What do you remember?

[Kez]

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

 

I still use purple calpol...

 

Bigger spoon of course

[Byeckerslike]

I can clearly recall bloody boring Friday night is music night, Sing Something Simple with the dreaded Cliff Adams singers, Sunday two o'clock radio, the Clithero Kid and The Navy Lark. The awful Black and White minstrel show, Bloody Billy Cotton, Hughie Green's Double Your Money, Michael Miles Take your Pick, my god! was I abused as a child?

 

The very un-PC school money box for African orphans referred to above, it was a cast iron caricature of a negro boys head, a coin was placed on his upturned palm and I cannot recall what actuated the mechanism which raised the boys hand to his open mouth, where the coin was swallowed (I seem to re-call an ear being twisted?).

 

Toasting bread on an open coal fire, using a toasting fork. My grandad shuffling up to a nearby pub carryout with a four pint crock jug, returning with froth cascading down the sides.

The awesome sight and sound of steam locomotives, pulling away from New Street and Snow Hill Stations. The awful pea-souper fogs caused by all the soot belching coal fires.

The warm smell of the paraffin lamp in the out-side loo, placed strategically to prevent a frozen toilet, which could have cracked on defrosting.....

[LEO]

Hi,

 

First memory for me, dozens of silver objects darting about in a pond - these I later discovered were small silver fish in the side pond on the Marsworth flight, opposite the White Lion - I guess it was about 1950.

 

My brother's early memories include the boats headlight beams on the canal at Stoke Hammond about 1948.

 

Leo.

[journeyperson]

The awesome sight and sound of steam locomotives, pulling away from New Street and Snow Hill Stations.

 

You've reminded me that in bed at night I could hear the sound of steam engines shunting in sidings somewhere, carried on the wind, rising and fading.

 

I have a clear memory of lying in bed at a house we only lived in for a while in 1951 and hearing a plane droning slowly across the sky and thinking it was a German bomber. I could only have been three or four and what I knew about the war could only have come from overheard grown-up conversations.

[Water Woman]

Byeckerslike, yes that was exactly it! The ear was twisted I think. Wow it is all coming back now. I remember Sing Something Simple and the Clitheroe Kid too. I think I may be a bit younger than you but that is based more on hope than fact!! I can still remember dads first car, a Ford Prefect with reg number 399 AKF. Can I remember my boat number or my current car reg? Not a bit of it. I could go on and on .....

[cariad]

Byeckerslike, yes that was exactly it! The ear was twisted I think. Wow it is all coming back now. I remember Sing Something Simple and the Clitheroe Kid too. I think I may be a bit younger than you but that is based more on hope than fact!! I can still remember dads first car, a Ford Prefect with reg number 399 AKF. Can I remember my boat number or my current car reg? Not a bit of it. I could go on and on .....

the cane, warm school milk,4 black jacks for an old penny 1/4d . gas lighting, farmers collecting pig swill, b.s.a. bantams,

triumphs with rigid suspension, malt and orange juice rations, called teachers sir or miss, policemen officers, head lice ,brown paper and iron ,ringworm and blue, boils,shiny toilet paper,hank the cowboy,cisco kid,korky the circus boy,champion the wonder horse, andy pandy having off withh loopy loo,bill and ben having exciting times with weed,still got my own teeth,hair,joints ( for the moment) but lost my sanity.

[Barry]

My earliest memories are of Nazareth House in Oxford - a convent home home for children in care. Walking to St Joseph's nursery school in a crocodile, in pairs, holding hands, tinies at the front.

 

We used to eat our tea quick to get outside to play on the pedal tractor with tipping trailer - the older girls used to clip your ear if you weren't asleep in the dormitory when they did their rounds

 

Cathy O'Donnel showing me hers because I showed her mine - we were 6... alright!! - and the thrashing I got from the nuns when they found out

 

The snow in the winter of 63 when I lived on the Wood Farm estate in Oxford with my mother and brother

 

My stepfather's Ford Anglia 105E which was yellow and blue as I recall - that was followed by his Bedford Dormobile the registration was YAM 124

 

Walking through the woods at the back of the estate with the coupons to get the concentrated orange juice which I think was the last of the rationing

 

Wearing a liberty bodice

 

Holidays in the Lake District and Cornwall (Trebarwith Strand) in the Dormobile

[Derek R.]

Being pushed in a big pram on a rainy day with the tonneau and hood up seeing faces pass and shops gable ends.

Working out how to undo the cot catches (last week)

Mum throwing her ration book in the cupboard and saying: "thank heaven they're done with".

