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

I had knee socks which needed an elastic garter to keep them up. Mum made the garters but often they were too right and I had welts on my legs. Another thing was my neighbour used to take me to the library along with her kids. They took books home but I wasn't a member so I only looked at books in the library. I had no idea I could join!

I had a lovely childhood growing up in the country, where the school holidays were spent roaming the fields and woods til dusk, coming home filthy ! I went to a small village school . the school dinners were scrumptious, you could smell them cooking all down the village street. Then came the 11 plus, and a big all-girls school which I hated, couldn't wait to leave.
I also had my first big crush on a boy, he was 20, and I was only 15, very unsuitable ! I took ages to get over him, my feelings were not reciprocated, but I still wonder if it could have been true love.
Quite a few things I remember were not so great, the houses were freezing, yes we had a outside toilet until the council laid main drains.
I also loved those popper beads, and still have Mum's button box .

Vest and pants, then liberty bodice, then full length underskirt!

We wore liberty bodices with rubber buttons.

didn't anyone have socks with inbuilt elastic in the 60s ? that's all i ever saw.
ditto above, although a bit older i too had never heard of a liberty bodice, sounds horrid, and like a contradiction in terms. why not wear a vest?
everyone's experience is their own, of course.

I was born in 1962, but very few of the things that most of you remember feature in my own memories of that decade.

I never had garters to keep my socks up, had never even heard of a liberty bodice until I joined Gransnet, and don't even remember poppit beads.

I do, however, remember my grandma's big tin of buttons, and her candlestick beadspreads. If I stayed the night there, the big double bed (that my mum had shared with her sister while growing up) always had to be well aired in winter before I could use it.

I remember Daleks- my big brother received a battery operated one for Christmas one year, along with meccano. I remember being given soap on a rope most Christmasses as one of my gifts.
I read Jack and Jill, then Sandy and Diana, while my brother had Look and Learn plus various other comics at different times.

We all played out. The local woods and streams were our playground in the summer.

My favourite toy of the sixties was my roller skates, the sort that were adjustable in size and were worn over shoes.

Sundays often meant a run out in the car, with me squashed between my grandparents on the back seat. I always hated it. I've never liked car journeys.

Born in South Africa, in a small town where everyone knew everyone else. We were free to go in and out of the house, no locked doors then. Played with kids in the neighbourhood, at the sailing club, or spent school holidays at the seaside. Hated wearing my school choes and socks in my free time. Always had to wear a skirt or a dress. Got my first pair of trousers when I was 13. Surrounded by mountains that were often capped with snow in the winter, we had a lovely carefree childhood. Birthday parties were plain and simple, one cake and some cold drinks in the bottles. Lots of games, pots and pans, treasure hunt, open gates. No little "take home gifts", but everyone had a lovely time.

mrsgreenfingers56

My sisters and I rushing to stick mum's green shield stamps in her book after shopping. We got so excited to see if a book was nearly filled!

Does anyone remember as we got older in our teens those plastic type long socks that you wore with shoes on so they looked like a pair of white/black boots?

yes my friend had a pair of those - sock boots i think we called them. my lgs were too short. i think they were fashionable again a few years ago.

My sisters and I rushing to stick mum's green shield stamps in her book after shopping. We got so excited to see if a book was nearly filled!

Does anyone remember as we got older in our teens those plastic type long socks that you wore with shoes on so they looked like a pair of white/black boots?

I had forgotten about garters. They really were the devil's work. They had to be tight enough to dig into your legs or your socks fell down.

I remember balaclava helmets being popular winter wear at infant and junior school, for both boys and girls. They kept your ears warm but were quite unflattering. Presumably that was why nobody wore them at high school.

My elastic garters were carefully hand-stitched together at the open end of the elastic by my great-aunt, who must have made dozens of them for us during our childhood, as they were never allowed to become too tight as we grew, or too slack when the elastic stretched.

Mine were stitched with blue embroidery thread, my sister's with green so we could instantly see whose garters were which.

My bugbear were my grandmothers' production of hand-knitted pure wool vests - to be worn next to the skin with a bought cotton vest on top. We itched and scratched all winter, but didn't dare reverse the order the vests were put on in.

I was frankly envious of the flowered, frilled and beribboned Sunday hats other girls had. My mother could not see one without muttering "ridiculous" under her breath. In her view any old hat or head-scarf would do, on weekdays or on Sundays.

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 ?

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

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

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.

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

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!?!

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

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!

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.

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.

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!

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!

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

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.

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.