waited; butter weighed and patted into shape, the fresh/unsalted butter always had a thistle imprint. :)
We didn't have electricity at all until Mum moved to a new town in 1973, so no fancy gadgets or TV. We did have an old wind up gramaphone and an upright piano. We made our own entertainment or listened to the wireless with it's enormous battery which weighed a ton and had to be taken down town to be recharged! :P
But we were better off than those in the tenements, as we had an indoor toilet instead of a "stair heid lavvy" shared by several families and we had a bathroom with a humungous victorian bath! Water was expensive to heat so once a week baths were the order of the day.
Out in the yard we had a brick built shed with a big copper boiler with a furnace under it and two double stone sinks for "wash day" sometimes we kids got our bath in the sinks.
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Dick Barton! Journey into Space! The Goon Show! Fabulous every one ;D
Here's a taster - menu on the left
http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/radio/
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I got to lick the green shield stamps and put them in the books as a kid. No idea what we ever got with them though :)
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In the haberdashery department of our local Coop, you gave the sales assistant the money and they put it into a small cylinder with the sales chitty and then put the cylinder into a pipe. Compressed air took the cylinder to an upstairs office (I presume) where some clerk put the correct change into the cylinder and sent it back down to the sales assistant who then gave it to the customer. This system made a lot of hissing and popping noises as you can imagine and as a 6 year old, I was fascinated. I was really disappointed when they dismantled it :'( :'( ;D
This seems such a bizare system, I have wondered if I have imagined it, but I'm sure it really existed - and our divvy number was 125042
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In the haberdashery department of our local Coop, you gave the sales assistant the money and they put it into a small cylinder with the sales chitty and then put the cylinder into a pipe. Compressed air took the cylinder to an upstairs office (I presume) where some clerk put the correct change into the cylinder and sent it back down to the sales assistant who then gave it to the customer. This system made a lot of hissing and popping noises as you can imagine and as a 6 year old, I was fascinated. I was really disappointed when they dismantled it :'( :'( ;D
This seems such a bizare system, I have wondered if I have imagined it, but I'm sure it really existed - and our divvy number was 125042
No you didn't imagine it I remember it too! :D
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Thank goodness for that! :D
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Beamish Museum in the North east of England has a working cash cylinder system :)
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Our telephone at home being a party-line.....and me aged around 5 or 6 picking it up to see if anyone was using it....and then listening in to their conversation!!!
My gran never having a fridge in her life but storing her milk in a sink full of cold water.
The same gran having a spin-dryer that used to "walk" across the kitchen floor leaving a trail of water.
Piano lessons being half a crown - on decimalisation they were 12½p.
And green shield stamps - I was sometimes allowed to pick what we were going to get with them.
Our divvy number - 10697 - amazing how you remember these things!
RM :)
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Our telephone at home being a party-line.....and me aged around 5 or 6 picking it up to see if anyone was using it....and then listening in to their conversation!!!
RM :)
Oh yes, so did I :o except I was about 12 or 14 :-[ Hee hee ;D
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Can you still remember your old telephone number?
Ours was Douglas (you just dialled DOU) 7445 imagine remembering that after 50 years!! ;)
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There were also some pink ones - weren't there??
S&H Stamps I believe?
Sperry & Hutchinson were an American stamp company.
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Our telephone number was 4865......how on earth have I remembered that!!!
RM
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Scotland Yard was Whitehall 12 22
And I do remember those cylinders that would send invoices up tothe office and back again
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Can you still remember your old telephone number?
Ours was Douglas (you just dialled DOU) 7445 imagine remembering that after 50 years!! ;)
HEA (for Heaton Moor) 3753
And our first car number plate was 1606 NB.....but I don't know what my present car reg is ::)
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Water from the well, and having to remember to keep a pint to prime the pump, otherwise it wouldn't pump. Outside loo's, galvanized metal bath's hanging on the wall, gas lamps and oil lamps, remember the mantles, one touch and it was ruined. Writing on a slate at school. The first taste of honey, still in the comb, bliss. ;D
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Grandma and Granddad have lived in their house since it was built c1950 and still have the same telephone number - only now the first 2 digits are part of the number rather than the code.
Great Granddad (over here on the left) was the man in the village with the battery charger, and is noted on the map (drawn by Granddad) showing the village as it was 1935/36. It also includes the post office, village pump, pig killer, sheep shearer, 2 butchers, cobbler, the seed shop, cycle repair shed, bee keeper, fish & chip shop, public toilets, abbatoir, 2 public houses and a working men's club.
There were many more facilities then than there are now even though the village has expanded significantly.
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We've still got some of the glass tumblers we bought with a few books of Greensheild stamps in the early 70s. And some china mugs. ;D
We had big sticking nights - books of Greensheild stamps that Dad got with his petrol - and blue Coop stamps that mum got with the shopping.
I told a class of sixth form students that we didn't have videos when I was their age - and asked what they thought whe did when we had to go out when our favourite programme was on TV. The look of horror on their faces when they realised you just had to miss the programme!!
Even in the 70s my grandmother still had her outside toilet. And the coalman would deliver big sacks of coal on a horse drawn cart. And there was a man who used to come door to door with a grinder to sharpen knives.
Milly
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A weston master is what I saved up the greenshield stamps for, who uses a light meter now?
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Lighting a fire before I went out to do my morning paper round and then going to school.One of my folks still has an open fire but with central heating back up.I still prefer real flames though.
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Chopping kindling and shoveling coal into my grandparents furnace in the basement when I was a kid. We bought the house after gpa died and converted to natural gas, or I would have had a miserable teenage.
Had to laugh at an earlier poster's mention of "using WordPerfect instead of MS Word"... until I read she was 31. When I started using PCs in 1981 we used WordStar. And does anyone else remember using acoustic couplers to attach to mainframe computers (pre-Internet)?
Nick
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Our local supermarket uses the compressed air tube and cylinders system to transport money from the registers to the office.
And how many of you have begun singing along with something on the radio, only to realise your kids are watching you, gobsmacked, because you know the words to something that's "only just been released" ... and they cannot conceive of it being a re-make of a song that came out in the 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s (or, in the case of "Sukiyaki" ... possibly as early as pre-WW1).
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I had to join in. I am just having an electrical renovation in our 120 year old home.
The electrician keeps saying things like Blimey I haven't seen "real" bakerlight switches before - only replicas, and Blimey your wires are still cased in metal tubing.
Our earth stakes are star pickets.
Our electrician is about 60 and did his apprenticeship when 15. He now calls my house Noah's Arc.
MMmmmm - and I didnt think I was living in the past :o Ted
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And does anyone else remember using acoustic couplers to attach to mainframe computers (pre-Internet)?
Nick
was that in the early days of the OU, Nick? I also remember punched tape storage that went on fire, when it ran too fast.
.. and a few years later when I went to college to study computing, in the first year, we still had no screens to look at the output. It came out line-by-line on the teletype.
And the large fan-fold paper from the drop-feed printer is still useful for mapping out sketch family trees on the blank side - the programs were printed on the stripey side!
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The Goon Show on a crystal set.
Maps with arrows in the paper illustrating the war
The Eagle Comic, I had the first edition,wish I had it now
Malvern water from a pump
Dragging a bucket of water to flush the loo
A tin bath in front of the fire that burnt your bottom
No electricity or running water before 1957
and .............. our Skiffle Group (Lonnie Donegan our hero)
Making a trolley and falling off
My first girl friend
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I was brought up in Burlington Avenue which is the road one walks down to go to the National Archives at Kew. In those days a skipping rope would stretch across the road for all theg games you could think of.No cars to worry about.The street was our playground.Not now though....cars line both sides if the road.
Ringrose
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This is all making me feel very old
I remember the green shield and co-op stamps. We also had sticking nights - especially if there had been a major purchase (a washing machine or similar).
I also remember the accounting tube in Kerrs in Dartford. We had to buy my school uniform there and it was worth it to me just to see the money go whizzing across the shop.
And the first computer I ever used had a cassette (where the CD would now go) which stored the information but you could only store one A4 letter. The office was full of these cassettes. I also remember Wordstar.
And my Dad sending me to the shop to get his tobacco for him (I was about 10 years old at the time - it wouldn't work now).
And the way people complained when the seat belt law came in and we had to start using them. Also people drinking and driving and boasting about it.
I had a shock the other day when I saw somewhere a list of 'Golden Oldies' - they were songs from the 1990's.
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Going to the pub with friends from work and us all standing round the Pong machine being amazed at this new technology that allowed you to play virtual tennis in slow motion.
Mum's first automatic washing machine,a Hoover Keymatic, you put a notched plastic square in a slot instead of turning a dial to get the programme you wanted.
Having a waist.
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Had to come back about the cylinder money tube. When I was 15 I was the junior in Percy Deans in Leeds which was a car spares shop. I was in the office and had to receive the tubes when they came up from the counter downstairs, and you couldnt miss them as they made a loud bump when the landed. I had to check the invoice then give the correct change and send it all back to the guy in the shop. Those were the days.
Co-op divi for my Mum was 65274 and the London Scotland yard was Whitehall 1212. I was also an operator for the GPO (BT To the young uns)
and you had to say Number please and dial lots of cities which had not come onto the STD system.
Champion the Wonder Horse was one of my fav programmes and when TOTP came on in black and white that was a great part of my life in those days.
regards Sandy
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And the way people complained when the seat belt law came in and we had to start using them. Also people drinking and driving and boasting about it.
It was even worse when the brought in the dreaded "Breathalyser" and our local village bobby (a so called friend) tried it out my hubby one night! :o
Luckily he never drank more than a pint and only went to the pub for the darts! ;D
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the cylinder money tube.
Those pneumatic tubes are used in hospitals for sending samples to the lab (I noticed that this morning while having a blood sample taken). They also have one in Specsavers for sending things up and downstairs.
I remember horse and cart deliveries - there used to be a milkman, and a coalman using a horse and cart (not the same one!) in Preston, still going in the early '80s.
Also remember walking to school on my own, aged 6 through thick November fog. which smelled of coal smoke. Sometimes you could hear the rag and bone man calling " ...' Bone!" spookily in the distance. And the Circus coming into town once, in Lincoln, with the elephants walking down the street in a line; each one holding the tail of the one in front with its trunk. I think they came right past our house, but I might be imagining that bit.
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Having a waist.
;D ;D ;D
I was first into computers about the time you had to write your own program and store it on a 5" floppy. My cousin, a few years older than me was a comptomatrist, before computers they used punched cards.
Leonie.
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In Glasgow after the war we 'made do' with coal dust bricks made with cement dust (I think!) called coal briquettes and that's exactly what the vendor called as he trailed his horse and cart round the streets, "Coal Briquettes". :P
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Scotland Yard was Whitehall 12 22
It was actually Whitehall 12 12 :)
Do you remember the "Police Messages" they used to have before the "pips" on the Home Service? After giving details of where and when an accident occured, they would say " ... if you witnessed the accident or can give any information, please contact your nearest police station or New Scotland Yard, telephone number Whitehall 1212".
Then there were "SOS messages", also before the pips. "Would Mr and Mrs Brown from Chelmsford, thought to be touring the Lake District, please contact ...".
:)
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I was first into computers about the time you had to write your own program and store it on a 5" floppy.
I remember punched cards, punched tape
In fact I was a nerd and could read the tape by looking at it - use a tool to edit out unwanted lines,
(Should I be admitting to this)
p.s. I also remember 8" floppy disks
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I remember when my local shops, used to open at 8.00/9.00 and shut at 6.00,only the newsagents opened on Sundays,and that was half day closing.
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That reminds me - of Wednesday one - half day closing on a Wednesday. And closed on Sundays and Easter Friday/Good Friday. And bank holidays as well.
(Why is it called Good Friday ???)
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Commencing CSE Typewriting in 1973 - typewriters in hidden in desks (similar to Singer treadle sewing machines). Home keys - a s d f ;lkj. I was terrified of using an electric typewriter, then a golf ball. After that the Olivetti memory machines - first 32k, then (wow!) 64k and daisy wheels! ::)
Tipple
:)
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My classroom had one of the giant chalk boards that you rolled round, no Interactive white boards or plastic white wipe-clean numbers.
We didn't even have that, our teachers had a blackboard and easel, which they cleaned with a brick shaped board cleaner. One teacher used to lob it at the boys when they misbehaved. Everyone thought it quite funny, nowadays the poor teacher would be hauled in front of a court for child abuse.
Can you still remember your old telephone number?
Altrincham 1072. It must have been about 1946, we had a shop so the telephone company had to ask my mother's permission to change our line into a party line. I think she got a reduced rent for agreeing. Next one when we moved into our first house in 1954 was Ringway 3050. Funny, I can't remember the telephone number we had 2000-2005 in our last house :o
And my Dad sending me to the shop to get his tobacco for him (I was about 10 years old at the time - it wouldn't work now).
I used to get them from the off-licence when I was about 10 (for my parents, I don't and never have smoked). Imagine a 10 year old going into an off-licence where drink was available and buying cigarettes and no-one thinking it was anything but normal.
Top of the list of things I wish we'd had when I was young, has to be a mobile phone. Imagine being able to ring or receive a call from, a boyfriend without your parents listening in on an extension. Or getting a text rather than a letter which your mother had already opened when you got home from school/work. When I'm out and about the people I envy most are the young, not because of their youth necessarily, but all the opportunities they have today for education and travel.