Paraffin lamp in the outside lav to stop it freezing - and drawing in the frost on the inside of bedroom windows.

Two blankets and two eiderdowns and still cold.

A two bar electric fire but only one ever on and an icy draught at your back.

The Gas meter in the cupboard under the stairs - shilling in the slot.

The coalman's horse and cart and him and his mate with full hundredweight sacks on their backs - and ducking to get under the front door lintel, through two rooms to tip in the back yard bunker.

Getting a short ride in a Humber Super Snipe from Mr Vanlent who lived opposite, as he was a Cheauffeur!

Rent man on a Friday with book and bag, Rat-a-tat from his helper working four doors ahead.

Background sounds of clinking trucks being shunted in the goods yard.

Smog, and Dad with damp handkerchief over his face like a cowboy 'baddie' disappearing into it after two paces, and Mum rolling up damp newspaper and stuffing it into the sash window frames to keep it out the house.

A 'trolley' made out of push-chair wheels and a plank of wood.

Roller skates with metal wheels, and falling off a big bike repeatedly because I could barely reach the pedals (we climbed on a wall to get on, and the others would push).

Saturday morning flicks, and three pennorth of chips on the way home from school swimming.

The Hooter from Barratt's sweet factory.

Gresley's Pacifics roaring through Wood Green station hauling the 'Elizabethan'.

Nan's two sticks, smell of lavender water, two Cuckoo Clocks, and a leaded range in the back room. Her 'lean-to' smelling of Geraniums.

Me screaming fit to bust at having to go to school and dragged all the way.

My first bike!

Being told I didn't have to go to school today (great!) then being told I was going to the hospital instead to have my tonsils out - and being prised off the stair carpet for the journey there.

Playing with Jeniffer Beale who live next door. (Purely innocent I assure you!)

Trolleybuses, and the dustcart hauled by horse, which got unhitched in the road opposite and the men sat on a hessian sack on the fifth wheel for a ride back to the depot. Then later on a Scammel Scarab 'mechanical horse' running back into the cart to haul it away.

Air raid shelters smelling of piss, but we still played in them.

Teachers - the Cane, and the Slipper. Prefects - no running, no taking two steps at a time on the stairs. Cloak rooms, and thick porcelain sinks.

The all wooden 'Games' pavillion and the changing rooms upstairs. Football in the pouring rain (I hated football in any weather).

Mum's Co-op divi number - 338323.

Barton's department store, with overhead wires along which metal canisters whizzed with money to the cashier.

Butcher's with sawdust on the floor - Woolworths floor with 'Silver Sand' on the boards.

Sailing my boat on Broomfield Park pond.

Taken to work with Dad at the Zoo and staying all day - getting to go behind the door marked 'PRIVATE' and sitting in a big chair with a comic, watching people file past and pay to get in, and the sound of the turnstiles clankety-clicking.

Taking a 'local' from Wood Green station with my mate Keith to Kings Cross to cop numbers, and laying in the luggage rack through Gas Works tunnel (it seemed a good idea).

Getting an eyefull of cinders from looking out the carriage window. Me and Keith bussing to Southall and walking up the main drive of AEC's and seeing RM610 being drive out (saw it forty years later as RM2610 on service in Regent St.)

Holidays by train to a rented caravan at Thorpe Bay. Tar sticking to my feet from the beach. Getting stuck in esturial mud. Southend Pier trains, and the smell of the Gas works.

Wearing black patent leather shoes with big shiny buckles as page boy to my older sisters wedding - yuck! But getting to ride in a Daimler limo, and tasting Tomato juice for the first time at the reception - yummie!

Baths, in the one that hung from a nail on the garden wall, and set up in front of the kitchen fire (the 'one-bar' electric), with hot water from the 'Ascot'.

Interminable shopping with Mum - no fridge.

Loading Dad's Box Brownie with a roll of film, and ages later getting tiny little B&W prints back from the Chemist.

 

And much more - some of it I'd like to forget! I look at kids today, and wonder what they will remember. Though I dare say our Grand parents thought the same about us. Mine were children in Victoria's day - horses everywhere, trams were the latest innovation, holidays one day a year with a penn'orth of boiling water for a picnic on a beach.

 

Derek Reynolds.

[Christine]

My Mums Co-op Divi number was 90295 and she bought my first pair of proper jeans with the Divi money.

