I cannot believe I used to…………

I used to go to the Barrowland dance hall in Glasgow at the time Bible John was going around attacking young women in the same area. Scary.

Dillythe Gardener ?. If only! More like a baby elephant in a tutu. The ballet and Paris were unconnected.

Yes Elderlyperson the lime was barrel shaped and the strawberry was heartshaped with dots to look like strawberry pips.

Dryginger

Elderlyperson I remember those chocolate bars I loved the lime one. Loved my Mary Quant make up box and my Biba make up.
Looķing at photos of my mum and dads the wall paper was beige with big orange circles every thing was beige and brown in the 70s.

Since you mentioned the lime one I think I remember that one was shaped like half of a barrel sliced vertically and filled with green liquid and one needed to be careful else it would spill. Almost as if it were a chocolate barrel floating in a chocolate sea with one half submerged, except that there was nothing below, like those garden ornaments that one can place on a lawn so it looks like an algae covered pond with a hippopotamus in it with just the hippo's head above the surface of the water!

Used Lemonade to "set"my hair in rollers, then back combed it as high as possible.

Used asprins to keep up my stockings when I'd lost the button on the suspender belts.

Worked in Woolworths on Saturdays and had to do all the adding up in my head.

Became a really fast typist on a manual typewriter.

Marmight were you a Parisian ballet dancer by any chance? How glamorous.

Perm my hair, bat wing dresses, jazzacise, my meringue wedding dress the list goes on...

Lilyflower

Used to be so poor as a teenager I had one set of underwear and had to wash it in the basin and dry the items on the tank overnight to wear in the morning. I also attended more schools than there are school years. We moved a lot.

Ah, Lilyflower drying your underwear (and tights) on the tank! That brought back memories. I'd forgotten all about that.

Elderlyperson I remember those chocolate bars I loved the lime one. Loved my Mary Quant make up box and my Biba make up.
Looķing at photos of my mum and dads the wall paper was beige with big orange circles every thing was beige and brown in the 70s.

I used to wear fully fashioned stockings and the suspenders would press into my leg. Most uncomfortable.

Used to be so poor as a teenager I had one set of underwear and had to wash it in the basin and dry the items on the tank overnight to wear in the morning. I also attended more schools than there are school years. We moved a lot.

I think I’ve done all the above except that I washed my hair with lemons instead of using it on my face. I am tall and was never size 10 as an adult, but I did weigh 3st less than I do now!

Dance en pointe. Now I’m 4 sizes bigger and can’t stand on one foot without falling over

Plaster my face with Mary Quant panstick & pale pink lipstick

Travel ‘home’ on the last Paris Metro, alone, at 3am , followed by dubious characters. Now I don’t even like to walk through my village in the dark

Sleep under sheets & blankets so tight that I could hardly move. Floppy duvet with plenty of movement now!

Wore a belt thingy that held a sanitary pad in place.......

Walking long way to bus stop from home, catching two buses, then long walk to meet boyfriend who was sat in his car! and he drove me home later. Madness! Wore black poncho over blue leather hotpants and I made a brown fur handbag - people on bus thought it was a cat

grandtanteJE65

I can happily believe that I wore most of these things:

skirts so short that I had to squat rather than bend down,

green mascara and eye shadow, never wore blue being brown-eyed.

3 inch high heels

platform soles

clogs in the summer of 1973 when they were all the rage

a pillar box red skirt and waistcoat ( I have never worn red since)

Travelled alone from Glasgow to Esbjerg in the west of Jutland aged 16 - my first journey anywhere alone with no idea where I was going to spend the night after the audition at the Academy of Music I was attending. Found somehere respectable and cheap to stay and next day took the train to Hamburg to visit a school-friend who happened to be studying there.

Made my way from the main station to her address in the suburbs alone and without a city plan of Hamburg - a place I had never been to before, but I did speak fairly creditable German. Understood the subtext to the question "Are you Swedish" and just said "No, I am not" repressively as Scandinavian girls had a reputation in Germany then for being easy to get into bed!

Come to think of it, I never told my mother about that incident!

I feel furious that young people are being brought up to believe that the world is a dangerous place these days. Our parents tried to do that too, but at least we had the sense to go out and see for ourselves and found the world far less scary than they said it was.

I do know there are different dangers today, but facing them is part of maturing from teenager to adult in any day or age.

There were rapists and murrderers when we were young too, but we had been taught to defend ourselves. I clearly remember kicking a man where it hurt most, screaming and then running like hell in high heels!

I don't think they are. Thousands of teenagers go backpacking in their gap year.

My wedding dress was a size 8 my hair was dark brown and I used to roll the top of my skirts up to just below my knickers omg

If I got a hole in black tights I used to colour it in with a felt tip pen. Unfortunately as the day progressed the tights would move and the hole would need colouring in again. At the end of the day my legs would be a mass of felt-tipped dots!

Clear nail varnish if you got a run in your stockings or tights, it stopped it going further.

They then stuck to your leg.

Fishnet stockings in the 50s. - they didn’t ladder on old furniture desks in the office where I worked.

Elderly Person I loved your reminiscences about sweets. Why don’t you start a thread - I’ve a few old favourites to mention.

On this topic - I and friends rolled the waistbands of school skirts over (several times!) as there was a very strict rule about how many inches above your knees your skirt hem could be when kneeling and a visit to the headmistress for some minor transgression was not an enjoyable experience.. I don’t remember the number of inches permitted but it certainly wasn’t many! So unroll before entering school grounds then roll over again on leaving, hoping not to be spotted by one of the very strict ancient teachers!

Did anyone else clomp around in Dr Scholl Exercise Sandals in the 60's? What was that about? I broke up with a boyfriend when he wound down the window of his sports car and told me off for trying to run in them. I can see his point now. I must have looked and sounded like a bolting carthorse.

I love these threads.

Wear pants with a special tummy slimming section even though I was 5' 6" weighed 8 st 2lbs, and thought I was fat. Oh for those days again!

I used to make my own sets of 'baby doll' dresses and matching knickerbockers. The dresses probably reached my hips, just. And the knickerbockers would be all puffy with elasticated legs and a little ruffle. I would go out in these, worn with a pair of white tights and black clumpy shoes tied in a huge ribbon. God I cringe now to think what I must have looked like, haha.

And yes, I sellotaped my fringe, slept in plastic spiky rollers, slapped on olive oil for sunbathing (if in my back garden the dog would come out and lick it off ).

Platform shoes - I remember one particular pair of sandals that were quite literally built on wooden blocks which were about 3" high. And I wore these when heavily pregnant. How I never fell off them and twisted an ankle heaven only knows.

When I shared a flat with 3 other girls in London, we used to have all night parties, then wake up in the morning, tidy our hair and make-up, put work clothes on and go to work. I don't know how we did it. (And oh yes, I remember well coming back to the flat in the evening with all the party mess from the night before to clear up ?)