Lizzie
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How about at school using the school pens which were a metal nib on a long piece of wood and you dipped it in the ink well? Was always a hassle to get a pen that hadn't got a bent nib
Also when lering to write using the books that were full of close lines - bit like music score without the musical pieces - and lines and lines of the same letters until you could do them without the lines. I can even remember sitting at the kitchen table having to practice when all I wanted to do was go and play outside. :-\
Jean
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We used to get sent to the shop for "mum's cigarettes" when we were very young too. ;D
The thing I hated most though was having to go to the corner shop for potatoes. They were kept in a big Tack and we had to rummage around to find ones all the right size. They were always dirty and sometimes there would be a mushy smelly one in there. Yeuch. I suppose its all the rage now and would probably be called organic and twice the price ;D
And that has just reminded me - in the early 70s we also used to get sent to "town" to go the British Home Stores to buy Grandma's bacon and cheese. It was the only place she would buy it from. She always had crumbly white Leicester cheese - and by the time we got home we would usually have eaten half of it! They don't have a deli counter at BHS any more - it would seem a very odd place to buy bacon and cheese from these days
Milly
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Oh yes, I remember those pens, Jean, I was always in trouble for getting ink blots all over my work and ink on my fingers. ::)
Lizzie
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Also when lering to write using the books that were full of close lines - bit like music score without the musical pieces - and lines and lines of the same letters until you could do them without the lines. I can even remember sitting at the kitchen table having to practice when all I wanted to do was go and play outside. :-\
Jean
We used to have that too. And my writing was always so terrible my mother used to make me copy out poems every day. can't imagine getting a child to sit and do that these days. Not that it seems to have done much for my handdwriting of course
Milly
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My OH grew up on a dairy farm on the mid-north coast of NSW ... they used to get bread deliveries, in a special box or container (an old milk churn, perhaps) mounted next to the letterbox, and it was OH's job to ride his bike to the gate and retrieve the bread.
The loaves were the old-fashioned double ones ... many's the time OH's mother went to cut into a "fresh" loaf, only to discover that the two crowns of the loaf had been carefully separated, and the still-warm bread had vanished from inside. All that was left of the middle of the loaf ... was the crust!
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Must have been 1987. Went with Dad one morning on the bus from Angmering to his solicitor in Rustington (both of these in W.Sussex). Got back about 2:00.The solicitor's letter comfirming letter was on the mat! And I dont think the post man was on the bus.
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Loose biscuits in large tin boxes, which were weighed out into a paper bag.
Mike.
And broken biscuits much cheaper!
meles
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In the haberdashery department of our local Coop, you gave the sales assistant the money and they put it into a small cylinder with the sales chitty and then put the cylinder into a pipe. Compressed air took the cylinder to an upstairs office (I presume) where some clerk put the correct change into the cylinder and sent it back down to the sales assistant who then gave it to the customer. This system made a lot of hissing and popping noises as you can imagine and as a 6 year old, I was fascinated. I was really disappointed when they dismantled it :'( :'( ;D
This seems such a bizare system, I have wondered if I have imagined it, but I'm sure it really existed - and our divvy number was 125042
Remember that sooo well.
Dad insisted I spent my pocket money at the Co-op, so we got the divi.
Many years later, I had to arrange his funeral. All things settled, the lady asked, "This is a little embarrassing, but are you members?" "Of what?", I asked, confused. "The Co-op", she replied, "we are Co-op undertakers." I could still remember the number after all those years of training.
So Dad got his divi for his own funeral. He would have been delighted! ;D
meles
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Obviously all that early training led you subconsciously to the Co-op undertakers meles.
I can just picture your Dad on his cloud saying 'That's my boy!' :)
Linda
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In the haberdashery department of our local Coop, you gave the sales assistant the money and they put it into a small cylinder with the sales chitty and then put the cylinder into a pipe. Compressed air took the cylinder to an upstairs office (I presume) where some clerk put the correct change into the cylinder and sent it back down to the sales assistant who then gave it to the customer. This system made a lot of hissing and popping noises as you can imagine and as a 6 year old, I was fascinated. I was really disappointed when they dismantled it :'( :'( ;D
Anyone remember the other sort of cash carriers that raced around the shop on overhead wires?
Jan ;)
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Oh yes!
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Went to Beamish museum many years ago and they had a gravity system.
Wooden spheres that opened up to take the money, then rolled down a track to the cashier. They were still working on getting the spheres back again!
Linda
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Three-digit telephone numbers. :)
Paul
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Three-digit telephone numbers. :)
Paul
My grandad had one of those, and a sign outside his shop saying, "You May Telephone From Here" :)
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Three-digit telephone numbers. :)
Paul
Ooh yes - ours was Markyate 528 :)
(and it was a party-line)
Jan ;)
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Aaaaah.................memories........................ :D
TV: turning it on via the set (no remote control)
waiting for it to warm up
2 channels
no daytime tv - just the little girl with the blackboard and scary clown
after the National Anthem at around 10pm (!) waiting for the little white dot
to disappear before turning it off
Typewriters: learning to touch-type on a medieval heavy/clunky machine.
("tabulations"!)
then golfball
then "word processors" where one line of type showed on a
display that you could correct errors on
carbon paper
Telex machines: (think Match of the Day sport results click-clacking across the
screen)
Gestetner machines: in my early working days in hospitality, used to type
restaurant menus from typewriter onto paper, then place
it into a Gestetner - basically wrapping the paper around
a drum and turning the handle which would print the
menu off onto pre-loaded card at the bottom of the
machine.
and I could go on..... ;D
Great thread!
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Must have been 1987. Went with Dad one morning on the bus from Angmering to his solicitor in Rustington (both of these in W.Sussex). Got back about 2:00.The solicitor's letter comfirming letter was on the mat! And I dont think the post man was on the bus.
We got our first and only post of the day today at 3.35pm ::)
Lizzie
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Anyone remember the fire sirens going off. We used to stand in the street and watch the firemen racing in to the fire station on their bikes. They were usually fit young men employed locally.
Policemen used to have whistles and there used to be little blue boxes on poles with a telephone in for them to call the station for assistance.
Sue
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Hi, this post has really taken me back (farther than I want to admit to really) :-[
I lived in a 2 up/ 2 down terraced house with my Mum, Dad and 4 siblings.
It had all the other conveniences of life in the late forties, i.e. toilet up the yard and shared by other families. Not too much to eat either, a lot of the time.
But what I remember most of all in those hard-up days, was the excitment generated when my Mum said that the Gas man was coming to the House.
The reason for the excitment was that we had a Gas Meter into which money had to be pumped to allow us the Gas supply and the Gas man was coming to empty the Gas Meter.
He used to tip all the contents of the Meter onto a newspaper spread on the Kitchen Table, count up what was owed for the Gas used and leave the rest for my Mum.
After the Gas man was gone, Mum used to give us kids enough to go and buy sweets and maybe a comic.
A fleeting memory of being rich for a few magical moments.
Barbara.
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Does anyone remember buying cooked meet and cheese from Woolworths? (of all places!)
RM :)
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Does anyone remember buying cooked meet and cheese from Woolworths? (of all places!)
RM :)
Yes and they had great cheese! ;D
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Being saluted by the AA man on his motor cycle when he saw the AA badge on the front of my parent's car.
Trolley buses on the A6 south of Manchester.
The paraffin heater (remember the smell?) used to heat the icy cold bathroom in winter - and we children were allowed to light it! No 'elf and safety' malarky then.
The horse drawn 'rag and bone' cart with the donkey stone for doing the front step.
Carcasses of animals hanging next to the queue in the butcher's shop.
The first supermarket to arrive in Hazel Grove (mum didn't abandon her local shops though - we still phoned with the grocery order and it was delivered asap).
And my great feeling of unfairness when the Corona door to door delivery van came down our road and my mother wouldn't allow us to buy from him when he stopped to deliver to the next door neighbour! (However I still have all my own teeth so she had a valid point!).
And seeing a farmer broadcasting seed by hand when we lived in North Yorkshire in the late 1980s.
Nell
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Sawdust on the floor of our local Co-op shop.
Can't imagine that these days. ::)
Remembering with such fondness,my two brothers making a go-cart
from orange boxes,whizzing down the hill,
the only brakes were their shoes. ::)
Going to the park with my friends,and our dolls prams,
with a picnic of jam sandwiches and a bottle of water,which we used to fill up
from the park taps.Staying out all day.
Having to sit next to a girl at school who had nits,(Shame)
she had to have her head shaved,so she wore a woolly hat,tied underneath her chin.
She must have been hot,no wonder she had a red face.
Playing in the churchyard amongst the graves,playing cowboy and indians,
although I was a girl,I loved playing the boys games,you could tell I had two brothers.
Love this thread, and what lovely stories from other Rootschatters.
Bennett
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Building our own bonfires and lighting them.Setting off our own fireworks and chucking bangers at each other.Being allowed to stay on when the adults had gone and the fire had died down so we could all stick a spud in the embers.Elf and safety would have had fits.
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Aaaaah.................memories........................ :D
TV: turning it on via the set (no remote control)
waiting for it to warm up
2 channels
no daytime tv - just the little girl with the blackboard and scary clown
after the National Anthem at around 10pm (!) waiting for the little white dot
to disappear before turning it off
Typewriters: learning to touch-type on a medieval heavy/clunky machine.
("tabulations"!)
then golfball
then "word processors" where one line of type showed on a
display that you could correct errors on
carbon paper
Telex machines: (think Match of the Day sport results click-clacking across the
screen)
Gestetner machines: in my early working days in hospitality, used to type
restaurant menus from typewriter onto paper, then place
it into a Gestetner - basically wrapping the paper around
a drum and turning the handle which would print the
menu off onto pre-loaded card at the bottom of the
machine.
and I could go on..... ;D
Great thread!
Yes, I remember all of these things. And telex machines - Cheetah or Puma. An early version of email I suspect
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Yes I remember all those ^^^ too! Although I had forgotten about Gestetner copiers til you mentioned it! They worked by typing onto the special paper (which was actually very thin wax) on a typewriter with no ribbon so that the keys cut little stencils of each letter! If you made a mistake you had a little bottle of liquid waxy stuff to paint over the error so you could re-type that letter once it had dried. The waxy liquid was a fluorescent pinky/orange colour I recall :)
When I first started working as a secretary for a solicitor we used to have 'live' conversations over the telex machine between the London and Reading offices. Normal practice was to type your message offline and cut a ticker tape so that once the message was finished you could transmit it faster than normal typing. I remember loving the live conversations - my first experience of Instant Messaging! (this was in about 1981).
Oh the revelation of being allowed to type Board Meeting minutes on the senior secretary's word processor once a month! Saved so much time and stress as typing on special quality foolscap paper and taking several carbon copies without making any typos was horrible :'( The machine was an ICL8801, a huge monster built into its own special desk that was about a yard and a half wide!
Office workers today don't know they're born! ;) But then again in those days your work wouldn't be stopped for two days by a computer virus >:(
Heather
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Yes I remember all those ^^^ too! Although I had forgotten about Gestetner copiers til you mentioned it! They worked by typing onto the special paper (which was actually very thin wax) on a typewriter with no ribbon so that the keys cut little stencils of each letter! If you made a mistake you had a little bottle of liquid waxy stuff to paint over the error so you could re-type that letter once it had dried. The waxy liquid was a fluorescent pinky/orange colour I recall :)
When I first started working as a secretary for a solicitor we used to have 'live' conversations over the telex machine between the London and Reading offices. Normal practice was to type your message offline and cut a ticker tape so that once the message was finished you could transmit it faster than normal typing. I remember loving the live conversations - my first experience of Instant Messaging! (this was in about 1981).
Oh the revelation of being allowed to type Board Meeting minutes on the senior secretary's word processor once a month! Saved so much time and stress as typing on special quality foolscap paper and taking several carbon copies without making any typos was horrible :'( The machine was an ICL8801, a huge monster built into its own special desk that was about a yard and a half wide!
Office workers today don't know they're born! ;) But then again in those days your work wouldn't be stopped for two days by a computer virus >:(
Heather
Oh, the good old days ;D ;D
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Gestetner machines: in my early working days in hospitality, used to type
restaurant menus from typewriter onto paper, then place
it into a Gestetner - basically wrapping the paper around
a drum and turning the handle which would print the
menu off onto pre-loaded card at the bottom of the
machine.
Thank you,my husband was trying to remember what they were called :)
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I remember my brothers & myself having loads of fun with my nanny's gramophone! Winding it up was great fun when the old 78 rpm record was slowing down!! Then 45's, 33's. Since then it's been record players,huge tape recorders, radiograms, stereograms, surround sound. Then the smaller tape decks, transistor radios, boomboxes, TV, then video, then CD's, now DVD's. And there's probably quite a few I've missed out! ::)
And now something new nearly every day in the computer and digital world, business and personal communication, entertainment! Help!! Can't keep up!
Wonder often what my Grandma would have to say! She couldn't cope with the idea of my dishwasher in the 70's (she was in her nineties) - told her sisters I had a magic cupboard! I suppose to her it WAS magic!! hehe
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I love the idea of the Magic Cupboard ;D
I guess our ancestors from a few generations back would see most of our kitchen appliances in the same way . . . Cooker, Fridge, Washing Machine . . .
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Had to laugh at an earlier poster's mention of "using WordPerfect instead of MS Word"... until I read she was 31. When I started using PCs in 1981 we used WordStar. And does anyone else remember using acoustic couplers to attach to mainframe computers (pre-Internet)?
Nick
Must admit I did chuckle too (Sorry!) Although it was the 1996 mobile phone being compared to a brick that did make me smile - I remember my mobile phone in 1996 was positively svelt compared to the phones of the '80s!
Yes I remember WordStar too, all those ruddy dot commands!
And before the internet, how we used to look things up in books - when we were kids we were really fortunate, thanks to my mum, to have what was probably the equivalent of the internet - the Encyclopaedia Britannica, so we actually had to read stuff rather than copying and pasting as my students usually would. Sigh!
