What do you remember?

[magnetman]

I remember the postman coming in a yellow van, I think it was a Commer cos the wheels were in a funny place.

 

and going out in a dinghy with a massive Seagull outboard on it

 

and a white BMW number plate BFS 808S.

[mayalld]

Petrol Pump Attendants

 

Back before elfin safeteee hsd got its claws well and truly into every part of life (early 1980s), my dad used to run a petrol station with attended service.

 

At the age of 11, I was pressed into service for a 2 hour stint on the pumps every Saturday to cover the gaps between shifts.

[Liam]

Sega Master System and Megadrive games consoles

 

Summers that used to be really warm and seem to last forever

 

Dog walking with my Dad on the fields where the Trafford Center is now

 

Going fishing with my dad on the Canal and cursing the passing boats (lol)

 

Button Moon, Green Claus, Spot the dog, Banana Man, Super Ted on the TV, with Little House on the Praire, Land of the Giants and Rawhide on TV on Sundays.

 

Sunday night baths ready for school the following morning

 

Playing all over the mini replica stone Castle in the local park, before the Council pulled it down before it fell down

 

Trips out on my Uncle's narrowboat when I was too scared to steer

 

And lots more that I can't think of at the moment

[Hairy-Neil]

Back before elfin safeteee hsd got its claws well and truly into every part of life (early 1980s),

 

I always thought the health & safety at work act to stem from 1974. It certainly affected my apprenticeship days with a public utility company, 75 - 78. I guess at that stage the private sector was just ignorant of it, or just doing its best to ignore the rules. That said, the law is still pretty lax where the business proprietor's own children are concerned.

[Mac of Cygnet]

Summers that used to be really warm and seem to last forever

 

I was in my forties then and can assure you that they weren't and didn't!

[Liam]

Well it seemed like it to me, don't ruin it!

[mayalld]

I always thought the health & safety at work act to stem from 1974. It certainly affected my apprenticeship days with a public utility company, 75 - 78. I guess at that stage the private sector was just ignorant of it, or just doing its best to ignore the rules. That said, the law is still pretty lax where the business proprietor's own children are concerned.

 

The laws date from the 1970s, but the implementation has been steadily brass plated over the years.

 

In 1980, an 11 year old could operate a petrol pump as a saturday job.

 

In 2010, nobody under the age of 16 is allowed to touch a petrol pump.

[Derek R.]

Tanner a week pocket money, seems it was pretty universal.

Our rag an'bone man used to hum. He'd stand on his cart at the reigns and start this long slow note dropping through the range - and the amazing thing was - you could hear him a block away!

Little green Morris vans with 'Post Office Telephones' on the side and a black radiator grill looking like a Fergy tractor - ladder on the roof.

 

Postman in a Yellow Commer? Must've pinched it of the Telephone lot. Front wheels tucked right underneath.

How about a black BMW - BGS221T Did some miles on that one.

 

News vendor outside Wood Green tube selling the Evening Standard and The Star with a "StaaaarEeestaandeeeeerd!"

- and the newspapers being thrown out in a big bundle from an open van door without stopping.

Wonderful warm draught of 'Underground' smelling air when a train pulled in down below.

Shifty looking blokes coming out of the shop with nothing to sell - 'Turf Accountant' it said over the door.

Dad bringing home the latest 'Matchbox' toy whenever one came out - good investment it turned out!

 

Seeds going through? - let'em - Dad's Rose's were crackers! Weeds? No problem - our 'garden' was a strip of earth two foot by six at the edge of a concrete yard. In a world of grey and brown anything green was welcomed.

 

Council building maintenance men pushing their two wheeled iron rimmed handcart around to the jobs.

'Job's' Dairies.

Lyons Individual fruit pies - and the Corner Shops.

Mum's Shepherd's Pies - and Condensed Milk on Strawberries!

Tinned fruit salad with Carnation.

Making Jelly! Boiling water on rubbery cubes.

Stuffing cotton wool into an Airfix Messerschmitt cockpit, soaking it in meths, setting light to it and launching it out the bedroom window . . .

. . . then bombing it with half a brick.

 

D.

Edited February 17, 2010 by Derek R.

[Hairy-Neil]

The laws date from the 1970s, but the implementation has been steadily brass plated over the years.

 

In 1980, an 11 year old could operate a petrol pump as a saturday job.

 

In 2010, nobody under the age of 16 is allowed to touch a petrol pump.

 

Are you absolutely certain that legislation includes the proprietor's offspring?

 

Except for family members, as mentioned in my last post, in the early 70s one had to be 14 to legally have a saturday job (or any job). I remember having to have a permit to do a paper delivery round.....

[Naughty Cal]

Sega Master System and Megadrive games consoles

 

Summers that used to be really warm and seem to last forever

 

With you there

[n.b.Goldie]

From my childhood in New Bradwell on the Grand Union I remember my friends and myself watching working boats (there were still some!) from the canal bridge in the village. The bend just before what is now the V6 (its a grid road) aqueduct was very shallow and we saw a few that needed poling off.

 

Our little 'gang' were fascinated by the boats and we always tried to attract the attention of the boaters. I am pretty certain we did not make a nuisance of ourselves, I still hope the boaters saw it that way.

 

In those days my family owned a grocer shop and small dairy (A.J. Durham & son) in the village high street and sometimes the boats would tie up to use the shop.

 

I guess it's where my love of the canals started.

 

I also remember my friend Robert Jolley and myself walking over the bridge on the handrail, I remember him falling off into the canal and not coming up, by the time I got help it was all over. The bridge and handrail are still there today and I say a few words when I cruise through it.

