Remembering life in the 60s as a child...

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AussieGran59

Yammy, you mentioned gammon. My friend served this when we stayed with her in Cornwall. Loved it but can’t seem to get it in Australia. Nicest meat I ever tasted. I miss so many foods only available in the UK.

It was a cut of ham, my cousin lives in Melbourne I'll ask her what she uses because she still cooks a lot of English dishes. They cooked it in a large joint seemed to take all day and then stuck cloves in it. We still have it at Christmas or New year in England. The rum butter is a speciality of where I grew up made just with sugar, butter and a lot of Navy rum. Our ports traded with the Caribbean so they used a lot of spices.

I remember my brother, sister and I setting off on our bikes for adventures in the woods and cycling home in time for dinner. Dad had a little black car and after my birthday parties would cram all my friends in to drive them home. Seatbelts? What were they? Mum always bought me school skirts which were too long and said I’d grow into them. I never did so scrunched up the waistband so the skirt hung unevenly. If we were thirsty we were offered water. If hungry, bread and butter. Mum made the best cakes (she had trained as a baker) but shop bought fresh cream cakes were a treat. We used to run outside and look at the sky if we heard a plane going over. My best friend’s dad had three jobs so he could save up for a house. It took until my friend had left school. Girls of my acquaintance didn’t often wear shorts or trousers. Does anyone else remember having to wear a liberty bodice? I lost a brand new shoe playing in a hay barn and my parents were devastated. Mum used to make my sister and I matching dresses in different colours. I think she got the patterns from a women’s magazine. It was a treat to have a shop bought dress like my friend whose dad had three jobs.

ginny

My main memory was our freedom to roam.

Mine too. Especially the summer holidays. Both parents worked so we were at Nana's every day. She trusted us not to do anything stupid,
Even got on a bus to roam further.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

I remember the poppit beads from the late 60s (I was born in 1965) also socks with garters and a knitted hood that buttoned under my chin and itched like nobodies business.
Brushed nylon dresses for Sundays that my mother made, hair in rags at night to make it curly, we later transitioned to foam curlers which were much more uncomfortable. Quite why my poker straight hair had to be curled every night I don't know but I never queried it.

My sunday school hat had narrow elastic which went under my chin to keep the hat on, and after wearing it for 2 hours I had a read mark from ear to ear for the rest of the day that looked as though I'd had my throat slit.

I had a school kilt that had a cotton bodice attached ( like a woven cotton vest) with a long length of bodice inside the kilt below the waist and each year as I got taller the bodice was let down so that the kilt still fitted me.

Ice lollies from the local shop that had ice crystals like big grains of sugar welded to them,that gave you blisters on your tongue.

But most of all was going out the back garden gate and playing in the forest all day every day we wanted to until our parents called us in at dinner time. If you didn't hear
your own parents someone else would hear theirs and we would all traipse out of the trees at the same time, filthy, often wet where we had fallen in to a pond, stinking of mouldy vegetation, sometimes of bonfire smoke if anyone had stolen matches from their house, covered in scratches, and very happy and carefree indeed.

Ohh, remember lots of these I haven't thought of in years! Oh yes those horrid elastic garters. Also remember the Manfred Mann song and poppit beads. Tinned salmon (mashed up with vinegar) and tinned peaches were treats. Also playing a game which involved jumping up and down steps and shouting out the names of the Beatles???

Ooh yes.
We had the tinned salmon, all mashed up in sandwiches, with cucumber, sometimes for our tea at the weekend.

I remember having knitted school jumpers made by my nan, which I hated. Also always having Clark's sandals with a diamond cut out pattern in the summer and some horrible black lace up shoes in the winter. Could have been Tough Go Girls or something like that. The worst however was the Burberry waterproof coat which was always bought too big and I was told that I would "grow into it". I also hated having my sister's cast offs.

Ladyleftfieldlover yes I too had a Liberty bodice, someone else reminded me of that in a different thread a few days ago. Mine had broad suspenders, three on each side, so that I could clip my long thick winter stockings on to the bottom. There were always horrible cold draughty gaps at the top of the stockings and the only way to cover these was to wear long legged knickers with elastic around the legs which went over the stocking tops. There were no tights early on although I think I did get ( thick) tights when I went to secondary school.

AussieGran59

Thanks, Yammy. I live in Sydney but if she gets it, or something similar in Melbourne then I should be able to get it here.
Another childhood memory springs to mind: wool blankets on the bed with satin edging. Cold winter nights, wind howling, snuggling under my blanket. Love the smell of a wool blanket even today. Cosy!