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I remember the freedom from worry..... after school my kids went out to play and came home at tea time. I had a fair idea of where they were, I only had to call from the back door and if they weren't within hearing distance someone was and would pass on the call, "Yer Mum's calling you lot." My kids had a freedom that their kids don't have and their kids can't believe that.
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I remember my brothers & myself having loads of fun with my nanny's gramophone! Winding it up was great fun when the old 78 rpm record was slowing down!! Then 45's, 33's. Since then it's been record players,huge tape recorders, radiograms, stereograms, surround sound. Then the smaller tape decks, transistor radios, boomboxes, TV, then video, then CD's, now DVD's. And there's probably quite a few I've missed out! ::)
I remember BetaMax! ;D And that huge Philips disk video system ::)
meles
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What about those huge floppy discs?? And the early computers?
In my twenties I worked in the first bank in NZ to trial main frame computers. Took a whole new dust free building to hold the thing. The branch I worked in was one of several local pilot branches - hooked in by telephone.
Couriers still had to come around at end of each day and collect the actual transaction documentation (cheques, deposit slips etc) although these were encoded at each branch, and of course we had to balance up each batch before it could leave the office. The teller's cash had to balance with it as well before all the stuff could leave the branch! Led to some great overtime and tea money (another thing of the past methinks!! ;D ;D
The next morning it all came back, manual settlement/transfer of other banks cheques, so running all around the 5 different banks in the town - and then we still had to post the transactions to the customer statements in the ledger as usual. Great huge noisy Burroughs book keeping machines clanking away all day. (I just remembered those LOL)
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Proper wage packets -
small, square brown envelopes with actual money inside them ;D
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Ah yes!
One of my early computer programs was calculating how many notes and coins of each denomination to pay out!
And given that there were some minimums, too! I.E. wage packets had to have at least 2 £1 notes.
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£1 notes!!!
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Still available in the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey!
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Still available in the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey!
Ooh - i didn't know that - how interesting.
Talking of payslips - I am already nostalgic for the normal printed on paper payslips we had only a few years ago instead of these really annoying ones where you have to tear off all the edges to open them and get left with a tiny scrap of paper in the middle!
Milly
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Talking of payslips - I am already nostalgic for the normal printed on paper payslips we had only a few years ago instead of these really annoying ones where you have to tear off all the edges to open them and get left with a tiny scrap of paper in the middle!
Milly
Bit like take-home pay these days: they tear off all the 'edges' with regard to tax, NI contributions, pension, and you're left with a tiny scrap :o :o :o ;D
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Still available in the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey!
Ooh - i didn't know that - how interesting.
Talking of payslips - I am already nostalgic for the normal printed on paper payslips we had only a few years ago instead of these really annoying ones where you have to tear off all the edges to open them and get left with a tiny scrap of paper in the middle!
Milly
The days of paper payslips are numbered altogether. Our company's had online electronic payslips for Irish employees for 3 years and for the UK for two years now - as long as you can remember your password it's a fantastic system ;) :P
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Talking of payslips - I am already nostalgic for the normal printed on paper payslips we had only a few years ago instead of these really annoying ones where you have to tear off all the edges to open them and get left with a tiny scrap of paper in the middle!
Milly
Bit like take-home pay these days: they tear off all the 'edges' with regard to tax, NI contributions, pension, and you're left with a tiny scrap :o :o :o ;D
oh how true ;D ;D ;D
Milly
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Going back to the telex machines, I was in the WRAC in the early 1960's working as a SigCen Operator. We would type out a message on the teleprinter which would come out of another machine that was attached to the printer called a reperforator, as a long tape with holes in it with the message in words along the bottom - you could see if there were any mistakes before sending it on to the addressee.
Messages would then be sent round the world to other army signal centres using a reperforator, when a message came in, again it would be on tape. You then threaded this tape through the reperf and it translated the holes in the tape to words on onto paper which could be passed to however it was addressed to.
We used to look forward to Christmas when messages came from places like Singapore and Hong Kong which when printed out the paper could be as much as two or three feet long.
All you could see as it was printing would be a series of X's with occasional other letters but when the message finished the paper would be held up lengthways to see Santa and his reindeer and under neath would be the message "Greetings from ......(name of the sigcen who sent it)
Jean
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I remember not so long ago that if you discreetly mentioned to a young lady that her bra strap was showing, she would look embarrassed.
:o :o :o :o
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All you could see as it was printing would be a series of X's with occasional other letters but when the message finished the paper would be held up lengthways to see Santa and his reindeer and under neath would be the message "Greetings from ......(name of the sigcen who sent it)
Jean
That reminds me of a school fair in the early 1970s when you could go into the computer room (only one computer in there that filled the entire room, loads of huge cabinets and only teachers or sixth formers allowed in normally) and buy a three page print-out of a picture of either Snoopy or Andy Capp made up of mainly X's. It's called ASCII Art :)
Heather
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Big clunky glass type needle delivering a very painful dose of penicillin in the backside where the large lump left remained hard and painful, it seemed for ever.
When I worked in a bank, females were not allowed to be tellers or ledger keepers, only typists. Because there was a shortage of males ( they could earn double the money working for the mines) I was allowed to be a ledgerkeeper ( I had a high school matriculation, the only one on the staff). I was not allowed to sit down but had to stand at a high desk (all day) with pen and nib and inkwell and blotter and huge ledgers. Ball point pens were coming on the market but could not be used in the bank, so they reckon, because they smudged in the hot weather. We had an adding machine which could not be trusted as it often threw the total out by 10/-.
Like all women, I had had to resign at marriage but not the men. Thems were the days.
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I didn't have to resign when I got married, but I got sacked when I was 4 months pregnant. No reason given.
That's impossible now.
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All you could see as it was printing would be a series of X's with occasional other letters but when the message finished the paper would be held up lengthways to see Santa and his reindeer and under neath would be the message "Greetings from ......(name of the sigcen who sent it)
Jean
That reminds me of a school fair in the early 1970s when you could go into the computer room (only one computer in there that filled the entire room, loads of huge cabinets and only teachers or sixth formers allowed in normally) and buy a three page print-out of a picture of either Snoopy or Andy Capp made up of mainly X's. It's called ASCII Art :)
Heather
I thought it had a name. I do remember there was one piucture of Abraham Lincioln which was quite good although I couldn't think how the X's for beard was darker than all the others. Must have taken ages to do these pictures especially the ones that went sideways on the sheet.
Jean
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Could anyone ever draw anything half decent with one of these.
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I left school in 1962 - What was a computer. They even waited 2 years after I left school to get a TV in. How dare they lol!!!!!!!!!!
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I was absolutely useless with Etch-a-sketch! Couldn't master Spirograph either ;D :D ::)
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Oooh spirograph I loved that, in fact I'm fairly sure we still have some miniature ones kicking around as we included them in our wedding favours.
I don't recall ever being able to draw anything decent with my Etch-a-sketch, still kept me busy for hours though. Both my dad and his younger brother were pretty dab hands with it, I just didn't have the patience to go slowly enough.
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When I worked in the bank in the 1960's, male staff were able to get a mortgage loan on their home. Currrent bank interest rates at the time were 7%. Staff rates 4%!! My husband and myself were buying our first property! Was I permitted to have a staff rate mortgage?? NO!!! Not for females!! I had worked there for 10 years and had a good position!!! And my husband had his own successful business!! But no - nuffin!!
(Interesting that mortage rates at that time in NZ were going between 6-1/2% & 8%, depending on the amount borrowed, and the amount of deposit was quite high. 2nd mortgages were very popular in those days, shorter terms and higher interest, but most people required them, as the cap on the first mortgages didn't usually cut it for first home buyers.
Higher positions for women were just starting but still battling to be accepted, although salaries were still abysmally lower than those of the men.
Pregnancy wasn't a problem (as long as one was married of course ::), and I continued to work up until 1 month before my 1st child was due. (And I wasn't a back room gal) ;D ;D so didn't have to stay hidden!
Jeanne
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1 What about waiting in anticipation each week for the Bunty, Judy and School friend comics 'ooh the excitement'
2. Listening to Radio Luxenburg late on Sunday night to hear Elvis, Little Richard etc with ear pressed close to radio so that parents could not hear, as such artists were deemed demonic
3.Watching the Almo Cogan show on the only TV that was owned by the wealthiest member of a village of 17 houses and allowed all to attend, checking out the number of times she changed her dress
4. Student nurses spending hours in the sluice cleaning metal bedpans with a brush and folding swabs and bandages which were packed into drums to be sent for autoclaving (sterilisation)
5. Arriving home from school soaked to the skin, having walked 3 miles, (very few car owning families and no rural buses then) being greeted by a lovely Mam, a big coal fire in the range and the delightful smell of a stew for dinner
Were most things better then ? (apart from the experiences of student nurses) I believe so, or is this just the nostalgic ravings of an ageing person who has not moved with the times ?
Brennan1
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Without wanting to be controversial, and I do understand why, but I think that a lot has been lost without stay-at-home mums! :(
At the same time, I can see where some kids can fare much better in day care - in terms of loving care and safety! Don't shoot me please!!
Jeanne
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Not shooting you Jeanne I more or less agree. ;D
Difficulty was always with mens wages being so low post war that women had to work (at a pittance compared to men!) to keep a roof over heads and food on the table, though a lot did part-time so they were there for children coming out of school.
My mum was divorced so we were pretty much brought up by my gran as mum worked full-time as a nurse from I was about 7. I didn't miss out on mum not being there because my gran was a great substitute. She never locked her doors until after the war .......... the war changed a lot of things for the worse!
I think it's a combination of factors, working mums being just one of them, loss of community/family childcare due to wholesale rebuilding of areas in cities in the 60/70's, families split over the country for work etc., less involvement with neighbours and much less community spirit. There's a sort of selfishness or greed crept in post 80's which has added to that, to produce the society we have today.
I would not like to be raising a family nowadays that's for sure! ;)
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'Way back when (I think I've mentioned this elsewhere, before? - it was in the early 70s!) I wanted to be a vet. However at that time, female vets weren't allowed to operate unless there was a male vet in attendance, ... and obviously, female vets weren't allowed to have their own practise ::)
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I have also mentioned this somewhere on here before.In the mid 1960s when i was about 8yr old we moved house using a horse and cart,the furniture was tied on with ropes.I can't remember how many times we went back and forth but it was only a short distance away.People didn't have as much 'stuff' to shift then but it still seems funny to me now.
Steve
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The lovely sound of the clickety-clack of the typewriter keys, and the "ping" of the carriage return lever ;D
This always make me smile: http://youtu.be/g2LJ1i7222c
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I remember a window cleaner with his ladder and bucket on a handcart, and another on a bicycle with the ladder on a little sidecar
And I expect someone's already mentioned the Milkman and Coalman with their horse and cart
Mike
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Washday before my Mum had a washing machine.
She was up early,to start the fire going to boil the water in the copper.
We had a wash house at the bottom of the garden.
In would go all the whites,then she would have to take them out and run them under the cold water tap
in a huge sink.
Then out would come the Reckitts blue bag to be added to the rinsing water.
Then put through the MANGLE,it was huge.
The washing was hung out on the line,blowing in the wind,and spotless.
I always had snow white socks,compared to other kids in the street who had dirty grey ones.
My dear Mum worked hard in those days.
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I was trying to explain to my children about some old family friends and their version of colour TV.
It was a black and white TV with a see through but coloured plastic cover over the screen. For some reason their cover was orange at the top graduating down to clear at the bottom. They were using this right up until their deaths in the late 1980's.
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Ooooh, sister-in-law's family had something similar, Pebbles; - but theirs was bright blue at the top, clear in the middle, and virulent green at the bottom. Looked decidedly weird if anything Australian or "wild west" was on telly - since when is red dust bright green?
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I fortunately don't remember many of these adverts but....... they seem impossible now (or at least people would think they were a joke)
http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/2011/06/vintage-ad-sexism/
Milly
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Sometimes, these days, I think some women try to undermine men. They do it in a jokey, eyes-rolled kind of way in order to prove their supposed superiority.
It doesn't always sit comfortably with me - both genders have their strengths and their weaknesses, and I've always felt we ought to accept and celebrate those differences.
And then I look back at these adverts, some of which were around when I was a young woman, and I think............................
nah, stuff it - it's payback time! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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LOL ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Helping Mum wash clothes using dolly tub, mangle and of course the useful copper that gave you an electric shock if you touched it and the draining board at the same time.
The outside loo when visiting Grandparents with newspaper, rather than proper loo paper, not to mention the earth loo when we visited farming relatives out in the country.
Gas lighting in the caravan when we went on holiday - such fun preparing a new mantle - you sort of had to burn it first. And of course going to the toilet block for baths and the toilet.
Steam trains - particularly when going on holiday - they made lovely noises; but when we got to Yarmouth or wherever, the first thing my Mum did was wash our clothes - they were grimy with soot.
The first fridge we bought was in 1969 - as the new house we had moved to didn't have a pantry. It was a gas fridge - very good and very cheap to run.
The bakelite radio when I was small - and listening to the Navy Lark, and the Billy Cotton Show on Sunday - and Workers' Playtime during the week.
Oh yes, the interminable queues at Liptons, and collecting the divi, and the butchers van that came twice a week, so Mum didn't have to go into town to shop for everything.
And with no central heating, and no double glazing - how cold it was in winter.
Derby Girl
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And with no central heating, and no double glazing - how cold it was in winter.
It meant beautiful frost patterns on the inside of the windows though :D
Jan ;)
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Remember scratching the ice patterns with your nails and the screechy, scrappy sound. That sound still puts my teeth on edge! ;D
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It was a gas fridge - very good and very cheap to run.
