half loaf

There was a sort of code for the bags things were sold in .From what I remember when I worked in Walter Wilsons as a school leaver it was blue for sugar, purple for currants and a yellowy colour for sultanas

We had a 'posh' second cousin whose hand-me-downs came to us, but as I was taller then her, they always went to my sister, who hated the fair isle cardigans and kilts, summer gingham dresses and winter pinafores. Years later, we learned that the hand-me-downs were already handed down from the local Lady Whatsit who resided in a nearby hall - my great uncle worked for her and lived in a tied cottage, so she would visit for charity purposes and dispense alms and children's clothes. To this day, I wonder why they pretended the clothes were bought by my great aunt.

There was a gentleman who came round with a suitcase full of remnants with which my mum made dresses for us. She was a dab hand at smocking.We had two older girl cousins whose pre-war hand-me-downs were a godsend for a family of three girls.

My mum unravelled jumpers and knitted new things....she washed the wool and I was taught to wind it off the skein and into a ball...many balls.
Also we made rugs from old wool, each working one end in the winter evenings. (Boring though!)

I was a child in the days of clothes rationing, which ended in 1949. You couldn't buy cloth off the roll either.
My winter coat in 1946 was made from Dad's services overcoat (navy).
And when I went to grammar school I had a check dress made from a heavy cotton mattress cover - horrible, I think I refused to wear it more than once.

I used to sneakly cut the buttons off my liberty bodice and use them as erasers at school. My mother could not work out why the buttons kept disappearing!

As I remember, the only winter outer clothes I had were my school uniform mac and, occasionally, a school uniform coat. There are family wedding photos with my 2 sisters and I, all wearing our school uniform coats/macs over what was probably our only nice dress. I do not think there was anything exceptional about this. I could be fiercely difficult if my mother tried to dress me in anything I didn't like (as the eldest of three girls, I considered a lot of my clothes were too young for me) and I never batted an eyelid at wearing school outer wear outside school.

Ah liberty bodices there was an oxymoron. Rubber buttons, and suspenders to hold up the thick brown stockings and I do mean thick. The bodices seemed to have a million taped seams, took hours to dry but I can't remember them being uncomfortable.
Also school macintoshes, could not call them macs, that came with hems already turned up so the next year arms and bottoms could be turned down. Kids would not be seen dead in anything like it today.
My mum all her life wore, under her clothes, a vest, a bra, a corset and a petticoat. They were well corseted ladies in those days.

Hunt - I used to shop for Mum at a young age too, but older than 4.
She usually wanted eggs, and they didn't often get home without a few cracked or broken.
Another thing she used was white vinegar for her hair. I took a bottle to the chemist to be filled - dropped it once, it broke and people were scared it was acid I must have looked like the child acid bath murderer!

I had a Saturday job at my autie's hardwear shop and had to fill the paraffin cans of Esso blue for customers' Aladdin heaters. It was 2/5 a gallon. We also sold loose nails and screws, etc. if you need only two nails that's what you got - not a full packet. I also worked at a haberdashery shop - I loved all the new boxes of nylons. They came in half sizes - I think 9 was the most popular.

I started going for Mum's shopping when I was 4. The things I always hated getting were liver (from the butcher) and lettuce ( from the greengrocer). I always seemed to be given the scraggly bits of liver and a droopy lettuce and mum always blamed ME! her co op divi number was 333962. I liked it because you could say it in so many ways-treble three, double three three etc.

Comic? 'Sunny Stories'. A warm Liberty Bodice, straight out of the 'New World' gas oven. The 'Express Dairy' shop. Collecting car numbers, holding my collar if a funeral went past and 'Royal Scot' biscuits. All some of the 50's memories.

Or jeely piece for my play piece during the interval at school.

A piece(of bread)and dripping or a piecewith butter and sugar mmmmm

I've had some malt extract on buttered crumpet for tea! To hell with diets

My mums Cop divi number was 1648. Yes NHS orange juice was wonderful and a desert spoon of malt extract wonderful. Another treat was condensed milk sandwiches.

I can still remember Mums Co-op divi number 74509 in fact I still have the little black book. If I had been particularly helpful through the Summer holidays I was allowed to collect the divi and keep it for myself.

Ugh, I hated that malt extract! Loved pikelets toasted in front of the red fire, on a toasting fork.

galen I can just eat malt extract on a spoon out of the jar. Why waste it on bread. I love it.

I've just bought malt extract, lovely on hot buttered toast.

I loved the orange juice and the cod liver oil and the malt. As for the horse dung, it was my Grandma who would rush out and collect that!

If any milk went sour, which in summer with no fridge it did, my mother and grandmother would strain it through a muslin cloth to make cottage cheese.

I too remember a spoonful of malt extract each day. I used to choose the spoon and always got the biggest one I could find. What about rose-hip syrup and picking the rose-hips. We used to take them to school on Mondays and get paid for them. I was also a "rose-hip monitor" and had the job of collecting them from each class, weighing them and calculating how much they were worth- big responsibility!!

As well as orange juice, we were given cod liver oil and malt, I loved it!
I seem to remember being sent to buy eggs, which were given in a paper bag and falling over on the way home.Mam was not pleased!
Our Co-op sounds just like yours, inishowen as does the bacon order.

And my Nan's! My nan used to keep her checks, which were yellow, perforated and ripped out of a book with carbon paper in between the sheets, on a bill hook so she could check whether her divi was right and, if it wasn't she'd take them all to the office and tell them.

I bet we can all remember our mum's Co-op divi number. I know I can!

Watching the man in the Co-op cut a piece of cheese from the block with a cheese wire. It was lovingly wrapped in greaseproof paper. Then mum would ask for "6 slices of back bacon, cut thin". He would do this on the bacon slicer. You paid at a little kiosk as it wasn't the done thing for the server to touch money. In another shop we'd buy a sachet of Halo shampoo for our once a week hair wash!