 

Did'nt put me off canals though!!

 

Regards

Ditchdabbler

[Hairy-Neil]

News vendor outside Wood Green tube selling the Evening Standard and The Star with a "StaaaarEeestaandeeeeerd!"

- and the newspapers being thrown out in a big bundle from an open van door without stopping.

 

 

 

D.

 

Slough had a saturday (london) Evening News vendor on 'The Eagle' pitch, though the Eagle PH was long gone, as was the pub at nearby 'Reindeer' stand. The agent would overprint the football results on the early edition in an office at the railway station. It was a weekly challenge to get the 'results' papers on sale in the high street by 5 pm. As I pedaled the heavy tradesmans bike away to the next stand (Rose & Crown, still extant, though the box was actually outside the 'Pied Horse') Fred would begin his chant.... Futaamfooball!

[Heffalump]

I'm still a child.

[Natalie Graham]

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

 

I saw one of those French onion sellers on the television a few weeks ago. I was amazed they still exist

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

 

Not where I grew up it didn't. There were new bungalows across the road from us with open plan gardens and driveways which were very rare in our mining village. The greengrocer's horse used to follow him up the drives when he went to the houses with his deliveries and then he had to get the horse and cart out of the front gardens. His horse would not go backwards with the cart so he had to unharness it and push the cart out himself. Oh yes, I remember the swearing too.

 

One of my favourite memories was the big black labrador that used to come to the corner shop every morning carrying a large old penny in his mouth to pay for his bar of Cadbury's chocolate. he came in the shop, dropped his penny on the counter and waited while the shopkeeper unwrapped the chocolate. Then he would take it, sit outside and eat it, and then go home again. He did it every morning.

 

Another one was the pikelet man who used to walk round the village with his wooden tray of pikelets and oatcakes. he had a big brass handbell and used to shout, "Pikleeeets" at the top of his voice. Later he bought himself an ice cream van and used to come round on summer evenings selling the most amazing ice cream that he made himself. He had no containers or cornets or anything to put it in. We just took out basins or whatever we had and he filled them to the top for the same price no matter what size they were.

 

Natalie.

[Laurie Booth]

My first day at boarding school

 

My first day:-

I was set down from my father's car at the age of fourteen; and there with a sense of bewilderment and terror my life at Quantock School began.

The summer grass, amongst which I stood, was taller than I was, and I wept. I had never been so close to grass before and so alone. The School towered above me and all around me, each turret tattooed with tiger-skins of sunlight. It was knife-edged, dark, and a wicked green, I was lost and didn't know where to move.

Never to be forgotten, that first long day of a Quantock summer.

Never to be forgotten, or ever tasted again ...

[Derek R.]

You were fourteen years old - or fourteen centimeters high?

 

Sorry.

[Athy]

Natalie, I am so pleased to see someone else refer to those Sunday teatime delicacies as "pikelets". Mrs. Athy, for some odd reason, thinks that they are called "crumpets". I think it's a North/ Sarf Divide thing.

[RLWP]

Natalie, I am so pleased to see someone else refer to those Sunday teatime delicacies as "pikelets". Mrs. Athy, for some odd reason, thinks that they are called "crumpets". I think it's a North/ Sarf Divide thing.

 

It's a bit more peculiar than that. I know them as Pikelets and I'm from Brum, but my wife knows them as Crumpets and she's from Kenilworth. So that's about 20 miles east (ish)

 

Richard

[soldthehouse]

Rufty tufty and the tufty club

 

Pikelets dont have yeast crumpets are lighter if thats the correct term having yeast and other ingredients

Edited February 17, 2010 by soldthehouse

[Laurie Booth]

You were fourteen years old - or fourteen centimeters high?

 

Sorry.

I was and still am very short. Sadly now to fat to operate a Dalek !!

Edited February 18, 2010 by Laurie.Booth

[mykaskin]

I was and still am very short. Sadly now to fat to operate a Dalek !!

 

They should make a Dalek for the bigger person - sounds like a business opportunity! :-)

 

Mike

(Dalek measurer)

[Laurie Booth]

They should make a Dalek for the bigger person - sounds like a business opportunity! :-)

 

Mike

(Dalek measurer)

[Athy]

Rufty tufty and the tufty club

 

Pikelets dont have yeast crumpets are lighter if thats the correct term having yeast and other ingredients

 

Nope. They are identical; they are just called different names in different parts of the realm. You must be thinking of drop scones - oh, and while we're at it, another great divide is that between the "scone", to rhyme with "on", people, and the "scone", to rhyme with "bone", brigade. I am of the former persuasion, Mrs. Athy of the latter. Communication at the tea-table is sometimes difficult.

[soldthehouse]

Nope. They are identical; they are just called different names in different parts of the realm. You must be thinking of drop scones - oh, and while we're at it, another great divide is that between the "scone", to rhyme with "on", people, and the "scone", to rhyme with "bone", brigade. I am of the former persuasion, Mrs. Athy of the latter. Communication at the tea-table is sometimes difficult.

The difference is in the translation Pikelet is a misused name for the more common crumpet. Crumpets are the more widely available commercial version and the recipes are definately different, but pedantic hat off my mother being brought up with "Staff" has pretentious tendencies, and too says scones as in bone, but she doesnt have her aspidistra anymore...thank the lord

Edited February 18, 2010 by soldthehouse

[magnetman]

I remember when Mars bars were 65 grams then they went down to 62.5 grams then there was a fanfare and advertising saying they were 'bigger' when they went back up to 65g and I just bought one a few moments ago for the first time in about 15 years and they are a disappointing 58 grams. and 45p!!!

 

its an outrage