She still uses an old Delia Smith Recipe book her mother took with them when they emigrated.
I did have a cousin in Sidney but she moved up to Brisbane and sadly died or I could have asked her, her husband will not have a clue.
I remember the wool blankets with the satin edging and the ones that were like string vests with lots of holes. Oh and the quilted counterpanes.

I lived in London but visited relatives in the Welsh countryside. At my auntie's we slept in a big double feather bed. It felt very strange as had no bounce at all. We had one of those Victorian jugs of water and a bowl to wash. At my uncle's little farm there was an outside earth toilet. I couldn't believe it, because we had a flush toilet in London. It was a hole in a piece of wood and then daylight on the other side. I was only about six years old when I had to use that.

Just to add, that was the 1950s not the 1960s.

Delia Smith started writing in the 70s so I expect your cousin, Yammy must have emigrated then (or later).

A gammon joint is sold raw AussieGran59 but cured like bacon so you can almost certainly buy the same thing there..

Here it's smoked or unsmoked.
It comes from the hind legs.
I've just googled this and found a photo but apparently it's cured on the bone and because of "modern" curing methods can now be de-boned before cooking...

I'm a vegetarian now but a cooked piece of gammon used to be called a gammon ham in my home and had a bone in the middle. Sometimes we'd have gammon steaks - presumably from the cuts next to bacon judging by how they looked/tasted?? I expect others here will know more about this as it's years since I cooked/ate one!

Chestnut - some of my Welsh relatives also had an earth closet and no running water in the house - though they had a tap in the yard.

My parent's friends had a home in Wales too and they had a flush toilet into a cess pit but gas lamps. SO exciting when we went to stay there!

We moved from the inner city to an estate on farm land on the outskirts of the city. Surrounded by farms it was a fantastic childhood in that respect our dad and mum both worked hard and they did their best for us.
My mum seemed to cook everything in the pressure cooker. We never got chippy food everything we ate a lot of which was offal was home cooked. My dad grew his own vegetables and I loved helping him that’s were I get the homegrown bug from.
I remember mum buying frozen rissoles and faggots it was a rare treat. Eating yoghurt for the first time I loved it straight away and tinned fruit and evaporated milk such edible pleasures to me aged about ten.
When our dad was on strike we stayed for school dinners as mum was given coupons for it. School dinners were passed around the table by teachers served up from army mess tins. I loved the school dinners the variety was great and we got a dessert everyday. Life seemed so simple then and uncomplicated.

Late 50s/early 60s. I remember loose butter being patted into shape by the shopkeeper. Bacon slicers, buying loose crisps which were taken from a big tub.
I remember the Co-Op Divi. I bet you remember your mums' divi numbers. I know I do.
Plastic sandals also come to mind.

Lots of good memories there! I remember holidays with Gran and milk bottles kept in a bucket of water at back door and a 'meat safe' hanging up on wall. We had to fetch block of icecream from shop and carry home in special polystyrene box then it was put in the cellar to keep cool til needed for meal. Oh and a special shopping bag lined with newspaper that was for fetching the lovely fish 'n chips... from the further away establishment that had a long Q out the door so great anticipation. Yes a fridge arrived in the late 60's but no freezer and run on gas which I found strange!

Collecting yellow and black caterpillars. Climbing high into trees then spitting onto ladies on their way to the church on Saturday nights confessions! Always wanting to be a 'strewer' in queen of the may at school , never was, too ugly! Letting down a dumped cream jag's tyres then police visiting asking about it as it had been used in a bank robbery in Manchester city!! I thought I was off to prison!!! Penny arrow bars/ tics/cherry lips/ spud guns/ caps!!!/ Spending all Saturday roaming around bombsite fields called " the rec looking for grasshoppers! I loved summer then

We moved to Derbyshire in 1964 from Manchester and what a culture shock! But we had brand new build with latest stuff ALL new and yes a gascold fridge!?!

My grandma who was a Westmoreland born made rum butter! Exactly same recipe! Yummy but I think it started my unhealthy relationship with booze.....

I am very grateful I grew up in the 1960s. I don't remember the summer of love, but I did grow up with its influence. Everyone is equal. Black is beautiful. 2nd wave feminism. So much of my personality was built on that.

I remember this advert vividly. (Strictly speaking, it's 1970s, but the sentiment...)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib-Qiyklq-Q

Chestnut very much the same lived in London but was shipped off to my grandparents in Cardiff during school holidays love it.
I remember the Cape she had made for me in Caerphilly and being fed so much food cause she said I looked thin but it was the batch loaf still warm from the bakers with welsh butter on it and milk I loved. Black patient shoes for best and playing on the allotments at the back of our house
Such good memories ?