Derby Girl
We had one of those, brilliant piece of equipment. Kept the kitchen warm to come down to in the morning, my mother used to put the socks in the top to air them, at least we started out in the mornings with warm feet.If you werer up early enough, put the gloves and scarves in to warm. Look at the price of these though, [LPG mind];http://www.jacksons-camping.co.uk/cool/gasmains.htm
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wow - expensive - mind you, I didn't realise they were still made. The one I bought when I set up home myself was a reconditioned one from the gas showrooms and cost, I think, £60. It worked very well, and was a lot quieter than the electric one which replaced it.
And I forgot - no-one has mentioned old money. On long bus journeys we used to look through our purses and have a small competition on who had the oldest penny - some of them were very early Victoria.
Derby Girl
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I knew someone who converted one of those old gas fridges to electric . . . using a 25 Watt soldering iron element! . . . he ended up with a very economical fridge . . . 8)
He was an electrician by trade, so please don't try this at home ;)
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I remember my father being consoled by an old Aunt, I was being held up to look at a shiny thing that reflected my face. The shiny thing was attached to a big wooden box.
I later found out that this was the funeral of my sister who died in 1944 - so I was only four years old. I could also tell my Mum that my other sister who also died in 1944 had a blue dressing gown and I saw her on the stairs. My brother died in 1942 yet I knew that he was in a bed in the downstairs front room, I was only two!
The facts were confirmed by my Mum when I was of an age to ask about the brothers and sisters who were buried in the churchyard.
I have been told that true memory doesn't start until about 4 years.
Mike
(Stilll sad at the these losses after all these years)
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Hi,
Does anyone remember the "camping coaches" at Abergele, North Wales - it was the only holiday we could afford ::) I seem to recall that we sent a trunk containing our clothes in advance by train and we collected it from Abergele Station! The beach was awful though - all stony!
Tipple
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It still is (unless the tide is completey out)
;D
Milly
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I remember punched cards, punched tape
In fact I was a nerd and could read the tape by looking at it - use a tool to edit out unwanted lines,
p.s. I also remember 8" floppy disks
I was ambidextrous with a hand punch. You needed to change hands after a hundred cards or so. Rebuilt a punch I found rusting away, and vowed never again! You have to align 12 precision punches at the same time, against spring pressure.
8" disks? I used both hard sector and soft sector versions - as late as 1998!
school pens which were a metal nib on a long piece of wood and you dipped it in the ink well? Was always a hassle to get a pen that hadn't got a bent nib
Also when lering to write using the books that were full of close lines - bit like music score without the musical pieces - and lines and lines of the same letters until you could do them without the lines.
I was Ink Monitor for a time. We used a shade which nobody else would touch!
I recently found a reference to a book of handwriting samples published by a distant cousin who was Writing Master at Ackworth from 1779 to 1821. I wonder if it was still in use in my day? There was certainly something along those lines!
I love the idea of the Magic Cupboard
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Arthur C Clarke, 1961.
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I remember watching the bombers stacking up in the evening sky, ready to go on a raid. I was nearly 3 when the War ended.
When we lived in York, the school where OH worked had several computers (early '80s) He used to bring one home during the holidays. If you wanted to play a game, the program was on a tape cassette which you had to switch on so that it co-ordinated with the computer.
I remember taking the accumulator to be recharged. It was very heavy. My grandma's house still had gaslights when I was a child, and in the mid '60s when I was at college in Saffron Walden, there were gaslights in one particular street.
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A couple of days ago, I took my young grandson to the shops. As used to happen when I was a child in the late 1940s, my kids in the 1970s and with my older grandkids in the late 1980s, we went to the newsagent to buy a comic (magazine) as a treat. In 2011 there are no comics. Instead he spied a pencil case with an embedded solar calculator. He was happy as no doubt were the rest of us in our time.
Gazania
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Remembering
Did anyone else have a set of Sunday best clothes ?
Having to wear a hat and gloves if we went out on Sundays even when very young .
We got Green shield stamps for wedding presents in the way couples would be given gift cards now.
Having to learn how to use a fridge and freezer in our first house after I got married as my Mum has never had either.
My husband having a car phone fitted to his company car, and it looked exactly like a house phone !
Using a teabag to make a cuppa for the first time!
Travelling on trains with corridors. They were great if you were lucky enough to get an empty compartment but when it was busy....!!
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I had a set of Sunday best clothes - and best shoes.
These later became school shoes and then play shoes. By the time they got to play shoes they were probably two sizes too small.
I also remember trying to show my mum how to use a twin-tub because she hadn't seen one before. Before that it was the mangle. This would have been in the 70's.
Rishile
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This has also got me thinking about sounds you no longer hear - for example
The 'ping' of the typewriter carriage
The 'pips' when the money was running out on the public telephone
The 'beeeeeeeb' when the TV was closing down for the night
Ticking of old grandfather clocks
Whistling kettles
Rishile
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I still remember the fire brigade being called out via the old air-raid siren!
At least everyone in the town knew why some people were rushing around. ;D
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I still remember the fire brigade being called out via the old air-raid siren!
At least everyone in the town knew why some people were rushing around. ;D
Oh such memories. We lived on a farm on the edge of the village and all the farm hands were retained firemen so we often suddenly saw them down tools and run. As children we knew to run down to the fence and we could see the fire engine go past. Thanks to the innocence of youth, we didn't relaise the implications of the fire engine being called out.
Pebs
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I have been chatting online with some former classmates from infant and junior school (so from age 5-10 or 11 and between about 1968 - 74) - and along the walk down memory lane a few have mentioned the various punishments we had...
Cane on the hand (aged about 8
Hit with a slipper (from age 5 upwards)
...and one I had always wondered whether it was an idle threat or an urban myth... has now been confirmed as true... washing your mouth out with soap and water!!
Can't see that happening these days!
Milly
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I can remember the blackboard rubber being thrown across the class room!
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My dad still has his whistling kettle!
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Being saluted by the AA man on his motor cycle when he saw the AA badge on the front of my parent's car.
This brought a memory back.
As a very fresh recruit in the RAF, I saluted who I thought, was a visiting foriegn officer to the unit. How wrong was I. A voice screamed out, "Airman since when do you salute a b!"££$% AA man". Shortly afterwards I saw him driving off the unit on his yellow and black motor bike and side car.
Back to the forum: I remember the old Iron monger calling on the houses with his peddle driven grinding stone to sharpen the Knives, on the back of his cart. Also memories of my blue tin peddle car and the chewing gum with the American civil war picture cards, which we used to swop in the school playground.
Happy days
Schooner
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I can remember the blackboard rubber being thrown across the class room!
This has reminded me of a jibe that was planned in my class at grammar school. Each pupil was to collect a piece of blackboard chalk and keep it handy.
One particular teacher used to throw his chalk at someone who was not paying attention, so it was decided to set him up (and I deny any involvement ;) ).
I removed All but one piece of chalk was removed from the blackboard tray before the lesson started, and when the inevitable piece of chalk was thrown at a victim, the teacher had no more chalk and asked for the chalk to be given back ::) :) ;D ;D ;D
He had a good sense of humour, fortunately :D
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:o
I remember the flying piece of chalk, too! We had one teacher whose aim was so good, he was referred to as "Hawkeye", - he could even use the back wall to ricochet the chalk and ping his target in the back of the head!
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Can you recall in days long past
When food was fresh and wasn't fast,
When traffic drove at half the speed
And nothing bought you didn't need.
When milk came home fresh from the cow,
Not pasteurised like it is now.
The milk drunk now could not surpass
That which the day before was grass.
Bill.
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One thing I was certainly glad to see the back of.....
the horrible rubber mask for anaesthetic at the dentist. I only have to think of it and I can smell that awful smell!
Whenever I was 'put under' I used to have the same dream, that I was in the dentist chair floating up to the ceiling and just as I was about to hit the corner of the room I'd come round.
Gives me the shivers just thinking about it.
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One of my earliest memories was of my mother holding me up at our bedroom window in Bromley watching the glow in the sky as the Crystal Palace burned, that was November 30th 1936.
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I suspect I have gone full cycle, I started off by explaining that a disk pack (1970's) was a bit like the record stacka in a juke box, then in the 90's I had to explain a juke box by saying it was like a disk pack, and now both of them are unknown. I was also shocked last year to discover that audio cassettes are no longer available (when trying to restock my car's cassette player). I remember milk being served in jugs from milk churns in the street and the "pig man" collecting kitchen scraps each week in exchange for a joint of pork at Christmas.
I remember when Stone Henge was just a pile of stones at the side of the road with a layby for parking while wandering/wondering around them.
Petrol at 25p a gallon (5/- in 1967)
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I remember the petrol at 5/- a gallon.
I had a Honda Sport 50 cc motor-cycle and one gallon would just fill the tank whenever I got down to "reserve" level.
I also remember a ration book for that bike (that I probably still have somewhere). It was due to an incident in the middle east (atound 1967-68?) I think but no longer recall the actual circumstances. In any case, the vouchers were never needed as the incident passed without needing rationing in the end.
I do remember petrol rationing in my parent's car when I was child and also a petrol additive (called Redex?) what was that about? The petrol was pumped for you by an attendant in those days and you had to ask for what you required and I remember my parents always ordering "Two and two shots" which meant two gallons and 2 squirts of the additive.
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I was also shocked last year to discover that audio cassettes are no longer available (when trying to restock my car's cassette player).
I was able to buy cassettes last year in Dublin - the salesman was quite insulted that I thought they wouldn't have them!
Reel-to-reel tape might be a different story!
eadaoin
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[quote author=DudleyWinchurch link=topic=540194.msg4014915#msg4014915 date=1312630020
I do remember petrol rationing in my parent's car when I was child and also a petrol additive (called Redex?) what was that about? The petrol was pumped for you by an attendant in those days and you had to ask for what you required and I remember my parents always ordering "Two and two shots" which meant two gallons and 2 squirts of the additive.
Still available;
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0ejh/
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Well this thread has taken me back!
I remember when sweets were no longer rationed. :)
The milk came in churns on the back of a cart and was ladled into big white enamel jugs.
When I was about 9 my mother was unwell, and my father had to work on a Saturday, so I went on 3 buses to Cheetham Hill and spent the morning with my aunt who worked at Wraggs grocers. We were upstairs and I helped cut the blue sugar paper and make bags for, yes, sugar! We also sorted out the broken biscuits which were sold out of rows of containers with glass lids.
They had the flying money system too!
I also remember green shield stamps and coop divi books,the precursor to the blue stamps. My divi no. was 16283 and when I was married in 1972 we had a co-op wedding car. It cost £7 and yes I got the divi!
The first TV we had, was a 10 inch set, rented from Fred Dawes. It was in a huge wooden case, the screen was very small. we got it in 1953 ostensibly for the Coronation, but my father got it in time for the Stanley Matthews cup final 8)
I could go on.....
Kooky
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Who remember the carrier bags that were made of brown paper and had string handles. The string used to dig into the fingers then one day mother bought a basket on wheels which I had to take to do the shopping.
Remember being embarrassed at fisrt but found it a boon when doing the Saturday shopping because it meant only one trip. (15 lbs potatoes which were loose, the vegetables and 8 small twists loaves to name just a few)
Jean
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I remember when i used to slide down the mountain side on a piece of cardboard to see who could get to the bottom first,It was also great fun to go up top of mountain make, a kite, out of old newspaper and a few pieces of string and watch it soar over the houses below,it was good sometimes the string would break and it never came back , it was good to imagine you were on that kite and looking at the scenery below,
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Cows being driven along the road outside my grandparents' house from one pasture to another by a man with a dog and a stick :) This would be around about the late 1980s.
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My Dad reminded me tonight that when you got off a train there were several porters ready to take your luggage
Many stations there is noone at all now
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Leah - this still happens here twice a day. And also the collection and return ofthe herd of sheep and goats - they all know where they live.
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Actually, today, I was travelling north to visit my gr children and dau.
I found myself in the wrong bit of train. I had to get out onto the platform and get in the right bit ::)
The nice man who brought round the trolley said " Follow me, I'll take your case! Amazing.
Sorry off topic. :)
Kooky
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memories of my childhood
This Pathe clip shows the noble clydesdale pulling a coal barge on a canal http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=47785 ...... I can remember them as I used to catch sticklebacks in a net along the towpath of the Grand Union canal at Paddington c1940
joboy
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My father started his own business when I was around 6-years-old (feels like around 100 years ago!) - and had a phone installed - the number was 1306 and, whilst the number has had various changes/additions over the years, it still has those three last digits! I remember that, at that time, one newsagent in the town had a single digit phone number 8.
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The early years of Neighbours on BBC1. I hated all the shouting in it mainly from Max Ramsay.
Sooty Show, Raggy Dolls, Rainbow, You And Me, Blockbusters, Button Moon. I was born in July 1982 by the way.
I can remember my auntys house being rendered and then discussing sharp sand. In the photo album there are some pics of the works being carried out these are dated 1983. I was a year old yet remember aunty talking about sand and I must have known what sand was even at 1. I can remember being carried by mum when they were discussing sand.
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My first encounter in the early forties with the school dentist, most dentists had joined the forces and some retired dentists were recalled, I sat in the teachers chair, had an injection, waited for it to take effect then a nurse assistant put her arms around my chest from behind pinning my arms to my side whilst the elderly dentist removed my tooth, that memory still haunts me, I still break out in a cold sweat whenever I visit the dentist even after all these years. :-\
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Being saluted by the AA man on his motor cycle when he saw the AA badge on the front of my parent's car.
