What do you remember?

[Phil Ambrose]

Nostalgia is a thing of the past and the other night we amused ourselves by recalling those long forgotten events/things of our childhood.

The Onion seller who called on a bike festooned with strings of onions selling door to door.

Horse drawn bakers carts, milk carts and the Rag and Bone man. The horse would walk upto the next stopping point unprompted.

Taking the washing to the "Bagwash"

Collecting old newspapers and bottles to sell, papers went by weight and bottle by quantity.

The advent of "walk along" milk floats ( we used to hang off the back)

Swimming in the open air pool in winter (Dad said it would make us tough)

 

What do you recall?

 

Phil

[Kez]

Sooty & Co!

[casper ghost]

No shuttering or visitor moorings, with the freedom to seemingly moor where my Dad liked and for as long as he wanted.

[Laurie Booth]

Proper tobacconists.

 

Woodbine cigs

Will's Wiff's

Capstain

Etc.

[journeyperson]

In the fifties my mum had 4 kids all close together in age and most houses in the street had mums looking after kids whilst dads went out to work. There were weekly grocery deliveries from the local grocer. In the absence of computers you gave your order for the following week to the delivery man. There was a mobile greengrocer, a butchers delivery, milk and eggs from the milkman, the Kleeneze man calling regularly and the pop lorry selling Dandelion & Burdock , Ginger Beer and Saspirella in earthenware flaggons. And gypsies regularly called selling pegs and offering to read fortunes.

[zenataomm]

Tramps ..... there used to be tramps ..... where did all the tramps go? Why aren't there any tramps any more?

[Lady Muck]

Tom Puddings on the canal and the pollution on the Aire bing so bad that 'soap suds' would blow off the River accross the main road in Castleford in clouds that were taller than my dad.

 

Tramps ..... there used to be tramps ..... where did all the tramps go? Why aren't there any tramps any more?

 

There are some living in tents here on Tottenham Marsh, I can send you one if you like.

[Laurence Hogg]

Sooty & Co!

 

Sooty & Co.... !!

 

Long standing Sooty... I still have my egg cup and membership cerificate to the Sooty club. Then there was Rag, Tag and Bobtail, Woodentops, Andy pandy........

[Nightwatch]

Twizzle, Torchy The Battery Boy.

 

The intermission films on BBC 2.

[NB Alnwick]

Tramps ..... there used to be tramps ..... where did all the tramps go? Why aren't there any tramps any more?

 

Some of us now live on boats

[Athy]

Just about my earliest memory is of sitting in a high chair in our lounge in Sheffield. On a shelf above my head was a radio (which, I later learned, had left the Army at the same time as my Dad). Every morning as I was given my breakfast a lugubrious voice would intone "Lift up your hearts" from the radio speaker, then (it seemed like every day for months but probably was not) a different man would read the news, and the words "Geneva Conference" were always mentioned. The infant Athy must have liked those words, as I was later told that they were amongst the first words I said, or tried to.

In Gleadless, where I grew up, we had a proper milk lorry as opposed to the electric milk-float type. We knew the milkman and every morning I would scale the great heights up to the cab and place a flower from our garden on the dashboard as a present for the milkman. This was well appreciated until the day when he went on holiday and a different milkman discovered me clambering into his cab. He was not very pleased. I suppose I was only about four at the time so I got away with it.

I was six when Dad got his first second-hand car, a 1949 Hillman Minx. Remarkably I can still remember its registration number: KAL 554. Each time I go to a vintage rally I keep a lookout in case someone has restored and preserved it. No luck yet. About the same time, I got my first transport: a tricycle which had a boot compartment with a lockable lid. One day I was pedalling along Gleadless Avenue and saw a nice furry pussy cat on the pavement. We did not have one so I thought I would take it home. I crammed it into the boot, slammed the lid and pedalled helter-skelter back home, where my Mum was in the front garden. I got as far as saying, "Mummy, look what....." while lifting the boot lid, when a ball of fur erupted from within and sped down the road at about 250m.p.h., never to be seen again. It would be 30 years before I acquired a cat of my own - oh, and that one buggered off after a while too.

Thanks for starting this thread: I had forgotten some of the above until you got me thinking. My apologies to anyone who wishes that I had not remembered them.

Edited February 14, 2010 by Athy

[Hairy-Neil]

Twizzle,

 

You're the only other person I've ever known to remember Twizzle. I was begining to think it was a pigment of my imagination.

