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Arts & crafts

What the younger generation missed! Do we?

(176 Posts)
Poppyjo Tue 28-Mar-23 03:35:41

With the fast pace of technology what common place items of yesteryear would the younger generation probably not know of which were common place on our lives?

For me it would be:-

Bellows,
Blue bag,
Beef press
Liberty bodice
Izal toilet paper.

Mollygo Tue 28-Mar-23 10:13:57

What a fun thread. Nobody’s saying we want these things back, just remembering what used to be the ‘in’ thing.
Eggs in isinglass, 4 a penny black jacks or fruit salads, roller skates with straps,
6d (2.5 pence) being a lot of pocket money.
3d coins with thrift flowers -so useful for 3x table I had a collection for fun in teaching.
1 coin = 3 flowers, 9 coins =27 flowers.
How did we all know what a wren looked like?

FannyCornforth Tue 28-Mar-23 10:27:44

NanaDana

Great cowboy film that, with James Stewart, John Wayne and Lee Marvin.. "The Man who shot Liberty Bodice"..

Ha ha! Brilliant! I’m going to nick that! grin

I thought that the blue bag was for whitening whites, but did not know about the stings and icing!
Thanks smile

Grammaretto Tue 28-Mar-23 10:30:33

Absolutely Violetsky! I watched 4 people of all ages get on my bus yesterday and all were looking at their phones including me

I miss: milk delivery in glass bottles.
Really fresh bread from the local baker.
Fish and chips from newspaper.
Newspapers delivered daily.
Comics delivered weekly.
Fresh fruit from the garden that may be possible again

Don't miss; Days before washing machines, mobile phones, TV, fridges, instant hot water, computers, internet/Google. Periods grin

MawtheMerrier Tue 28-Mar-23 10:38:52

I feel I am in a time warp
Brought up in the 50’s in Scotland - no horse drawn milk floats, no eggs in isinglass, - we had a washing machine and a fridge - basic, but still. Lemonade van what was that? Never wore a liberty bodice, certainly did not make my own STs.
Perhaps others are (even) older than me (75) but many of these memories sound like my parents’ youth, not mine!

ZoltenPepa Tue 28-Mar-23 10:42:59

things they didn't miss and we endured

Chest Freezers of the 70's full of Iceland frozen food

things they did miss and we didn't!

Living in a world with a vibrant high street with a variety of shops inc butcher, greengrocer baker chemist etc

Roads having a single marker down the middle. Now we have marked out cycle lanes narrowing the roads and traffic calming and low traffic neighbourhoods plus roads you can't drive down at certain times with incurring massive fines

The revolution of new music with 1st punk, then dance and the fashion changes that happened with the music, everything is a rehash now.

The birth of IT in the workplace and home, the excitement of pushing technological boundaries

I could go on and on

FannyCornforth Tue 28-Mar-23 10:47:14

Maw we had the lemonade man in the 70s Black Country.
It was Corona I think.
He had ‘It’s the Pop Mon!’ (sic) emblazoned on his van.

hulahoop Tue 28-Mar-23 10:50:43

Outside toilet
Newspaper instead of toilet paper
Being able to see a Dr same day(would like this back)
Tin bath in front of coal fire.
Sanitary towels with belt.

NotSpaghetti Tue 28-Mar-23 10:53:11

I'm beginning to feel a bit like M0nica now!

Each period lost something of the age gone by.
I know/remember all these things (except the beef press and Lemonade crystals) but I think the things we like we have pretty much kept and updated and things that no longer "work" have been rooted out/left behind.

I remember holidaying in a house with gas lights for example. They had been common place presumably in my parents youth - they were exciting to me as a child who was brought up with electricity- but would I want it now? No. (Ha ha - unless for a holiday maybe!)

biglouis Tue 28-Mar-23 10:56:56

Cod liver oil and malt (I loved it sister hated it)

Rusks (flat biscuit type things dissolved in milk)

TCP - a white mixture you put on cuts and grazes

The "rag and bone man" who came around (Liverpool) with his horse crying "Any ole rags-a-bowens. Any ole boots-a-shoees?"

Picking up horse manure in the street for the fire.

Grammaretto Tue 28-Mar-23 10:58:58

I forgot the postman delivering twice a day!!
Now it's once a week.

Callistemon21 Tue 28-Mar-23 11:01:55

FannyCornforth

Oh, hang on, I’ve just remembered what a blue bag is for (I think!)

Yes, my Mum used a blue bag

She used it in the dolly tub! With a wooden dolly peg.

The Corona man delivering pop
Beer at home means Davenports
Making ginger beer from a ginger beer plant
Newskin, the most painful thing invented for cuts!
Soft green soap

Having your feet X-rayed in a Clark's shoe shop 😲

Visgir1 Tue 28-Mar-23 11:02:26

Picture club at the local Cinema.. Saturday mornings and Wednesday afternoon on School holidays.
Think it was 6d to get in?