And if he didn't salute, he was warning you that you were approaching a police speed trap
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My first encounter in the early forties with the school dentist, most dentists had joined the forces and some retired dentists were recalled, I sat in the teachers chair, had an injection, waited for it to take effect then a nurse assistant put her arms around my chest from behind pinning my arms to my side whilst the elderly dentist removed my tooth, that memory still haunts me, I still break out in a cold sweat whenever I visit the dentist even after all these years. :-\
My first tooth extraction by a dentist is the source of many of my phobias, now. Three times I was given a needle to deaden the gum. Three times, it had worn off before anyone bothered to come back to check on me. Then they yanked the tooth out without any local anaesthetic at all. I think I was about six or seven.
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Just re-read the thread, it is very evocative.
At the risk of lowering the tone, though, while trying to get dressed in the dark this morning, I realised that I remembered the time when the labels on men's underpants were on the inside at the back!
And back in the spirit - I remember having a job where I had to prepare JCL cards for an IBM360 on a non-interpreting, mechanical hand punch - that would probably be cruel and unusual punishment these days.
Talking of the pneumatic money transport systems in shops, I once worked for Philip's spares in Croydon and they had a huge version for sending parts between the stores building and the shop building.
I also remember seeing the Brabazon flying over my school in South Wales and also huge flocks of migrating birds, the Archers replacing Dick Barton - it took me years to get hooked on the Archers.
I think I remember moving to our newly built post-war house when I was 3 and a half years old, but my earliest certain memeory is following the radio (wireless as was) reports of the towing of Captain Carlson's wrecked Flying Enterprise.
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I remember watching Andy Pandy and Bill and Ben at my grandparents house when we were there on holiday every summer. This was a big thrill as we didn't get a tv in Dublin until about 1965. When we did, the screen wasn't that big so my Dad bought this weird magnifying glass that you could clip onto the front of the screen (any one else remember those?).
I remember my first job in 1968 and, like so many previous posters, the adjustments to be made when golfballs came in. But what I really remember was the huge 'magnetic tape typewriter' that came with its own desk and a waist high console beside it containing the two VCR sized tapes that meant for the first time you could type something and then correct it. In a solicitors office, this was an unbelievable bonus because previously, when typing documents (deeds) on the old electric typewriters you had to type them on this sort of beige coloured thick parchment type paper, on both sides, and then on both sides of the opposite 'fold'. Then you would often have another set to do as an insert before making the whole thing up and tying it on the spine with a ribbon. And this is the good bit....if you made a typo, you weren't allowed to correct it - if you couldn't fix it without any hint of a trace of what you had done, you had to type the whole document again.
I also remember some time in the early sixties lying in bed listening to the troop planes going over to the Congo. They had this huge things called Globemasters and when they went overhead (we weren't far from the airport) they made the house shudder so much that they could open the metal framed window latches!
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my Dad bought this weird magnifying glass that you could clip onto the front of the screen (any one else remember those?).
The first TV set for one of our family members was bought by an uncle (I do not know of anyone else who actually bought a set, rather than renting/upgading, until the twenty first century). Becasue it was bought, it had to be kept long enough to justify the decsion I suppose, because it got enhanced as time went on by this huge magnifying glass as well as a number of different multi-coloured slides (as mentioned in another post). So what had been a wondrous device to be visited often became over a few years a comical anachronism.
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Who remember the carrier bags that were made of brown paper and had string handles.
Jean
My mums first job was in a factory making those :) must've been around 1938 or 9, I think she earned 2/6 per 500 bags.
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I remember something that's just sad now....
I remember when GAY meant happy and carefree. :-\ :'(
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if you made a typo, you weren't allowed to correct it - if you couldn't fix it without any hint of a trace of what you had done, you had to type the whole document again.
I remember working with a lady who told similar stories - apparently she got very good with a razor blade - scraping the typo off the surface of the parchment - health & safety would have a fit these days!!
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This is not quite the same but when I went to senior school we had to do a sponsored walk which was from Newhaven to Telscombe back to Newhaven to Seaford round the golf course then back to Newhaven quite a trek nowdays the school still does the sponsored walk but it is from Newhaven to Seaford and back thats it, they dont know how easy they have it !
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if you made a typo, you weren't allowed to correct it - if you couldn't fix it without any hint of a trace of what you had done, you had to type the whole document again.
I remember working with a lady who told similar stories - apparently she got very good with a razor blade - scraping the typo off the surface of the parchment - health & safety would have a fit these days!!
You got an even better result if, after you'd scraped the typo off, you polished the surface of the paper with your wedding ring!
I went to an illustrated talk by a Friend of the local living museum last night: I was probably the youngest there, but I seemed to be the only one who was prepared to admit 'I used to do that!' Clearly advancing years, as I can remembering cleaning a black lead grate....
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Wedding ring, eh? Well, I bet that was one of the things the Senior Secretary kept to herself - she was the only one qualified to use one of those!
I remember a lovely thing from another firm I worked for in London. You know how these days if you even have an office Christmas do, it involves copious drinks in the pub followed by a meal in a local Italian or Tandoori, if if you're lucky? All of it funded by the participants? Well, in the early seventies I worked for one of the biggest firms of solicitors in London. Every six months they gave everyone on the staff a bonus of 10% of their salary and at Christmas they hired the ballroom at the Dorchester, complete with Joe Loss or a similar band, for a five course all inclusive dinner and dance. They even hired rooms in another hotel nearby so that we could go there after work and doll ourselves up properly in our evening dresses. Everything was paid for by the partners. Ah, those were the days!
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Before the war there was a man with a horse and cart with a small roundabout which was geared to the axle and turned when the cart moved, we called him 'the jamjar man', he would call out "jamjar a ride" we kids would dash out with our jamjars and get a ride on the roundabout about a hundred yards up the road, he sold them back to Robertsons jam factory in Catford for a ha'penny each.
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Robertsons jam factory in Catford
I was brought up just down the road from there, the smell of warm strawberry jam takes me right back to my school days.
Ermy
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I remember that smell Ermy, wonder what became of the huge Golly on the wall outside the factory.
Bill.
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apparently she got very good with a razor blade - scraping the typo off
We were shown how to do that in typing class. So much easier now with a computer, no excuse for typing errors.
Lizzie
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One thing we used to do that would be impossible today for various reasons, not just health and safety.
We'd wait on the station platform until the train (steam) arrived and then the driver would lift us into the engine cabin, where we were allowed to throw coal into the engine and when the train was about to depart, we could pull the whistle, before being lifted back out of the cabin.
Another thing we did that was harmless, but would seem odd today, was go and sit with the old men at the park, or just play around them. They would keep their eyes on us and we would talk to them, which they enjoyed.
Lizzie
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I remember when the Science Museum in London had a TV running in the entrance area so that country bumpkins like myself could stand and marvel at the wonderful machine, black and white of course!
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I remember when the Science Museum in London had a TV running in the entrance area so that country bumpkins like myself could stand and marvel at the wonderful machine, black and white of course!
And I remember it had an automatic door as an exhibit - as a small child I found it very exciting to walk through ;D
Jan ;)
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When I was around 9 or 10 I spent a fair amount of time in the village pub :o
but only because my best friend's parents ran it!
In the spring once a week on her parent's day off they used to take us both for a drive and picnic in the surrounding countryside, where we'd pick loads of primroses and bluebells. Of course, you can't do that now; they're protected.
It was a simple pleasure, but I so used to look forward to it.
Every Friday night in the late 60s we were glued to the telly for the weekly episode of The Monkees - we used to swoon over Davy Jones and then practice being pop stars in the private accommodation upstairs - using the obligatory hairbrushes for microphones!
My friend always wanted to be the lead singer, which really annoyed me..... but I was too kind to tell her she was tone deaf :-X
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Who remembers the metal washboards? No magic sprays in those days to get out the stains and dirt.
They were also useful as a musical instrument as well. Couple of metal thimbles on the fingers and rubbed up and down the board and hey you could play in a skiffle group ;D ;D I remember doing that once at a youth club when the base player used an empty tea chest with a pole stuck in the middle and a piece of string from top to bottom. They only real instrument were the two lads who had guitars.
My 'musical' career only lasted that one evening or most likely even 15 minutes or so - rock'n'roll was so much stronger than skiffle so it was back to the record player and Tommy Steele, Swinging Blue Jeans, The Searchers and The Beatles. :)
Jean
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We'd wait on the station platform until the train (steam) arrived and then the driver would lift us into the engine cabin, where we were allowed to throw coal into the engine and when the train was about to depart, we could pull the whistle, before being lifted back out of the cabin
Lizzie
This reminds me of a time when I was hitch-hiking from Devon to South Wales and I arrived at the River Severn Ferry (it was before the bridge) after the last one had left for the day. Nothing daunted I went on the station at Severn Tunnel Junction to ask about a train; only the signalman was about and he agreed to stop the next train to give me a chance to ask the driver! The driver was happy to take me through the tunnel in the cab - again, I find it difficult to imagine the same thing happening today. Happy days.
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I arrived at the River Severn Ferry (it was before the bridge) after the last one had left for the day. Nothing daunted I went on the station at Severn Tunnel Junction to ask about a train; only the signalman was about and he agreed to stop the next train to give me a chance to ask the driver! The driver was happy to take me through the tunnel in the cab - again, I find it difficult to imagine the same thing happening today. Happy days.
about 4 years ago OH was coming home by train around midnight on the last train - he fell asleep and was woken at the last stop a few miles beyond our station. The driver let him stay on the train (which was returning non-stop to the engine sheds), stopped at our station, discovered it was locked up, and stopped again at the next stop to let OH out!
eadaoin
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Who remembers the metal washboards? No magic sprays in those days to get out the stains and dirt.
I remember my Mum scrubbing at my younger brother's nappies on a metal washboard in the early 60s.
She also had an electric dryer called a 'Flatley' - basically a waist-high metal cased container with an electrical heating element at the bottom. It had wooden slats across the top which she would hang the nappies and other washing on, then the lid would go on and the heater at the bottom would dry the clothes.
She also managed washing for a family of 6 for many years using a twin-tub machine wheeled into position near the sink, where the water would be taken from the taps to fill it, and a hose would run from the machine back to the sink for emptying. I still remember helping her transfer the washed, soapy washing from one half to the other for rinsing, using the long wooden tongs.
Aren't we lucky now, just having to pop it all into the machine and push a few buttons!
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In the years pre-twin tub washing machines, there was the one with the agitator bit in a barrel-shaped doohickey, and a couple of mangle-type wringers up above.
One of the twin brothers managed to break his arm, putting it through the wringers ::)
There was one day, every year for about eight years, when one or another of my brothers would end up in Casualty at the local hospital. It got so the staff were waiting for them to show up!
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She also had an electric dryer called a 'Flatley' -
I remember those all right. The only place in our little house that it would fit (for want of a better word) was in my brothers' bedroom just behind the door. You had to breathe in to get in and out of the room. It was a lot better than the fifties, though. My mother had a friend who lived up the road from us who had eight kids, all quite close together. Whenever you went to her house, you could hardly see your hand in front of your face in the back room, from the steam of all the nappies drying on the fireguard. Excellent for the bronchials, though!
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Excellent for the bronchials, though!
Yes made them worse ::) I remember coming home from school on washdays to be greeted by lots of wet washing hanging around the kitchen or else it was hanging frozen solid on the washing line, which I then had to bring in, trying to fold it whilst it was still frozen. Thank goodness for electric dryers - I never hang washing out now, so I've even been using the dryer in this mini heatwave we've had (still hot today in Hampshire).
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I remember sleeping top and tail with my sister on visits to my grandparents, then having to go to the outside loo - it always seemed cold!
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Me too... except with my little brother... and grandma used to make us sleep in her "long johns".... knee length cotton or nylon, usually red or pink with lace around the knee! And we used to have to use the "potty under the bed" as she wouldn't let us use the outside loo (although it was only in the porch thank goodness - but it did have shiny Izal loo paper).
She'd lived in the same house since she married in 1929 and that was where my mother grew up too. Lots of history... her old china dolls all bandaged up with sticky tape after going to the doll's hospital, an ancient meccano set and a wooden fort!
They'd had a bathroom put in at some point off the kitchen (just bath and sink no toilet) but the only time it was ever used was when we came to visit. the rest of the time it was used to keep spider plants in and my grandma used to have a stand-up wash at the kitchen sink.
She had an old anderson shelter in the garden which was very exciting too..
Oh - and sneaky Granndma wouldn't let us get out of bed to play until after 9am so she could have a lie in ;D ;D
Milly
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but it did have shiny Izal loo paper
I remember that too - was in a box a bit like a tissue box so only one sheet at a time came out - what use was that?
If I remember rightly, there was one side that was SLIGHTLY less shiny than the other though!
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I hated that izal loo paper. My father (who is still alive and age 90) used to insist we had izal - he reckoned the 'new' soft stuff would block the loo and the izal wouldn't ??? he took years to convince that the soft paper was safe to use. I have to say even he uses the soft stuff now!! :)
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My father, also 90, always refused to use soft loo paper! There were always two rolls in the bathroom once soft paper became available - one Izal, one soft!
I remember no hot water in the taps, boiling a kettle for washing up and morning ablutions. There was a "geyser" over the bath which my father would light with ceremony on Sunday evenings :D. No central heating, we had a fireplace in every room, but we usually only lit the "back room" one where we all lived. The front room was only used when it was warm enough, never with a fire. If it was very cold in winter school holidays we occasionally had a fire in the bedroom so we could play there.
When I started work I worked at the Continental Telephone Exchange. The only places "abroad" that could be dialled were Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels. All others had to be connected by an operator. (The number of the Hilton Hotel at Heathrow was Skyport 8000, and Phillips Electrical in Holland was Eindhoven 60000.) Then I moved to Bedfordshire and worked at Rootes in Dunstable, where I used a manual adding machine - like one of those old-fashioned cash registers but then I had to pull a lever down a quarter-circle for it to calculate. We had no car until 1964, and no TV until 1967.