 

Dad de-coking his Lambretta LDB (reg: BP 5750) in the kitchen and my Mum going bonkers when he kick started it to go in the kitchen

 

Driving to Berlin across East Germany in 1958 (I was 7) - me sitting on the back of his Lambretta and my Mum on her Lambretta (MAP 285) We had to drive in convoy with other cars going up to Check Point Charlie accompanied by the British Army of the Rhine driving in Land Rovers in the outside lane of the Autobahn, all very scared that we would be stopped by the 'Russians'.

 

Being given little goods from shop keepers when we were shopping in West Germany and people shaking my Father's hand saying 'You British Tommy? My father said Jawohl - his German wasn't good enough to explain that he had spent his war years testing Radar at Loch Lommond.

 

Making little wool dolls from red white & blue wool on Empire Day to pin on our navy wool Gym Slips.

 

A day trip from Brighton Palace Pier to Eastbourne Pier on the paddle steamer 'Glen Gower'

[Chagall]

collecting the gollys off the jam jars for a resin golly--- ....or a badge if you couldn't wait to collect enough!

[romarni123]

Ice on the windows in our back to back and sharing the toilets with the neighbours, and having to help my gran turn the mangle and getting my fingers caught in it. And woodbine ciggs my aunt smoked and snuff my gran sniffed all the time.We lived by All saints a mental hospital and we would go and play in the grounds with the patients.The house next to my aunts was the undertakers and we would spend ages looking at the bodies through the basement window while he worked on them.

[Athy]

Nobody has mentioned penny loaves yet. They were the same shape as normal loaves but of course much smaller. We used to buy them as an alternative to sweets - not as tasty but about half the price, and they helped fill you up until teatime.

Walking along the footpath behind the bakery in Gleadless and inhaling deeply to savour the smell of the bread baking.

[Guest wanted]

Ahhh, people don't reminisce like they used too!

[Ray T]

Getting too old for this - what was the question, I can't remember!

[zenataomm]

Half past four on a Sunday afternoon and starting to feel jippy about school next day.

[rubblequeen]

Slightly opposite to OP cos I can't remember what was in the cough mixture I was sent to the chemist for. 1d of liquorice, 1 of other things. Think there might have been some now controlled substance in there also. Can anyone remember, as been trying to find out for ages.

 

I remember loving it an would have asneky swig - even without a cough.

 

In fact I do remember chilblains oooh

[Jim]

Rain. (I was born and brought up in Wales)

Being kept in at playtime when it was raining.

School dinners - especially mashed swede and over done cabbage. (but hey!, we had fish and chips every other Friday)

Pens with real ink

Open back buses with conductors (They had them in London until recently, but everywhere else got rid of them years ago)

Petrol Pump Attendants

My father complaining that he had to park further and further out of town on a Saturday morning as car ownership grew.

Fascinating car journeys between south wales and Sheffield where you passed right through the middle of towns due to the absence of motorways or by-passes. (My father refused to use the Derby by-pass as "it was too far round")

Gobstoppers, "Lucky Bags" and full-size Wagon Wheels.

The Valiant (a boys' comic)

LSD (money, that is)

Radio Luxembourg (the one with adverts! and Horace Bachelor from K E Y N S H A M)

 

I wonder what today's kids will remember in 40 years' time?

[Derek R.]

Half past four on a Sunday afternoon and starting to feel jippy about school next day.

 

Ah! It was 'Sunday Night at the London Palladium' that set my Monday morning school stomach churning!!

 

Yes - Horace Bachelor "spelt . . . "(etc.) - and "The Wo-o-o-rld Tomorrow - with Herbert J. Armstrong bringing you 'The Plain Truth' magazine"! Suffering that was sometimes better than silence until 7.30pm. Listening in on a tiny Perdio transistor under the bedclothes - Dad: - "Have you got that radio off yet? And don't forget to switch that light out!"

 

D.

[kitman]

Half past four on a Sunday afternoon and starting to feel jippy about school next day.

Jeez I used to hate that ! We would watch Jeeves and Wooster on Sunday evening with Mum and Dad, and then have to go to bed. It was like Jeeves and Wooster was the last bit of freedom before school on Monday morning. There was a feeling of impending doom when the end credits played. How tragic

[Mac of Cygnet]

Jeez I used to hate that ! We would watch Jeeves and Wooster on Sunday evening with Mum and Dad, and then have to go to bed. It was like Jeeves and Wooster was the last bit of freedom before school on Monday morning. There was a feeling of impending doom when the end credits played. How tragic

 

Yes, how tragic. How old were you? If you'd have been in one of my classes I hope you wouldn't have felt like that. A second -hand report from a former pupil (via a mate who had taken up with her) was "Oh yes, he wasn't one of the b*st*rds". The highest praise I have ever had,

 

Mac

[Sue1946]

Going with my mum to ?re-new? our ration books. It was a huge old house in Surbiton, with a monkey puzzle tree in the grounds. Being in hospital for a piles operation and such strict visiting hours that I hardly knew my parents when I got out.