[David Schweizer]

Horse drawn Milk floats and Coal Carts; Rag and Bone men; Gypsies selling split hazel pegs; Gas Street Lighting; 2 oz of Sweets Ration a week; Helping Mother wring the sheets out with a Mangle; Helping on father's allotment; Steam Trains; Trams and Trolley Buses; Sawdust on the floor in Sainsburys.

 

God, Don't I sound old?

Edited February 14, 2010 by David Schweizer

[Nightwatch]

You're the only other person I've ever known to remember Twizzle. I was begining to think it was a pigment of my imagination.

Ran a garage if i Remember correctly. Had a breakdown lorry with a jib. Stretchy arms to get him out of trouble.

 

My dad owned a couple garages when I was young and I used to play in the cars. especially the crashed ones. One of the garages was in an old mill in Chorley, still had the lifting arrangement through all the trap doors on all the floors. Can still smell the mustiness of the upper floors.

 

Being an ex Bobby he used to get all the calls from the police when there was a breakdown or an accident, didn't impress the other garage owners and they got together to arrange a roster of 'duty' garages. Spoil sports. Local monopolies commision I reckon. I still remember the telephone number of the garage Chorley 3805.

 

A little bit of my past.

 

martyn

 

PS. I remeber the 'pop' man with all the bottles of pop. every Friday. The veg man used to call as well. Rag and bone man.

Edited February 14, 2010 by Nightwatch1

[Mac of Cygnet]

Gas lighting in the house.

 

Outside toilet in the back yard, with an oil lamp in winter to stop it freezing.

 

Tin bath in front of the range (just!).

 

Being sent round to the Co-op cobblers to swap the accumulator for the wireless (a 6 year old boy with a glass jar of sulphuric acid!)

 

The local 'Store' (Co-op) where men in brown coats bagged sugar in blue bags for you, and the Check Number for the Divi (now in use as a PIN number - it'll be the last number left in my memory).

 

Mac

 

Edited to replace anachronistic 'radio'

Edited February 14, 2010 by Mac of Cygnet

[Byeckerslike]

I can recall MASSIVE amber sun, low slung in the sky, whilst I played in the back garden in the winter months, 'tis strange, but I never see that kind of sun anymore. I can recall the coalmans horse and cart, even a Co-op's horse and bread cart. The sight of the Bakelight factory chimney, viewed on the horizon from my bedroom window. The telegram boy on his bicycle, Velocette LE police motorbikes, the "magic eye on the valve radio, which was a tuning aid.

Being allowed to play out of doors all day long, with out my parents getting concerned. Playing in the Sarehole bog and derelict water-mill, where JRR Tolkien also played as a lad (and based much of middle earth on), The Birmingham university clock tower (one of the Two Towers). The drawbridge and adjacent off-license in Shirley, where me and my dad would cycle to, abandoned, sunk hulks. Spending whole days fishing at Earlswood Lakes, exploring the whole length of the river Cole, fishing for stickle-backs, tadpoles. Strange, there also seemed to be a lot more Blue bottle flies as well. Lulu, the alcoholic tart, my parents - they always seemed OLD to me! Out-side loos and the dreaded Izol rubbing down paper, laughingly sold as toilet paper. Cloth hankies (disgusting!), Sunday night bath nights, Sunday roasts and Mondays boring cold meat and left overs. Mom buying 3 2lb bags of sugar a week, for a family of 5! Liver and onions, butter melting in the summer - we didn't have a fridge.

 

Rob

[DHutch]

I remember this:

 

One of my earliest memories at the age of about 3, as well as visiting th boat and the northern mill engine soc before they moved (actually, im yet to go back, error!)

 

Also playing on old tractors and steam rollers in playgrounds and the one the field behind out house.

 

By dads old quad valve amplifiers, including melting a cassette against one to see what would happen (i got shouted at)

 

Sitting in the class room for wet breaks listening to the BBCmicro and 5/5inch floopy powered dot matrix printer printing away.

 

Getting our first computer, which was a big all in one mac, with a 16kbps dial up modem, when everyone used AOL.

 

Penny sweets, when they where a penny each, or two gummy bears for a penny, when they where smaller than post of the rest.

 

 

 

Daniel

[Hairy-Neil]

Mom buying 3 2lb bags of sugar a week, for a family of 5! Liver and onions, butter melting in the summer - we didn't have a fridge.

 

Rob

 

I suppose then you also remeber having your own teeth....

 

 

Penny sweets, when they where a penny each,

 

 

 

Daniel

 

I remember when they were four a penny, and that was in old money too, when there were 240 to the pound....

 

The newfangled stuff came in 39 years ago tomorrow....