My Gran lived in a house with no bathroom, just an outside toilet. And yes it was cold!!
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My father, also 90, always refused to use soft loo paper! There were always two rolls in the bathroom once soft paper became available - one Izal, one soft!
where I used a manual adding machine - like one of those old-fashioned cash registers but then I had to pull a lever down a quarter-circle for it to calculate. We had no car until 1964, and no TV until 1967.
My father also used Izal - and was still doing so until a few years ago, before he was moved into a care home!
That adding machine would have been a comptometer?
One of my fisrt jobs, in 1970's, was at a Comptometer Bureau!
Dad rode a motor scooter (reg. JAM911E!) so our first car was a Reliant Regal 3-wheeler, which he could drive on a motorcycle driving licence!
We only got ITV because Dad wanted BBC2 - the previous aerial only received BBC1.
I never did understand the discussions at school about TV programmes!
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That adding machine would have been a comptometer?
One of my fisrt jobs, in 1970's, was at a Comptometer Bureau!
No, I think a comptometer you couldn't put in, say, 300,000, you had to enter multiples of 100,000? I could enter exactly the figures that I wanted but then had to do a manual one-armed bandit exercise to get it to add.
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The comptometers I saw had about 10 columns of those push-keys, numbered 0-9?
So entering 300000 was fairly straight forwards.
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Mine was more like this
(http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g301/zedzoom/Sunstrand.jpg)
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Late 60s/early 70s -Lying under the bedcovers ( nylon sheets :o & eiderdown, no new-fangled duvets!)after midnight listening furtively to Radio Caroline on my little portable radio on a 'school night' when I should have been asleep ;D ;D ;D
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Or even just that little bit earlier, same scene, same blankets, Radio Luxembourg!
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Ah yes! Emporer Rosko!! ;D ;D
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I think Bronco toilet paper was hard like Izal
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I think Bronco toilet paper was hard like Izal
It was. Izal went on for longer I think - Bronco stopped years ago. Thank goodness :)
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Memories from my youth (mainly in London) .....
The 'Rag and Bone' man with his horse and cart. If you gave him enough old rags, he would give you 3d (or sometimes a goldfish). If the horse left droppings in the road, the men in the neighbourhood would race each other to get out there with a sack and a shovel, to make fertiliser for the garden.
Radio Luxembourg on 208 metres, medium wave. You could only receive this after dark, and in those days it was the only way to hear the latest records (before the pirate ships came along). The 'DJs' in those days included Pete Murray, Keith Fordice, Alan Freeman, David Jacobs, Jimmy Saville, Dave Cash, Noel Edmonds and Tommy Vance. The problem with Radio Luxembourg was that the signal used to fade in and out, so you would only hear half the record. Some shows which later appeared on ITV first started on Radio Luxembourg - like 'Take Your Pick' with Michael Miles, and 'Double Your Money' with Hughie Green.
The novelty of riding in a car. My dad never owned a car, so I rarely got to ride in one. Sometimes the man who my mother worked part-time for used to give us a lift home, but this wasn't very often.
Ice cream for Sunday dessert - and the arguments over who was going to the shop to get it (we had no fridge). The ice cream came in a cardboard carton, which the shopkeeper would thickly wrap in old newspapers, so it would survive the 5 minute journey home.
Our first TV in 1952, which exploded ! My dad wanted to watch the Cup Final on the TV, but when he got to the shop, they had sold out of 'tested sets'. In those days, TVs were so unreliable that the shops used to 'bench test' TVs for 24 hours before selling them. Because of the demand due to the football, they had run out of these and my dad (whom I take after for lack of patience) was so keen to have one that he agreed to take an untested TV. He spent the Saturday morning fiddling with it, and then my dad, my sister and I watched the football on the TV, while my mother went out shopping. At about 4:30PM my mother returned and said "Is that TV still on ? You've had it on for three hours now, you should switch it off and give it a rest !". My father duly obliged - he got up from his chair (no remotes in those days), and had just turned around to go back to his chair when there was a loud bang, and the room was showered with shards of glass. My dad wasn't hurt because he had his back to the TV, and I was about 8 feet away and wasn't hurt, but my sister (who was sitting quite close, but off to one side) got several cuts in her legs, and she still bears the scars to this day. I was so scared that I wouldn't go back into the room while the TV was still in there. I later went on to become a TV engineer ! ::)
Coronation Day. My dad was involved with the local community, and when the coronation was announced, no-one wanted to organise it, so my dad volunteered, but only if the party was held indoors. Lots of people didn't like the idea of an indoor celebration in June, but my dad was adamant, and since no-one else wanted to organise it, he got his way. Well, the 3rd June 1953 was one of the coldest and wettest June days in decades, and many people had their street parties ruined because of the weather. My dad was the hero of the hour :)
Computers - my first brush with a real computer was in 1974, when my wife and I moved to Harlow, Essex, and I got a job in an electronics factory setting up and testing 'VDUs' which we would now call computer screens. To test the screens, we needed a computer, and we had a small one which had to be started every morning by running punched paper tapes through a reader, and the first tape in the sequence was called a 'bootstrap', from where we get the term 'booting up' a PC.
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and Bootstrap came from the phrase pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, because the first instruction executed was "read the program into memory" . In 1965 we used to have to set this up on the console I think was 75 012500 00 770000 - block read forward (75) from paper tape reader (77) into memory location 012500, then you got it going by setting up on the console 71 012500 00 000000 - transfer control to memory location 012500. It was also important to set the Block Read Bypass button so that the hardware wouldn't try to turn the program punched into the paper tape into data. Now why is it so difficult to remember what day it is?
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I am clearly living in the past... I've just had to buy a new steam iron. After I'd frightened myself witless just looking at the prices, I found out that you don't have to use distilled water in them any more. New steam iron is also a lot smaller and lighter than the old one. I commented on both these facts - as you do.
Man in shop 'How old is your steam iron?'
Cati thinks. and realises it was a wedding present the first time round - 30 years ago. And it was still working fine until last week.
Next week, in a fit of extravagance, I may decide to treat myself to a set of new bun tins. The old ones have seen better days. After all, they were a wedding present to my parents: that'll be 61 years, then...
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I'm convinced that some modern domestic appliances are fitted with a timer. We had a coffee percolator made by a company which was 'simply years ahead' which failed 1 day after the warranty expired ::)
Your new steam iron probably doesn't use distilled water because it will never last long enough to fur up ;)
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I'm convinced that some modern domestic appliances are fitted with a timer. We had a coffee percolator made by a company which was 'simply years ahead' which failed 1 day after the warranty expired ::)
Your new steam iron probably doesn't use distilled water because it will never last long enough to fur up ;)
As it was under a tenner from a supermarket, I'll be surprised if it lasts that long!
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Mind you, if you tot up the cost of all the distilled water, what's the real cost of your 30 year old steam iron ? ;)
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I never use distilled water and my current iron is as old as my youngest son so that is 16 years and I use it everyday and most of the day it is on. I'm a professional quilt maker - thats a lot of pressing.
However my favorite iron is a flat iron that I used to use on my wood stove. The iron I still have - the wood stove was sold with the house :'(
I have the chairs my grandparents were given as a wedding present, and their book shelves too.
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On the subject of steam irons, if you live in a 'hard water' area that will block up/rust sooner than distilled.
My wife still uses her heavy steam iron, ''I don't have to press on as hard'' she will say.
She cringes at the current prices of replacement, sixty pounds plus for something she would want :o
Brian
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my iron (not steam!) was bought in 1967 when I moved into my first flat (no apartments then!).
It's still working, though I loathe ironing and use it as little as possible. I dropped it once and it broke, but MorphyRichards mended it for a small sum.
eadaoin
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I'm sorry, I'm cracking up, here; - ... just as I was reading the posts about ironing, I started getting an ad, up top there, for some steam ironing thingy ... ;D
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Someone has already mentioned accumulators, can you imagine a small child carrying a heavy square glass
container full of acid to a shop to be charged and carrying a fully charged one back home so the radio could be used? elf and safety!!!
Equally as a small child with a couple of pennies to buy sweets looking at the sweets in the shop window with the sticky fly paper full of dead flies just above the sugared almonds and dead flies sometimes in among the sweets, we called then candies back then late 40s early 50s because sweets were still rationed we had to have "candy points" as well as money to buy them, candy points were torn from ration books to give to the shopkeeper, so if you ran an errand for someone sometimes you were given some candy points and perhaps a jammed crust from a fresh baked loaf as a reward.
Moving house on a hand cart, one or two items at a time.
A cousin who spent her early life sleeping in the bottom drawer of a Scotch Chest, until a crib was available
The circus arriving in town and the animals moving to the venue from the rail depot, elephants in line and camels with frothy mouths, llamas and wild cats in cages.
The popcorn man selling "chocolate coated pop corn" to the cinema queue from a converted pram.
The Cinema Commisionaire who only allowed one person in as one came out.
The roast chestnut man with his mobile brazier and cart on freezing November nights.
Clearing snow from Pub frontages to earn some extra cash.
A great topic I've enjoyed reading it, sometimes I think it was a great introduction to life living in a time when you had to contribute to the home, errands, bringing coal, chopping kindling etc, but then would I want the same for my grandchildren?
James
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In our local cinema in Downham, Bromley, for a couple of years after the war had ended, whenever a war film was showing, it was noticeable that if an air raid siren sounded in the film there was a clatter of seats going up as several of the older people who had lived through the blitz instinctively stood up as if to leave the cinema.
Also there were age limits for some films unless accompanied by an adult, we kids would stand outside and ask any 'stranger' "Can you take us in please mister?" they would usually reply "OK give me your money."
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A great topic I've enjoyed reading it, sometimes I think it was a great introduction to life living in a time when you had to contribute to the home, errands, bringing coal, chopping kindling etc, but then would I want the same for my grandchildren?
Well, I think kids lived more interesting, fulfilling and healthier lives back then. Sure, we had more diseases that hadn't yet been conquered, but no central heating also meant having fewer colds, and we had a lot more exercise because we had no labour-saving devices like mobile phones and remotes, and we 'played out' instead of sitting in a stuffy room playing computer games.
Of course, they don't have to dread going to the dentists, like we did, either ! :)
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What do I remember that seems impossible now? Well I remember, as many people will, being allowed to go out by myself from a very young age etc. This was brought home to me today when our daughter brought over our granddaughter, who will be 13 in March, so that my OH could take her into town to meet up with a couple of friends, go to Macdonalds and then the cinema (our daughter having gone to a football match with her son).
Nothing unusual in that, except that our daughter and children live within 10 minutes walk of town, but granddaughter wasn't allowed to stay at home on her own for about 30 minutes and then make the 10 minute walk into town, along a straight road with a footpath, by herself, instead she is driven to our house, then OH had to drive the 3-4 miles back to town with her. I really think today's parents are getting totally obsessive about letting their children out.
Granddaughter has also had strict instructions to text or ring her mum to be collected and driven back home when she and her two friends come out of the cinema at about 4.30-5.00pm.
Lizzie
Modified - The sad thing is our granddaughter and her two friends think this is normal.
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I can remember getting my first 'proper' bike (with 26 inch wheels) when we lived in Greenwich, London, and I used to go riding with our next door neighbour, who was a bit of a ruffian. My mum used to say to me "Don't you dare go near the river", so you'll never guess the first place that we headed for ! :)
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I remember when I was 11, I travelled from M/c to Ruthin, N.Wales on 2 buses, changing at Mold, on my own. I was taken to the bus station in M/c by my father on his way to work. I then had to get the correct buses, and be met in Ruthin by an uncle. All this without the aid of a mobile'phone!
Kooky
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When I was 11 (in the early 70s)and went to "big school" I had to walk to the bus stop (10 mins) and get a bus into the centre of town (20 mins) and then change for another bus (20 Mins) and then walk to school from the bus stop (5 mins)...and then do the same thing on the way home... We used to stop off in town and do some window shopping or whatever on the way home. Or I might pop into my friends house en route... As long as I was "back for tea" it was fine.
Milly
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I remember waking up in the morning and having ice on the inside of the sash windows (frozen condensation), the house was that cold. I'm sure that not as common now with today's central heating & double glazing.
And I know people do still have real fires, but it was my job to make the fire up each morning. Luckily I didn't have to do the dusting - I remember a layer of coal dust everywhere.
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And I remember the chilblains that went with the ice on the inside of the window, and they came from sitting close to the open fire (unless that was just my mother's way of telling me not to hog the space in front of the fire!)
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Travel by steam train; having to close the window (by pulling on large leather strap), when it went through tunnels, to avoid the compartment being filled with soot.
Travel on trams, and being passed chips through the window from friends in the tram in front.
City centre, huge flocks of starlings flying in at dusk, filling all the parapets of the shops with birds, and all the pavements covered with their produce.
Aladdin paraffin stoves, that made a burbling sound, and lit up a pattern on the bedroom ceiling.
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Using Quickies to wipe the soot off your face when you got to Euston!
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It's all too easy to forget the grime that seemed to cover just about everything when coal was the universal fuel, something I try to remember when I get nostalgic for steam trains ::)
Even so, there was something magical about those childhood train journeys, before Dr. Beeching got his hands on the railways >:(
"Quickies"? . . . most mums used to spit on a handkerchief to wipe your face ;) . . . don't remember mine doing it though.