Listening to 'Journey to the Moon' on radio, the Goons, Round the Horn etc. If I was still awake when I heard the opening theme of 'Friday Night is Music night' then I knew I was in trouble if I went to the loo! (Was this the start of my insomnia??)

Skipping a piano lesson one Saturday morning and spending the fee on Saturday Morning Pictures, buying salted peanuts and then discovering I had to walk 3 miles home as I had spent the bus fare too! Arrived home in floods of tears, vowing never to eat peanuts ever again, mum being so cross, then years later she said she had no idea how to keep a straight face as I admitted to this naughtiness! She kinda guessed as the piano teacher had rung to ask where I was!

Winter of '63, got to school EVERY day.

[jake_crew]

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.

KAL 554 is not on the current DVLA list as a Hillman, tho' it might have been transferred, so the car might still exist.

 

My mums Co-op number was 480, so can't use that as a PIN. But the Mirror dinghy my Dad built in the dining room had a 4 digit mnumber which I DO use as a PIN.

 

Three gallons for £1 (ie 6/8 a gallon) - the first fuel I bought for my BSA Bantam at 16.

 

By the way, a rag and bone man came down our street last Saturday.

[Tiny]

Christmas when the man from the dairy (not ours which was the co-op - remember mums number 955430) got so many drinks from customers inside him he collapse into a hedge leaving the float in the road. No-one touched it and a man from the dairy collected it and carried on - leaving his mate in the hedge. (He was back on the round after Christmas - no drunk drivers then.)

 

The other bloke that facinated was the rag and bone man on his horse and cart. It was his call which sounded like 'Muletraind rainInerlumbo' I never figured out the exact words. My dad was more interested (as a brush and pan artist) in what the horse produced - ideal for the roses.

 

TV was muffin the mule, Andy Pandy (not the smart arsed modern one), Bill and Ben with a weed that went weed and a little house that asked, 'Was it Bill or was it Ben?' (It was always Bill!) Then there were the trade test transmissions of the woodturner and building masts like Holme Moss (One wonders now how they got the cameras of those days up the mast!) The real programmes started at 5pm with kids TV. At 6 the BBC closed down (blank sceen) until 7pm when the adulkts got their three hours. Everyone, including us and the neighbours, came in to see this - all sat round in the dark starting at the box. At the end of programmes they announced that 'BBC Television is closing down, Good night.' We all stood as they played the national anthem and then the picture blanked leaving you staring at a diminishing white dot until you lost interest.

 

That lot was back in 1951. We even got a colour screen for the TV - it stuck on the front of the set with three bannds of couloured glass making the picture three colours of black and white. It was all a much simpler world them - the screen only lasted two nights then the assembled mass voted to get rid of it.

 

O, and I got 6d pocket money a week - and a bar of Cadbury's milk chocolate to eat while watching TV. (Dad had 2 quarts of beer - Lovibonds delivered to the house weekly. Later he had to quit as he nearly died of ? (which turned his black hair to white overnight) at 50. He was saved by some new 'under test' drug and was tee total for the rest of his days. The ward he was in averaged two or three deaths per day from 20 beds - all of middle aged fit looking men who would be doing my homework one night and not the next. (I sent it in as mum said the whole ward really got annimated doing it. It had to be done in the one hours visiting allowed and they neglected their wives to do it! I got fantastic marks for it - and was last in the exams but if it helped. That was 1958 and I was 12.)

 

Nostalgia.

[Hairy-Neil]

Petrol Pump Attendants

 

There is still one in Billinghay, Lincolnshire, (Twells) Rare to find a village garage at all these days.

 

 

My dad was more interested (as a brush and pan artist) in what the horse produced - ideal for the roses.

 

That all depends on what the horse has been fed on. Many weed seeds can pass through the horse unharmed and germinate in your borders.

Edited February 17, 2010 by Hairy-Neil

[RLWP]

That all depends on what the horse has been fed on. Many weed seeds can pass through the horse unharmed and germinate in your borders.

 

Humans too. Plenty of tomato plants at sewage works.

 

Richard