Memories from way back

Mum used 'Mansion House' brand of red polish on the back doorstep I recall and 'Windowlene' on the windows. There was also a good stock of 'Kiwi' shoe polish in various colours with a strong and not particularly pleasent smell.

Dad used rather pongy 'Friar's Balsam' to counteract colds, and bunged up sinuses. He put a few drops into a small bowl of very hot water, towel over the head and sniffed and snorted the vapours until he found relief (or not).

Pencil shavings and the smell of wooden schooldesks can transport me back to childhood as does the smell of lilac bushes.

Brut aftershave. All the boys wore it in the seventies. Lavender furniture polish in a round tin. Mum seemed to polish furniture a lot! Germaline of course. Pipe tobacco. Our neighbour smoked a pipe and the lovely aroma drifted over our hedge.

I still use TCP for sore throats and for spots!

The smell of tomato plants and geraniums when you brushed past them in my french grandmother's greenhouse.

I was prone to ear infections and my father gave me a spoonful of gin to help me sleep. Now I hate the smell and can’t drink anything with gin in it.

Not a happy memory.
The smell of Box hedges in the sun take me back to being 8 years old at boarding school. Even now, many years later, in can reduce me to tears.

I had four children and particularly remember the smell of Cuticura talc. I just loved it.

I’ve just remembered - the smell of coal fire smoke. Took me right back - smelt it near a sister’s house in the Yorkshire Dales one December a few years ago.

Red diesel! (My first boyfriend was a tractor mechanic).
Also gin, but not for obvious reasons. Aged 15 I regularly babysit for a very glamorous couple who would have gin and tonics with their friends before leaving to go out for dinner - leaving the gin dregs in crystal glasses - which I would wash up (and sniff)

Freshly baked bread.
Camphor oil that I had to wear in a bag around my neck to keep away colds. I couldn't wait for it to evaporate, when I used to keep quiet about it, but mum soon found it.

Calamine lotion. I am very fair skinned and, despite my mother's best efforts with the (useless) suncream of the day and being made to put on a T shirt while we ate out picnic, a visit to the seaside nearly always ended with some painful sunburn and calamine lotion was applied to soothe it. Old fashioned bathroom/medicine cabinets in general had a distinctive smell, too.
When l was small, my grandparents owned a newsagents' shop. The mixture of confectionery and pipe tobacco is a very evocative smell.
Finally, an odour that is a rather less welcome memory - that of the public telephone box. The combination of stale cigarette smoke and urine is unforgettable and, thankfully, consigned to history.

That, or magnesium sulfate paste! Or kaolin paste, we had boils on our legs, I think it was the terrible school food, we came back from boarding school with them!

I still use TCP, nothing like it for sore throats. I also still use Germaline, but I can’t find the bright pink one anymore, now it’s white and doesn’t smell the same.

I used to collect red rose petals and seep them in water to make perfume. Roses just don’t seem to smell much anymore, and no, I haven’t lost my sense of smell!

TCP
Duraglit
Germoline
Freshly mown grass
4711 cologne
Tweed Parfum
Bonne Bell 10-0-6 astringent
Anne French cleansing milk

The last 4 are memories due to my Saturday job in Boots the Chemist. Lots of sniffing in the stockroom

I loved the smell of niva cream - not sure it smells the same now

The smell of wallflowers on a sunny day. I'm straight back there as a 5 year old.

Germolene is always available in PoundLand and also Savers.
cost about £1.50 for a small tube.

School ink did have an odd smell HelterSkelter but it was often made from animal bone charcoal.
When I was told that I disliked it even more.

biglouis

The smell which takes me back is that of malt. When we were kids my mother used to get huge jars of cod liver oil and malt from the clinic. After the war it was popular as a cheap dietary supplement for a generation of undernourished children who needed a high carbohydrate feed as well as more vitamins.

She made me and my sister take a huge spoonful each day. It was quite a ritual. My sister hated it and had to be persuaded and cajoled. I loved the taste and often sneaked an extra spoonful when my mother's back was truned. I believe this product has recently been re-launched.

Yes, I remember cod liver oil and malt, I quite liked it as well as those small bottles of thick orange juice. Mum used to take me to a clinic in town to get it

I hated Syrup of Figs, another staple to 'keep you regular'. I still dislike figs today.

There was still rationing for years after the war, no oranges or anything grown overseas in the shops for a while.
We had home-grown veg, eggs from the farm so were better off than many.

The word ointment conjures up a particular smell to me and it wasn't until I had my first DC that I recognised it as zinc and castor oil cream, useful when changing bsbies' nappies.

Germolene still available in tubes but is not so easy to find now fir some reason. It's the best antiseptic cream imo.

sodapopTCP for me too
did your mum ever put a bread poultice on you to draw out a boil by gum it was hot

I don't remember any smells in particular. Somehow my mother managed to do everything without lingering smells. Perhaps she just aired well. Both parents even smoked!

At a push I can recall the smell of hankies boiling in an old brown saucepan with soda crystals. And of course Germolene.

My mum used iodine on cuts and grazed knees. Ouch.
But so many memories on this thread. Has our sense of smell changed now or do things just not smell as strong, memorable or as unique? Or taste as good.
School ink anyone? Poured into little china ink wells on our desks which you covered with a little brass sliding lid. The ink had a bitter smell. And the classroom smell with all the wooden desks

The mention of beer shampoo has reminded me of my shampoo in the 60s. The container was a little orange coloured plastic barrel about the size of a jif lemon . It was called Linco beer.

never had Germolene but mum used lots of Dettol lovely fresh smell.
we had egg and lemon shampoo dont seem to make it anymore later on beer shampoo in sachets.
the glorious smells from the kitchen of mum baking making jams and bottling fruit and veg

Baggs

I use Germolene (pink) all the time on my very frequent garden-induced scratches.

My father-in-law swore by Savlon.

I love Germolene too. Nothing like it.