The weird and wonderful things our parents told us

With all this combined information now, courtesy of a convent education, we could put the advice to better use.

Instead of feeling guilty about causing men to have immoral thoughts maybe we could give them a whack of Grannyipad’s telephone directory instead of sitting on it! ?

If you drop a glove you are going to have a disappointment. Itchy nose? A disappointment. Itchy hand? You are going to come into money. Drop a knife? Bad news if you pick it up. Fall up the stairs? You’re going to a wedding. I Could go on! I’m from Liverpool, very superstitious people in the old days.

Alternatively, if you drop a glove, it's bad luck to pick it up yourself.

Alternatively, if you drop a glove, it's bad luck to pick it up yourself.

But you could wait ages for someone else to come along!

I was told that if your right hand itched you were going to come into money, left hand and you were going to be paying out.

Of course if you dropped a left hand glove in the cold and that sparked off itchy chilblains while you were waiting for someone to come along and pick it up, that would work, as you’d have to buy some Snowfire. And maybe some new gloves if you gave up and went home without one.

I think the current situation is driving me doolally.

If you sat on the doorstep you would get piles! Piles of what I said, if you tell lies your nose would grow, my grandad used to say eat those sprouts they will put hairs on ya chest! I could understand if he told one of the boys but not me lol

A pimple on the tongue meant you'd been lying.

I believed that one, too.

Not to eat cucumber and milk at the same meal time, they would poison me. Not to wash my hair when I had a period. Not to bath after a meal. Never to swallow chewing gum it would get stuck inside you.

Always go to the toilet before leaving the house.

There are many starving children who would want to have what is on your plate, so eat it and stop grumbling. (If you don't, no pudding tonight)

I'll give you a thick ear.

Never go to bed with your hair wet.

Men never look at the fireplace when they're poking the fire.

I was always told that you mustn’t do the washing (laundry) on New Year’s Day, as you would wash a member of the family away. I’ve always followed this religiously, as the consequences of trying it out to disprove it might be too awful.
If you drop a glove you mustn’t pick it up yourself, but if you pick up a glove that someone else dropped you will get good luck.

Maggiemaybe you made me laugh out loud!
My aunt made my brother and me sit for 20 mins sucking a barley sugar sweet to help our digestion after a meal- those were the longest 20 mins ever when we were desperate to go and play outside!

Round here if you drop a glove, not only should you not pick it up yourself, you shouldn't thank the person who picks it up for you. It's very difficult for those who have been brought up to be polite!

MissAdventure I thought it was men never look at the clock when they are poking the fire lol ?

If you forgot what you were talking about, it must have been a fib.
If you were not keen on a meal “What do you think this is, the Ritz?”
You are going out looking like the wreck of the Hesperus, or Hesprit, as my mother pronounced it.

Two spoons on the saucer means a proposal of some sort.

Just googled nhs webpage re chilblains. Advice is don’t put hands or feet on a radiator or under hot water to warm them up..

I guess some of the old advice was a kind of trial and error which bore out in later ears.

Country people could cure whooping cough by taking the child to breathe in the smell of cows in the byre but city fowk had to take their children to the gasworks as the fumes from the gasometer would ease whooping cough.

Always have a penny handy to give to the person who picked up your dropped glove.

Never wear purple and black together. I once got into terrible trouble for combining those 2 colours of crepe paper for a window display - it foretells death.

Kiss a black man and it will bring good luck (I wonder what the black man thought?) [smile)

Never do washing on Sunday (or do it in secret and dry it inside)

Women with pierced ears were 'no better than they should be'.
My father was furious when I spent my birthday money on having my ears pierced, at 18 - and both ears became infected almost to pay me back for disobeying him

Crossed knives on a plate mean someone will quarrel.

Always keep a sixpence in your purse in case your suspenders snap.
This piece of advice stood me in good stead on several occasions.

To keep up your stockings (it was unheard of to go without stockings unless you were at the beach on holiday) you turned over the stocking top with the 6d inside, then twisted the coin to tighten the nylon. When it was so tight it almost cut off the circulation to your leg, you folded it over to keep it in place. It did the trick until you got home.

Shaving your legs makes it grow back twice as thick.
If it did, my sister would now look like an Afghan hound.

Drinking a glass of water whilst holding it upside down (and your head with it) stops hiccups. Likewise putting a key down someone's back or giving them a shock.

I'm sure our parents didn't really believe half the nonsense they told us.

This thread has really brought back memories and made me laugh. I too always crushed egg shells for fear of witches using them to sink boats. Now that I have kept hens I wonder if it is because people give the shells back to them to eat but you have to crush them so the hens don’t know what they are and start eating their eggs. My DH was told by his mother that if he ate jelly cubes straight from the pack they would swell in his tummy and explode!! With four boys I can imagine why she needed that one!

My grandparents in rural Ireland always disposed of eggshells on the open fire where they cooked rather than outside on the compost heap.

When I asked the reason I was told the fox would eat them. Then that would give the fox a taste for the hens and would return and eat them as well!

MissAdventure

Men never look at the fireplace when they're poking the fire.

Hand on heart, I truly didn't know that was a sexual innuendo until I read something about in The Sunday Times when I must have been in my mid 20's. I've led a sheltered life.

I was told to eat my crusts to make my straight hair curly. Almost 73 and full of crusts and my hair is still as straight as a yard of pump water.

Not had time to read all these, but my best one was 'Sex Education' at school, which consisted of one of the oldest teachers a Mrs Whiteman telling us:

"Girls, soon things will change and when it does you will need a 'Bunny'"

That was it!!

My father told us that in the olden days everything was black and white. He also insisted he could fly. We very nearly believed him. He also reckoned if you sniffed a lot your nose would get bigger.