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It's all too easy to forget the grime that seemed to cover just about everything when coal was the universal fuel, something I try to remember when I get nostalgic for steam trains ::)
Even so, there was something magical about those childhood train journeys, before Dr. Beeching got his hands on the railways >:(
"Quickies"? . . . most mums used to spit on a handkerchief to wipe your face ;) . . . don't remember mine doing it though.
I also remember all the buildings black with grime. I never knew they should be lovely red brick or yellow stone!
I never saw Quickies, it was always spit and a hankie for my face :(
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I never realised I had such a privileged upbringing! ;D Maybe the Quickies were just deployed because we were on holiday and it was a special occasion! Or maybe it was to make up for the other high spot of the train journey, the 'picnic' eggs in their shells, hardboiled til they were black. I absolutely loved them. Fortunately for the other passengers, those were the days of individual compartments, as the smell would knock you!
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I just want to know, how did the train driver know that you wanted to get off at a certain station ::) My mother used to take me from Cuddington to Manchester and then put me on the bus to Halifax to visit my grandmother. But how did that train driver know where people wanted to get off? He couldn't see who was standing up to get off!! It always amazed me, as a child ::) ::)
And who would now entrust their child into the hands of a bus driver/conductor? But I travelled many times on that route in the 18950s/60s, and I'm still here to tell the tale.
BumbleB
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"Quickies"? . . . most mums used to spit on a handkerchief to wipe your face ;) . . . don't remember mine doing it though.
We used to say 'wash me with spit, Mother, it's warmer'....
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Even worse when mum used your own spit :-\
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Watching chains of barges being towed up and down the Grand Union Canal.
As an infant we finished school at 3.30 while the juniors finished at 4.00 and being allowed to play in the park for half an hour until the juniors turned up before walking home on my own - it was a half hour walk for an adult, but I could get it down to 20 mins if I ran part way.
When I was bigger cranking dad's car to get it started All the cars round our way were black and had fold down luggage racks behind the boot.
Buying single eggs for 1d 3 farthings (1 and 3/4 pennies). Collecting farthings and taking them into the bakers to be changed up into tanners.... because bread was tenpence three farthings and they used to run out
and the price of petrol? I can remember it being pushed up to a horrendous 6 shillings a gallon that's about 30p (when you could get it)
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That must have been in the 70's ?
Petrol was two shillings and ninepence a gallon (14p) when I got my first car. But the car I always dreamed of owning was a Ford Capri 3000cc, and I got one ....... in 1973, just in time for the petrol shortages and price hikes ???
And it was a rubbish car, too ::)
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I remember petrol at 4/3d in the 60's - but a Singer Chamois didn't use much.
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I had a Singer Gazelle in the 1970s - one of my favourite cars :)
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Even worse when mum used your own spit :-\
Ah! I remember now . . . that's the way mine used to do it . . . ;D
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No Nick. Suez Crisis and rationing 1956. Happily it went down again. When I started work it was about 4/10d and 5/1d for top grade.
My first car was a Hilman Californian two door coupe - very snazzy!!!
hadn't had it five minutes when the bottom fell out - an early and painful lesson in consumerism. Replaced it with a sit up and beg Ford Anglia that's probably still puttering along somewhere lol
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Singer gazelle 1960s
[sorry, that was larger than I thought]
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No Nick. Suez Crisis and rationing 1956. Happily it went down again. When I started work it was about 4/10d and 5/1d for top grade.
My first car was a Hilman Californian two door coupe - very snazzy!!!
hadn't had it five minutes when the bottom fell out - an early and painful lesson in consumerism. Replaced it with a sit up and beg Ford Anglia that's probably still puttering along somewhere lol
Yep, you're right. It was 4/11 a gallon. Maybe 2/11 was wishful thinking :)
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Singer gazelle 1960s
Mine was an automatic one, previously owned by someone with one leg. The old Borg-Warner gearboxes weren't very good, and lots of times I got stuck half way up a hill. Very heavy bodywork too. It was two-tone green. When you cruised along, you could hear the clock ticking in the walnut instrument panel. 8)
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My first car was a Hillman Minx, which looked like the one in this pic when I first bought it for $95. Blue, but no shine on the duco ... so I started cutting it back ... and discovered it was British Racing Green, under all that oxidisation ::)
'T'was a manual ... no synchro on first or second, so I had to teach myself to double-shuffle, ... and if she gained a bit of speed, going downhill, the gear selector arms used to fail, and she'd "pop" out of gear, with no hope of getting it back in until you slowed right down to almost walking pace (very embarrassing on an expressway!).
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I don't remember the Gazelle. But we replaced the Chamois after 4 years and 100,000 miles with a Hillman Minx estate that would take dogs and pram - lovely. But in white - you have to take what's going :) Then in 1975 I got my own car - a 1957 Morris Minor - boy I was proud of it!
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Even worse when mum used your own spit :-\
Ah! I remember now . . . that's the way mine used to do it . . . ;D
Mine too - I think it was meant to be more hygienic that way ;D
Jan ;)
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Does this mean we don't use spit wash nowadays.................. ;D
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I remember when money went decimal in 1971 petrol was 31 new pence a gallon
Jean
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I can remember when we WEREN'T in Europe :'(
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I remember when money went decimal in 1971 petrol was 31 new pence a gallon
Jean
And packets of crisps went from 3d to 3p!!! Total rip-off!
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Ah! The days of petrol at 4/10pence a gallon, and I can only put in 1/2gallon into moped 8)
Brian
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I remember when money went decimal in 1971 petrol was 31 new pence a gallon
and my pay was about £1500 a year
eadaoin
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So much!
I was on 9/7d per hour and about £1000 a year.
And this was 1969, with me being a skilled tradesman.
Brian
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I remember in 1969/70 I was on about £8 a week, because it gave me £5 a week to give to my mother and the three left covered all my food and fares to work. Later, when I got my own bedsit, the rent was £4.10s a week and I could walk to work. I lived for a while on those Vesta boil in the bag curries, remember those? Yummee.
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I lived for a while on those Vesta boil in the bag curries, remember those? Yummee.
I saw Vesta curries on sale again only last weeK! The ones I remember were dehydrated, and often the bits didn't all rehydrate... I was particularly addicted to the prawn curry. Oh, must nip out and buy one for old times' sake!
Cati
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Vesta Chow Mein with Crispy Noodles! mmmm those were the days ;D
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Have almost uncontrolable desire for 70s junk food - with plenty of MSG.... :P
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Having a clear out of some of my old paperwork.
1962 My first P60, the princely sum of £325 PA before tax.
1970 An old weekly shopping till roll [early days of supermarket] £8.10s for a family of four.
1964 I remember asking my bank manager for a loan of £100 to finance my first motorbike,[ I nearly had to sign my name in my own blood and promise him my first born ]
My parents house cost £4,500 in 1955
My first pint of beer 1s.6d
I survived on Vesta for 3 years in digs.
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When I joined the army in 1951 to do my National Service they sent me a postal order for 4 shillings to cover one days expenses, that was for meals Etc. on my first army pay day I received 28 shillings, from which they deducted the 4 shillings they had already paid me, most of the money left was lavished on Kiwi boot polish, dusters and brasso, or on the odd packet of woodbines in the NAAFI.
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Shoppers' Price Guide as surveyed 25 September 1975:
Butter 1/2 lb branded 15 - 16.5p
Single cream 5 fl oz - 12.5 - 14.5p
Nescafe 8oz - 65 - 79p
Weetabix 24 - 22.5 - 24p
Large eggs 1/2 doz - 21 - 22.5 p
Topside beef 1lb - 69 - 76p
White sliced loaf large - 13.5 - 14.5p
Cod fish fingers 10 - 28 - 33p
These were from Cheadle Hulme, and covered 4 supermarkets - Co-Op, Fine Fare, Liptons and Mr Morgan.
BumbleB
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Does anyone in the UK remember "Jim's Inn" with Jimmy Hanley ?
Jim's Inn was a programme built around commercials, where Jimmy Hanley and his wife Maggie ran a fictitious inn, and the 15 minute programme was built around advertising products. The programme ran on ITV between 1957 and 1963, when the programme format was outlawed by parliament.
http://www.turnipnet.com/whirligig/tv/adults/other/jimsinn.htm
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I remember Jimmy Hanley on a childrens' programme calling the USSR the 'United States of Soviet Russia'.
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Our first house cost $23,427, and we had to take out two mortgages to get it. Second house was $38,190 - we're still living in it ;D
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1971 first house £5300 ...
the way house-prices are in Ireland, they'll soon be back down to this level ....
eadaoin
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My childhood memories - getting chips in a dish from the chipshop,home made ice cream from Ivan ice cream who brought it in a big van, the baker who came in a van with hot crusty loaves, the fishman who came in his van on a friday and the horse and cart laden with fresh vegetables and fruit. Also the "cockles" man who came with a horse and cart and you could hear his cry of "Cocos" from 2 miles away getting nearer all the time. Also the french onion man who came on a bike.
I remember the bottles of orange juice from the food office which we had on ration, and the third bottles of milk thawing out by the stove at school in winter and we all had these at break time.
We played lots of skipping games and things like "giant steps" and enjoyed bowling wooden hoops down the schoolyard. We loved to go in the schoolgarden and came home via a "gors" where we invariably got a "socsan" or one wet foot as we jumped from one clump of grass to another with little water laden ducts between them.
We roamed free about the village and played in places we would never let our children play now - on quite high rocks, with slides worn smooth by generations of children sliding down the rocks.
I remember sitting by my brother and Dad on the bench seat of an A49 and my brother catching me as the door flew open as we went over a bump.
There are so many memories - blue bags for sugar, tea bought loose, shopping with a big square basket that held a weeks provisions - no overfilled cupboards or wasted food then.Friday night was the main shopping night.
We had a chemist shop and I remember being one of the first shops to ever provide a free Christmas wrapping service with bold candy striped paper and bright ribbon.
Student days brought back memories of being thin because I walked everywhere, and I had so little money that by the end of term I ate only things like toast and jam or fried onion sandwiches. Calls home were once a week from a call box at the end of the street and my mum worried 200 miles away because I had to walk home on my own in the dark. I remember carrying a three foot mattress through the town with a friend, to replace the straw filled on on my student bed and having only my dansette record player, and a tiny transistor for entertainment. My room was heated only by an old electric convector heater and the window were wired up with strong wire to keep intruders out as i was on the ground floor.The bed was heaped with blankets to keep me warm.
Life was fun and although I had little money the hardships were nothing compared to the difficulties facing many people now.
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Have almost uncontrolable desire for 70s junk food - with plenty of MSG.... :P
.....like Birds Eye Savoury Rissoles!
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Have almost uncontrolable desire for 70s junk food - with plenty of MSG.... :P
.....like Birds Eye Savoury Rissoles!
I used to love those :D
Jan ;)
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Rissoles were the business - used to have those regularly at the cafe where we went for lunch from work. I'm sure they were the same basic recipe as 'faggots', which my mother was a great fan of, but if they'd called them that on the menu I wouldn't have touched them!
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Who remembers the French onion sellers with striped jumper coming round on their bikes
Also on bikes were the knife sharpeners
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Bob a Job Week - tick job done ;D
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Who remembers the French onion sellers with striped jumper coming round on their bikes
Sorry, couldn't stop myself ...
"It is I, Leclerc, cunningly disguised as a French onion seller ... "
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Tallking about Robertsons Jam earlier...... I remember working in the Co-op as a teenager and watching a man walk along the aisles taking all the paper golliwogs from behind the labels. Remember when you could redeem the paper golliwogs for badges? I wonder how many he got!
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Bet those badges have a value now
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The Black & White Minstrel Show.
That certainly does seem impossible now.
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It's hard to believe it was even possible then!
Milly
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Rissoles were the business - used to have those regularly at the cafe where we went for lunch from work. I'm sure they were the same basic recipe as 'faggots', which my mother was a great fan of, but if they'd called them that on the menu I wouldn't have touched them!
Rissoles are minced beef and onions with a handful of breadcrumbs and an egg to bind it all together.
Faggots are minced offal with a handful of breadcrumbs and an egg. Wrapped up in cawl (the fat from a pig's abdomen).
I love both, but the latter are hard to find nowadays
meles
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The Black & White Minstrel Show.
That certainly does seem impossible now.
Except here in the Netherlands! ;D
Next 4 weeks will see Sinterclaas (St Nicholas) travelling around the country accompanied by Zwarte Piet (Black Pete).
Zwarte Piet is always blacked up, and very few people seem to mind?!
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Thanks, Meles. I rest my case! Cawl, eh? You were doing OK til you got to that bit!
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Caul is the spelling, cawl is a soup.
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Rissoles were the business - used to have those regularly at the cafe where we went for lunch from work. I'm sure they were the same basic recipe as 'faggots', which my mother was a great fan of, but if they'd called them that on the menu I wouldn't have touched them!
Rissoles are minced beef and onions with a handful of breadcrumbs and an egg to bind it all together.
Faggots are minced offal with a handful of breadcrumbs and an egg. Wrapped up in cawl (the fat from a pig's abdomen).
I love both, but the latter are hard to find nowadays
meles
My local butcher sells faggots...
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In the haberdashery department of our local Coop, you gave the sales assistant the money and they put it into a small cylinder with the sales chitty and then put the cylinder into a pipe. Compressed air took the cylinder to an upstairs office (I presume) where some clerk put the correct change into the cylinder and sent it back down to the sales assistant who then gave it to the customer. This system made a lot of hissing and popping noises as you can imagine and as a 6 year old, I was fascinated. I was really disappointed when they dismantled it :'( :'( ;D
Anyone remember the other sort of cash carriers that raced around the shop on overhead wires?
Jan ;)
The tube is a LAMSON tube. We had them in Pages dept store in Camberley High Street. My schoolpal used to put a soggy orange in the tube, press the button and send it to accounts! The day he sent a sandwich wrapped in greaseproof paper all hell broke loose. A variant is still in use in some Tesco stores.
