Good riddance! Things you don't see anymore, thank heavens!

feetlebaum I didn't find it at all amusing. I felt extremely upset and uncomfortable. Some children (and some adults) giggle when they feel acute discomfort so I'd like to think that was what was happening in your class but perhaps I'm being too generous.

@eloethan - That brought back memories of Junior School... One master, known as 'Eggy' because of his bald head, was the plimsoll-wielder. What really hurt was the fact that some of the girls, who were immune from such punishments, would find it all very amusing.

I remember when I was 8 or 9, we had a male teacher who was on reflection 'a little strange'. For some reason he had me pretending to be a mermaid, sitting on a rock, brushing my long auburn hair, which had been plaited!
It made me feel uncomfortable, but I didn't know why.

I definitely agree with that one vampirequeen. Watching a very red faced male teacher getting little boys to bend down in front of the class where he then whacked them really hard on the bottom with his plimsoll is an awful memory I have of school. He did it fairly regularly even though it was often the same little boys so it obviously didn't work.

When I was about 6 I turned the wrong way in country dancing and the teacher - I remember her so well to this day - hit me round the face for being "naughty". My mum went up to the school and there was no recurrence but these days that teacher would be suspended.

Corporal punishment at school. I still remember the humiliation of the 'light' spanking I got because I'd added my sums up as htu rather that £sd. I was told I was careless. I was 7 at the time.

Well I am gutted that I was offered sanitary towels that were developmentally twenty years out of date. thanks for that mum. how to traumatise a teen The stick on ones were bad enough, like bricks.

My parents were late adopters of central heating so also remember freezing bedrooms.

My aunt had a house where the only loo was outside. They were there for a while before the lady next door died and they were able to buy it and extend their tiny cottage to include an inside bathroom. I remember going past the nettles to get to the loo, annoyed that we had to go past the first toilet door to get to the second, thus passing more nettles.

"stresses" even.

I recognise so many of these things. The STs and their disposal seems to feature in worst memories of most of us.
The icy cold rooms with no central heating etc, Chilblains frost insde out hose windows.
We were a tough lot when we were young, putting up with all this although we had little choice. Just remembering many of these thing make me shudder. This thread should be shown to today's young women.

I suspect the majority of us on here were born post war and did not have to experience the stressess of the war.
Our parents lived through the 1930s economic crises and the stress of the war years. For them the post war years we have been "complaining about" must have seemed very positive times to them. They saw the introduction of all the positive changes of the welfare state which most certainly benefitted our generation.
Perhaps the generations since then have rather taken all this for granted.

I remember my little brother and his friends playing 'Doctors' and appearing in front of my mother and her afternoon tea guests with sanitary towels looped around their ears as medical masks. It was very hard to keep a straight face!

Great memories - thank you all

We had to have IZAL toilet paper, because my stepsister, and my auntie, both worked there, so it came cheap, sometimes free, through them.
I was glad to see the back of our 10p in the slot TV, it always ran out in the middle of something good, if we`d forgotten to ply it with coins earlier. One good thing about it, excess money when it was emptied came back to us as vouchers for Oxendales catalogue, got a few new clothes for our 2 oldest children from that.

Such an interesting thread, bringing back many memories. The once-a-week bath thing, too. Doesn't seem possible now. Parents, mainly mothers, telling you, " Because I say so".

Scratchy woollen blankets!

I see I have should have read all previous as my whinges were the same.

No time I should be off to the delights of my food shopping not sitting here posting.

Sanitary towels which hung off the loops of those awful belts. Alternative pads did come in in the mid 60s, as well as tampons, but thank God for the discovery of those tacky glues and close fitting pants which made modern protection so much more civilised. (I am past it all now.)

Hand knitted loopy bonnets. My grandma knitted them for us and I hated mine.

Oh yes, the snow and the buses and trying to get into work. Sometime in the 60s I struggled into work (in high heels) through snow. I had to catch two buses and arrived about 15 minutes late. The boss had the nerve to tell me off for being late.

In the late 50s mum insisted that I had to wear Liberty Bodices to school. I was about 13 and hated them. As soon as I arrived in school I hurried to the "bogs" as we called them, took the bodice off and kept it in my satchel. Put it back on at home time. The first thing I bought with my wages was a set of black nylon underwear from Marks.

Chilblains - and I remember scratchy Bronco toilet paper, as well as Izal.

What a great thread, have enjoyed reading all the posts, yes, so many memories and things I had forgotton.The cold seems to have played a big part, and periods and sanitary towels and suspenders and lisle stockings, they were yukky.Ditto the Izal toilet paper.I do remember having painful hands in Winter as a child, red and chilblains.The freezing cold and snow waiting for buses that never turned up.Or worse, they arrived but you couldn't get on, the queue was too long.

How reminiscent is this thread!! Brought back so many memories. I can still smell that Aladdin paraffin heater in the kitchen on winter mornings while I ate my porridge before going to school, having dressed in my freezing bedroom with ice patterns on the inside of the window,

And ...... oh dear ....... Izal toilet paper in school during periods . not a happy combination! Sorry folks!

Nylon sheets have already been mentioned but, combined with a bri-nylon nightie, I used to slip into bed and cause a small firework display. Wonder I didn't set the bed alight with all that static electricity. Also, sitting in front of the fire, my legs were blotchy, my face burning and my back like ice, and the thought of leaving to room to go to the freezing cold loo, with the freezing cold seat - I learnt good bladder control.

Pens that needed ink- dip and scratch or fountain it didn't matter. They blotted and leaked and made messes on my paper and in my bag. Biros still do it occasionally but nothing like as often.
Rags in my hair and home perms. My mother wanted me to have curls, so rags at night when I was 3 and my first home perm when I was 12-nightmare!

Wow janerowena that's a list with which i agree. It reminds us that progress has indeed been made. Physical abuse in schools was abhorrent and frightening. I was never hit at school, or at home, but witnessing assaults scared me. No, it didn't influence my behaviour

Boys getting the cane, girls getting the ruler.

Breaking the ice off the outside loos at school before being able to use them.

Everything being shut on Sundays. You couldn't even visit someone in our local hospital. Not only that, if you were a child your parents weren't always allowed to visit in case it upset you.

Girls not being allowed to wear trousers to school in cold winters. I got caught in a hailstorm once and my legs were raw afterwards.

Shoes that leaked.

Women in hairnets over rollers. The end result usually looked just as bad so as a child I used to wonder 'Why?'.

Adults who used to think that you should just accept their rulings without having to explain the reasoning behind them.

When I found some STs and asked what they were, I was told they were "Mummy's cotton wool" - so I was none the wiser!

When I first started my periods my Mum insisted on me leaving the used towels in the bathroom so she could "check them"!! This did not last thank goodness. I am not sure what she was looking for!