The weird and wonderful things our parents told us

Although we chuckle now, I can see that Winters were generally harsher years ago and people didn't have central heating. It may have been wise to be careful about going out straight after a bath because you were possibly quite chilled.

I know cold weather itself doesn't cause colds but I suppose being generally damp or having wet hair in the cold isn't exactly good for you.

I remember asking my dad how the liquid got inside the coconuts, he said " see those small shaped rings, well thats where monkeys drill a hole and then they wee in the coconuts and put the ring plug back.
He once sent me to the ironmongers to but some 'elbow grease'!

Re dandelions and bedwetting..... it’s true that they are a diuretic. The French name for a dandelion is pissenlit - literally ‘wet the bed’.

It was bad for my liver if I sat with my back too near the fire when drying my long hair.

The one about open pores too.

When my father was asked where he was going when he put on his coat his answer always was " I'm going to see a man about a dog". We used to believe him and sort of lived in hope! Never happened.

That's quite charmingly old fashioned..

MissA when i was 17 i was asked by a very elderly, old fashioned solicitor ( ah, theres a chance for a saucy comment) if i minded typing the word 'poked' in a legal document.
I had no clue there was a connotation other than in relation to a fire or giving someone a dig in the ribs, so I said ok.

If i was misbehaving Siberia was the place i was threatened with.

My mother was brought up in rural Southern Ireland. She used to tell us that she saw a Banshee combing her hair in a field and when she disappeared, my mother found her comb. She said that if you saw a Banshee, it meant that someone close to you would die. We took it all in!

I think my parents must have been unusually sensible, because I was never told any of these things unless it was to say how funny and foolish they were.

My mother did consider that certain shoe styles were vulgar (she didn’t use the word ‘common’ in that sense). Open toes and/or ankle straps are what I remember.

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.

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!!

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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!

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.

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