The overhead wires were something else. Again, OVERS of Camberley had these in their dept store in Camberley, next to the Odeon cinema on London Road, not far from the Duke of York pub.
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Rissoles were the business - used to have those regularly at the cafe where we went for lunch from work. I'm sure they were the same basic recipe as 'faggots', which my mother was a great fan of, but if they'd called them that on the menu I wouldn't have touched them!
Rissoles are minced beef and onions with a handful of breadcrumbs and an egg to bind it all together.
Faggots are minced offal with a handful of breadcrumbs and an egg. Wrapped up in cawl (the fat from a pig's abdomen).
I love both, but the latter are hard to find nowadays
meles
My local butcher sells faggots...
I took an American colleague shopping in Sainsburys. He found faggots in the freezer. One hour later he was still laughing, and talks about it to this day, some 20 years later.
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The Black & White Minstrel Show.
That certainly does seem impossible now.
Except here in the Netherlands! ;D
Next 4 weeks will see Sinterclaas (St Nicholas) travelling around the country accompanied by Zwarte Piet (Black Pete).
Zwarte Piet is always blacked up, and very few people seem to mind?!
I had laughed at Morecambe and Wise for at least 40 years, then someone asked me did i think it was strange that the two guys were in bed together. I didn't until he mentioned it, and now it does seem strange but no-one seemed to think it was significant.
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A young (30ish) colleague who was trawling through some paperwork suddenly burst out "Did any of you know that the Post Office used to own BT?!!"
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A young (30ish) colleague who was trawling through some paperwork suddenly burst out "Did any of you know that the Post Office used to own BT?!!"
On seeing an old GPO telegram that I'd kept from my 21st birthday my young (30ish) son asked if I'd received it from the Queen!!! :o :o
justmej
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Sorry if this has already been mentioned but there are so many replies.
s Did anyone see the programme on Tuesday "Back in Time for Dinner"where a family are taken back to conditions in the 50`s?
The scene where the poor mother was confronted by a tin of pilchards and an old "bully beef " tin opener like a bull`s head had me in stitches!Neither she nor her O.H had any idea of how to use it.
The tin looked like it had been in an accident before the pilchards were extracted through a ragged hole in the top.
I don`t remember there only being a brown National loaf, you could get an off white loaf and every one got one egg a week instead of the one between five people as stated in the programme. Lots of mistakes--- as usual. I wonder if people who actually lived through those times were consulted.
My son bought an old "bully beef "tin opener at a flea market a week or so back, he paid thousands----.Well -more than £20-- they saw him coming-!
We got our milk from the Co-op and each morning put the required number of tokens in the empty bottles on the front step. They never got stolen. Our Divi number was 19325.
Viktoria.
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Here in Tomorrowland, I can remember getting our first telephone, a two party line. 2 rings for us and one ring for the other party. That would have have been around the mid 50's. Great fun listening in to the other line, THEY SWORE! Wasn't used to hearing that!!
Our first fridge was a huge Kelvinator with a wee freezer box at the top, and Mum used to make lovely ice cream, and I can also remember the excitement the day that arrived, probably also around the same time. When I say huge, I mean on the outside! The walls and door were about 4 inches thick!
It's amazing how many things we can remember from way back when something triggers our Memory.
When I retired I took a part time job in a local Retirement Village as Activities/Recreation person in the Dementia Unit.
Some of our "Reminiscing" sessions were fantastic! As as usual with dementia, couldn't remember what happened yesterday, but wow were they on the ball with amazing detail re their early days! (Sometimes quite raunchy little anecdotes too).
Sometime's I would begin with a teaser memory of my own to start them off, other times it would just be a spontaneous remark from someone and we would just run with it! Smell and music were great triggers too! Lucky I was old enough to know most of the good old war songs, and other popular singalong song from the "Old Days"!
I would start playing them on the piano, then away they went. Great fun. One lady resident came up to me one day and pushed me off the piano stool, then sat down, fiddled a bit, then struck up an amazing rendition of Seventy Six Trombones! Incredible, she was so good! Used to be able to get her to play again occasionally, but most times she looked at me as if I had three heads and said not to be so stupid, that she had no idea how to play that thing!
Of course the job had it's "moments", but on the whole I thought it the best most fun job I'd ever had!
Jeanne 😃
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I remember the first (for me) door that opened automatically. Stood there amazed and didn't know whether to walk through it or not. ;D
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Here in Canada all telephone calls had to go through the local exchange, which was only open from 8 in the morning until 7 at night, with an hour off at noon.
Having to book calls to my parents in England at Christmas at least 10 days in advance and hoping there was an openingThis was the late sixties.
Liz
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My earliest memories go back to the 1930's and 'Stop me and buy one' is probably the one most remembered;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatpicturegalleries/10185036/Stop-me-and-buy-one.html?frame=2619703
Joe
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A late memory was when the 1901 census was released online there was a period when it was only available office hours and never on Sundays.
Cheers
Guy
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After all the 'hoo-haa' of the last few days.... I remember Smoggy/foggy days as a natural phenomenon (almost - well due to coal fires etc....) But we loved them... as children getting lost in fog was brilliant fun.
xin
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An earlier post mentions 'party line' phones...
Which reminded me of something very naughty that my friends and I discovered in the 60's!!!!
If you went into an old fashioned phone box...... with the old black phone.
You could get 'free' phone calls.
Does anyone else remember how :) :-[ so naughty.
We tried it with lots of numbers and it worked for quiet a few years.
It would mostly work with local numbers only. cos remembering longer ones was not that easy.
So this is how it worked... ooooo dear.... feel so guilty now:
You picked up the handset, after writing down the number, and then pressed the two little chrome prongs - carefully - so if the number was 2.3.4.5. you would press it twice then break - then again 3 times, with a break, and so on... sssshhhh dont tell anyone, I may get charged... :)
I feel awfully guilty now... so this remembering thing - can be a bad thing :( Maybe I should send BT 3s and 4d to cover the cost.... :)
also how often or who else always pressed button 'b' just in case :) before starting a phone call.
Oh dear, I am going to have to go in the naughty corner now....
8) 8) 8) 8) 8) :-X :-\
xin
xin
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I'm sure that the naughty corner is overflowing right now xin! I join you in the fun involved in what we called "tapping" phones in public boxes! Hitting the pins quickly to make the number dialled up to 10? You had to work very quickly though if you were dialling lower numbers!
Does that sound familiar? LOL
Jeanne 😀😀😀😀😀😀
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I just remembered another one! At the wee corner shop where we lived, they sold soft drinks in returnable glass bottles. I think the drinks cost about ninepence to buy. When you took the empties back, the shop owner would refund threepence per bottle. The went back to the manufacturer for re-use. He stored the empties in his yard at the back of the shop, and a truck would collect them once a week!
My brothers and their mates, and doubtless all the other lads in the neighbourhood, would sneak down the to the back yard, climb the fence, nick a few empties, then take them back into the shop for a refund! And doubtless it was a never ending cycle! A profitable method of recycling in the 50's, at least for the kids!
Poor man, I don't know if he ever found out, or whether my parents did either. If they had, I'm sure they would have got a roasting! Mmmm. - I must ask my brothers!
Jeanne 😃
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Still happens in the Netherlands!
All plastic fizzy pop bottles have a statutory deposit, as do glass beer bottles.
You take them back to the suermarket, place them (one-by-one) into a machine, which reads the barcodes, and then generates a coupon for you.
The bottles disappear into the warehouse/stock-room; so presumably not so easy to "borrow" them for re-use?
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This thread is brilliant and has made me remember many things from when i was young, some of the best memories have got to be christmas, a pillowcase at the end of the bed which always included a selection box and 2 christmas annuals, possibly dandy and beano but im not sure now, at the bottom was always an apple and an orange, on reflection they seem a bit odd, but then i dont ever remember a fruit bowl in the house, was fruit in those days a luxury that you only got at christmas, this would be early 60s ,I also remember the tree with delicate glass ornaments,but the best were chocolate ornaments.
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All the posts about telephones bring back memories of Dial-a-Disc where you would call and listen to the latest hit record. Just goes to show that music on phones is nothing new ;)
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Oh I remember the pillowcase, Starcat. As you say, annuals, selection boxes. I also remember embroidered hankies! But the comment you made about the fruit actually went back a generation in my family. My father would regularly exclaim at the outrageous amount of stuff we got at Christmas, asserting that when he was a kid all they got was 'an apple, an orange and a penny whistle'.
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I'm sure that the naughty corner is overflowing right now xin! I join you in the fun involved in what we called "tapping" phones in public boxes! Hitting the pins quickly to make the number dialled up to 10? You had to work very quickly though if you were dialling lower numbers!
Does that sound familiar? LOL
Jeanne
Oh lovely you have made me feel better :) mischievious days - but good memories :)
Some marvellous memories on these pages.
xin
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A teenager, after a good moan about her life generally, to me, asked me "Did you used to get on with your Social Worker when you were my age, Miss?" - and was incredulous when I said I'd not had one. Hmmm - she thought everyone had one, not sure she believed me, so I added "I don't think they'd invented them back then!" - which she happily accepted with "Oh yes, that was in the olden days" .....!!!!
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Just been reminded that when payphones were still around, local wiseguys would jam crumpled paper up the change chute. Anyone who made a call that didn't collect would wonder why the phone gave no change, usually shrug or curse, and wander off a few cents poorer. Said local wiseguys would saunter by, later, and pull out the crumpled paper, and accumulated coins - which sometimes amounted to a dollar or two.
The practise seemed to cease after the local wiseguys finally realised a couple of schoolkids had spotted what was going on, and were cleaning out the loot ahead of them!
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;D ;D ;D. go the school kids! I wonder if my brothers knew of that one!
These days they run rings around us all, and especially in the technology Dept! Trouble is my grandkids go sooo fast when trying to explain something to me. When I got my first mobile phone, my Grandaughter, 16 or so at that time, went thru things so fast I didn't have a clue! So afterwards I took myself quietly through the miniscule instruction book! With a magnifying glass mind you, it was about the same size as my small mobile!
Still can't understand text message speak though! Have to tell them to write in English please!
Jeanne 😃
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In the 1940's my folks had a fly proof meat and butter (read margarine) safe located outside a window of our London rented 4th floor on the shaded side of the place and fish would stay fresh for days particularly in winter.
I believe that one was found recently in an old mid Australian farmhouse which is hard to believe but there are some very cold locations in this massive country.
Joe
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Phone number 268 9249 ( 1978+)
As a Supervisor I need to rein in my ' just get on the roof'' mentality and use the current mantra '' bloody OH+S* - get the scaffolding - now whos got the ticket to put it together, oh and who has the ticket to use it'' :-[
* I still cant get used to saying Work Health and Safety
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All the posts about telephones bring back memories of Dial-a-Disc where you would call and listen to the latest hit record. Just goes to show that music on phones is nothing new ;)
Oh - I remember Dial-a-Disc. We used to go to the phone box and keep dialling 160 and try to guess what the tune was without putting any money in. If we liked the tune, we may splash out 2p to listen to it.
Rishile
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coolgardie safe?
We had something similar covered in hessian and utilized water and a breeze for keeping butter and meat cool in the 1960's to early 70's in Queensland, then we upgraded to a Kero Fridge.
In the 1940's my folks had a fly proof meat and butter (read margarine) safe located outside a window of our London rented 4th floor on the shaded side of the place and fish would stay fresh for days particularly in winter.
I believe that one was found recently in an old mid Australian farmhouse which is hard to believe but there are some very cold locations in this massive country.
Joe
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Yes you're right see here;
http://permaculture.com.au/low-tech-refrigeration-solutions-the-coolgardie-safe-zeer-pot/
Joe
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Some great stories here...I remember wondering why on earth my Mum found it necessary to donkey stone the door step. She also wore a clean wrap around pinny every day but always took if off to answer the door...My Father wouldn't answer the door in shirt sleeves either...he would always put his jacket on first.
Carol
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I do remember Dick Barton and Journey into space, the music was spooky
LouisaS
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I remember those door steps, shining white or red particularly those that led directly to the street or had small front gardens. My mother only did ours occasionally which embarrassed me, which was met with ,if you want it done you know what to do.I tried it was still done only occasionally.
Liz
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Journey into space was cool! Is that the one when the introduction voice went really slow...... AND SPOOKY 👍?....JOURNEY...INTO.....SPACE ?
And another one I remember was Randy Stone....on the NIGHT BEAT!
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I remember those door steps, shining white or red particularly those that led directly to the street or had small front gardens. My mother only did ours occasionally which embarrassed me, which was met with ,if you want it done you know what to do.I tried it was still done only occasionally.
Liz
Looked even better with the ''polisher'' run over it. Until it rained then whoooooops
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I remember getting a new twin tub washing machine when I first got married and my Grandma often reminded me that a dolly tub and posher was all she had for washday, along with a mangle for wringing out the wet washing before line drying it propped up by a wooden prop, made years earlier by my Grandad.
Carol
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Memories......................indeed ;D
I can just about remember helping my Granny to make butter in what looked like a big sweetie jar with paddles on the inside & a handle on the outside to turn the paddles...........the thicker it got.....the harder it was to turn & when thick enough we had to roll it into balls with small things that again looked like paddles but these ones had lines on ???
Annie
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I bet you wish you still had one of those Annie....probably a collector's item now....we collect 1940s house house items for the school groups visiting the Heritage Centre where I am a volunteer....seeing them view a dolly tub, posher and mangle with idle curiosity is always a source of amusement....when they ask how you "Plug it in" ;D ;D ;D
Carol