Callistemon21 Tue 28-Mar-23 11:04:55

Stiff petticoats
Oh yes, Skydancer, we used to put them in the bath in sugar water to make them stiff 😁

White gloves

biglouis Tue 28-Mar-23 11:07:13

Oh god Id forgotten about ginger beer plamts!

Digging a path through the snow to the outside loo in winter

Making sure there were no spiders in there otherwise my sister would pee herself rather than go in

Navy blue bloomers for PT in school

Having to be "excused showers" because it was your period

nanna8 Tue 28-Mar-23 11:19:13

When we went to Scotland everyone in the pub had ‘ chasers’- alternate glasses of beer and whisky. I’m curious, do they still do that ? Very strong stuff.

Witzend Tue 28-Mar-23 11:23:04

What is/was a beef press?

Not just Izal, there was Bronco, too. I can still (almost) smell one or the other.

Our milkman still came with a horse in the early 50s. Dds were practically hysterical with laughter when I first told them this!

Doodledog Tue 28-Mar-23 11:27:38

Those rubber things that fitted over bath taps in lieu of a shower. One side or the other always came off, and you got scalded or frozen depending on which it was grin

Caramme Tue 28-Mar-23 11:27:43

MawtheMerrier

I feel I am in a time warp
Brought up in the 50’s in Scotland - no horse drawn milk floats, no eggs in isinglass, - we had a washing machine and a fridge - basic, but still. Lemonade van what was that? Never wore a liberty bodice, certainly did not make my own STs.
Perhaps others are (even) older than me (75) but many of these memories sound like my parents’ youth, not mine!

MawtheMerrier. There were horse drawn milk and coal deliveries in Dunfermline when we moved there in ‘64. Some of the things I recall - the mangle / rubber buttons were from my grandparents’ home and were never part of my life. Nevertheless, I remember them and they were still in use when I was young.
And surely this is just all a bit of lighthearted fun? Are the things you mention invalid just because you don’t recall them?

Grandma70s Tue 28-Mar-23 11:29:55

Sweet coupons, argued over with my brother.

My liberty bodices had suspenders, but they weren’t used.

Bronco loo paper, ugh.

Dick Barton on the wireless. More my brother’s taste than mine.

Gramophone needles in a little tin.

Grandma70s Tue 28-Mar-23 11:35:33

Also Horlicks tablets, which weren’t rationed like sweets, because were considered nutritious. I think Ovaltine tablets were the same.

Callistemon21 Tue 28-Mar-23 11:38:20

FannyCornforth

Maw we had the lemonade man in the 70s Black Country.
It was Corona I think.
He had ‘It’s the Pop Mon!’ (sic) emblazoned on his van.

Perhaps Corona was a Midlands thing?

Dandelion and Burdock, Cherryade
I couldn't drink them now

Yammy Tue 28-Mar-23 11:42:29

Clothes maidens that we called horses, as a newly married I caused hysteria in N/C trying to buy one,
Preserved cow's or bull's heads inside or outside Butcher's shops. Imagine the horror today. I can remember draggy DD2 out of a shop when she insisted the head was a horse and would not be pacified,
Men bringing full coal sacks home on old bicycles they had illegally been at night on the pit tips.
The lovely glow in the sky when the blast furnaces blew at the Steelworks.
Dogs around every corner. Just let out to roam all day. In DH village they put the family name on the end of the dog's name. Dogs had names from famous people, Elvis Rocky, Dylan or the eternal Rex.
I also think a lot of old words have gone to , you very rarely hear mam these days. We knock the light out instead of switch. The GC think granddad has a stick.smile

FannyCornforth Tue 28-Mar-23 11:43:05

South Wales, apparently, Calli, in the 1880s. Interestingly, it coincided with the growing Temperance movement in Wales at the time.

(I don’t remember any growing Temperance in the environs of Dudley in the 1970s!)

Yammy Tue 28-Mar-23 13:03:14

FannyCornforth

South Wales, apparently, Calli, in the 1880s. Interestingly, it coincided with the growing Temperance movement in Wales at the time.

(I don’t remember any growing Temperance in the environs of Dudley in the 1970s!)

When we cleared out MIL's house we found loads of old certificates,she had inherited her mil's house. What caused the most hilarity was a certificate signed by my FIL to join the Temperance society[sign the pledge] at the Wesleyan Chapel, the man who couldn't eat Sunday lunch without first being to the pub.

Grammaretto Tue 28-Mar-23 13:15:44

I do remember lots of children at my primary school had no inside loo at home and no spare shoes. We played all indoor games barefoot.

Round NHS glasses were not seen as attractive.

I travel by bus all the time but when I was a child my mum advised wearing a headscarf or hat to avoid headlice.

At home we darned our socks and sweaters and repaired rips and hems.