[Hairy-Neil]

(Twizzle) Ran a garage if i Remember correctly. Had a breakdown lorry with a jib. Stretchy arms to get him out of trouble.

 

Don't remember the breakdown lorry, though there's mention of a 'garage man' here, so probably right.

 

Twizzle

 

 

 

This is all I can find on Youtube...

 

 

I recall him in this later full colour guise....

 

[casper ghost]

Penny sweets, when they where a penny each, or two gummy bears for a penny,

Daniel

 

Halfpenny mojos..

[County4x4]

Crikey - where to start?!

 

Dad's buses/trucks - he used to restore them and take us to rallies

 

Building N gauge model railways in the huge loft with Dad - all with American stuff he used to have his mates send over

 

Dad thumping away on his typewriter upstairs - he had a part time model company selling white metal kits and points control systems - Cornard Models for anyone into model railways. He now acts as secretary for the Narrow Gauge Society.

 

"driving" a model car round some huge concrete track at a holiday park somewhere - and thinking I actually had to steer it - the look of concentration on my face was priceless!

 

The test card transmission, and the white dot when you turned it off

 

Our first telly - complete with wooden roller shutter doors

 

Playing 45s and 78s on the record player mum had as a teenager

 

Being allowed to poke the fire at Grandma's

 

Being sent to Pete Fairbrothers the local butcher on a Saturday morning for 1/4 of potted meat amongst other things

 

Creating a (very productive!) vegetable patch in the garden from scratch on a Saturday afternoon while the rest of the family were out

 

Abseiling out of my bedroom window using the "classic" technique

 

Mum coming home to find me suspended on a rope tied round the chimney

 

Snogging Sally Howe from Bradford in a cotton tent in the garden

 

Digging extensive and highly dangerous underground dens up on "The Ollies"

 

Being scared of, and running away from "Billy Whizz" - local permanently red-faced (and probably entirely harmless) council worker who walked at about 20 miles per hour!

 

My sis and I both crying our eyes out whilst persuading mum that we should take in "Fluffy" - a scraggy stray kitten one of the teachers at infant school was trying to re-house. Fluffy was with us for about the next 14 years and was quite the most enormous ginger tom ever!

 

Loads more but making buns with the kids so must away!

 

Andy

[Water Woman]

The dansette record player, my mum opening the back door and our neighbour doing the same so that my mum could play 'Telstar' at full belt for our neighbour to enjoy. Anderton lift in its old guise, dead dogs always seeming to be floating in the canal, the 'times savings' clock, being allowed to stay up late to watch The Beatles on Sunday night at the London Palladium, all sitting down as a family to watch 'The Fugitive', listening to radio programmes at school and thinking it was the height of hi tec, the teacher coming round with a little collection box into which we put 'pennies for the black babies' - the collection box was a 'black baby' where we put money into the mouth (I think), the house being so cold in winter that every morning we would all huddle round the 'coal effect' electric fire which was near the 'two tone green trimphone'!!... I may have bored you enough now!

[pete harrison]

Nostalgia is a thing of the past and the other night we amused ourselves by recalling those long forgotten events/things of our childhood.

The Onion seller who called on a bike festooned with strings of onions selling door to door.

Horse drawn bakers carts, milk carts and the Rag and Bone man. The horse would walk upto the next stopping point unprompted.

Taking the washing to the "Bagwash"

Collecting old newspapers and bottles to sell, papers went by weight and bottle by quantity.

The advent of "walk along" milk floats ( we used to hang off the back)

Swimming in the open air pool in winter (Dad said it would make us tough)

 

What do you recall?

 

Phil

 

I have recently moved from Bristol to Stockton on Tees where we still have a rag and bone man, complete with his distinctive call. He has however traded in his horse and cart for a Ford Transit pickup !

 

I remember as a boy riding my bike around the motorway network that is now 'Spaghetti Junction' - obviously just prior to its opening !

 

I remember building 'dens' on our local Second World War bomb site (near the G.E.C. / Forgings & Pressworks factories, Witton, Birmingham) out of fly tipped chemical drums - this bomb site became a housing estate during the early 1970's and whilst the building was in progress we carried out nightime raids which included driving around the site in hand start dumper trucks and tipper lorries that had the keys left in (open sites with no security back then) - great days and we all lived to tell the tale.

[kitman]

Putting Iodine on bruises and Kaline&Morphine for a gypy tummy, oh and purple calpol!

[Blossom]

Of course if its nostalgia and old radio or television programs your after try these links

For 1950's Radio programs try :-

Radio Days

and for 1950's Television try:

TV